Sixteen-year-old Song Liena is just one of the many peasants in the empire until the discovery of her unexpected magic upends her world. She's ripped from her family and forced to join the hundreds of elite magic-wielders fighting to graduate from the empires rigorous Academy with their lives and honor intact.

A swordmaiden's hand is not easily won. Theseus, king of the Court of Knowledge, is desperate. With the barrier to the Realm of Monsters wearing thin and the chaos of Midsummer Night approaching, he needs to do something drastic to save his Court. If he doesn't secure warriors to protect his Court from the monsters, his people, the Great Library, and all the knowledge of the Fae Realm that it contains could be destroyed.

I can turn into a housecat. It’s a fun magic, except in a world filled with vampires and werewolves, it doesn’t exactly make me a powerhouse. Instead, the supernatural community has classified me as an outcast, which means one thing: picking on me is open season all day, every day. The local fae are the worst of all, and it’s during one of their regular “capture the cat-girl” sessions that I shift into my cat form and meet HIM for the first time.

Cadence and her sister possess the seeds of glory and ruin—or so their father always insisted. Cadence never understood what he meant until Airlie’s seed of power is activated, turning her into the most powerful mage in generations. Despite knowing it must mean her own dormant seed is much more malevolent, Cadence is swept away to the distant Mage’s Guild in her sister’s wake. She’s used to living in Airlie’s shadow, but she can’t see a place for herself in this new world. Nor can she believe in the apparent interest of the charming Zeke. No one has ever chosen her over her beautiful sister.

Princess Isabelle Louise was raised for one thing: to secure a marriage alliance for the good of her people. All her hopes for a kind husband are dashed when the dark and dangerous Prince of the Fae comes seeking a human princess for his bride. Suddenly married and thrust into a world of vicious magic and lethal bargains, Isabelle discovers too late the secret her bridegroom concealed from her: that she is the key to his plan to usurp the throne. And now she is the object of the High King's wrath.