Imara has lived a life separate from her family. She wasn't shunned, just never acknowledged. The seventh child of a seventh child, she had had the bad taste to be born a girl. Her father's family had no use for a girl, so she was sent to a city where the populace didn't use magic.

Now that she is grown and entering college, she has chosen the best magical college in the country. It just happens to be located in her birth city.

When family begins to encroach on her education and someone threatens her life, can her new familiar do as he promised and keep her safe, or will Imara have to use what little magic she has learned to keep herself alive? Either way, things are going to be unpleasant.