Dedicated to Kellie Bowe for changing our writing forever.
This is the sequel to Of Caverns and Casters (link in-line). You are more than welcome to read this story if you haven't read the first (we do try our hardest to catch our readers up!), but some things might make more sense if you started at book one.
If you want to start on this book, though, or it's been a long time since you read the first, here is a (hopefully!) helpful recap of the story so far.
The Story So Far
[SPOILER ALERT]
A plague is ravaging the underground city of Karsix. Everyone is under quarantine, desperately hoping not to catch the disease. Rather than hope, teenage scientist Leavi Riveirre gambles for survival—she flees through a district of infected corpses, bent on making it topside.
Unluckily for her, she's not the only risk-taker in town. Doktor Sean Rahkifellar, a conceited genius and her partner for the last three months, shows up right as she's making her escape. With only one exit, they're forced to travel together and brave the mountainous topside winter—a fate that could kill them as easily as the plague could here.
A wrong turn through the tunnels lands them in a deserted part of the mountains. Lost and running low on supplies, they take their chances with a group of volatile, nomadic Traders passing through the valley below. The Traders attempt to steal Leavi as a slave, but Sean secures her freedom and their safe passage with a bit of underground tech the nomads take as magic.
The Traders were supposed to deliver the two back to Sean's topside hometown. Instead, with an early, brutal winter bearing down, the Traders journey to a place they haven't in generations: the Outerlands, a place with no mountains.
Any decent scientist knows the Outerlands are a myth; there is no such thing as truly flat land. So when Leavi and Sean end up there with no way home, their world is turned upside down. After getting separated from the Traders, their world breaks again when they find not only are there pockets of survivors in the Outerlands, but whole civilizations.
Meanwhile. . .
Half a continent away, Prince Aster Jacques is failing. He was born to be a talented wizard, to protect his people with the magical skill all royal Second Sons have had before him. Instead, he has all the ability of some second-rate, street-corner trickster. Everyone else in his family is successful: his mother is a charming and strong Queen, his father the straight-laced general, his siblings the perfect replicas of each parent who is teaching them. His teacher, his Uncle Agraund, is everything Aster could never be. And one day, when will Aster have to take his uncle's place as Morineaux's Second Son...
The country will be weak. And it will be Aster's fault.
So when a mysterious note arrives inviting Aster to a magic academy in a foreign land, he sneaks away, abandoning everything he knows in the hope to return to his country as the wizard it needs.
As soon as he arrives, though, he finds himself in a cell, imprisoned and tortured for information. The culprits? Amarris Veradeaux, a disgraced, traitorous ex-lady of the Morineause court; and 'The Man from the East,' a black-magic shaman from Morineaux's most-hated enemy, the barbarian country Kadran.
Back in the Outerlands. . .
Leavi and Sean get a job at a local manor, determined that if they can't go home, they'll work their way to the most civilized country in the Outerlands: Morineaux. Inside the manor, though, Leavi stumbles across a barred door holding a filthy and emaciated Aster. Horrified, she convinces Sean to help her break the unknown boy out.
Even once he's free, he's too weak to go anywhere, and the three hide under the nose of the local government. A blizzard buys them a little time, but snow can only stave off the search for so long.
While Aster is recovering, Leavi and Sean must reconcile the science they know with the impossibility of the magic Aster shows them. Sean thinks Aster is a trickster and that if magic is real at all, it's a subset of science. Leavi, though, can't wrap her mind around it. Determined to prove it false, she attempts to thwart a vision Aster had of her falling off the inn roof. She climbs up to the snowy roof, surveys the ground below, and ready to declare victory and climb back down—
Slips off as Aster, worried about her, climbs up and startles her. Aster catches her with magic, but the spell drains him. The Man from the East emerges from the forest and sees them on the roof. Unable to cast a spell to stop the shaman, Aster begs Leavi to. She does, using his sentient spellbook, but the strength of the magic scares her so badly she vows to never cast again. They capture the Man from the East.
To stop the manhunt once and for all, Aster, Leavi, Sean, and a creepily helpful witch named Idyne band together to kidnap Amarris Veradeaux. They do, but when the snowstorms get worse and Aster suggests they hunker down with their prisoners to wait it out, Sean balks. Scared of the local people finding them and increasingly distrusting Aster, Sean tries to convince Leavi to skip town with just him. When Leavi won't listen, he leaves, and she realizes too late that she turned away her best friend.
Before the rest of the group can travel back to Morineaux, Aster casts a spell to save the innkeeper's husband's life—and it almost costs him his. Desperate to save Aster's life, Leavi consults the sentient spellbook and casts one more spell.
The spell transports them to an extra-dimension named the Meadow, where Aster runs into his sister and uncle. They explain that the castle is under attack by the Kadranians; his sister Sela was grievously injured and Agraund took her to the Meadow to save her life. The catch? When a group leaves the Meadow, one person has to stay behind. Aster tries to sacrifice himself, but the Voices of his spellbook declare that Aster is more useful to them than his uncle. They pervert Aster's spell and take Agraund instead.
Once healthy and back in the Material Realm, Aster is more desperate than ever to make it to Morineaux and save his people. Leavi begs the witch Idyne for help to get him back to his country, and Idyne agrees on the condition that Leavi is her friend. The Man from the East gets mysteriously murdered, Idyne uses a once-in-a-lifetime spell to make a portal, and Aster takes Amarris with him to make her answer to Morineaux for her crimes.
Unbeknownst to Aster, Leavi chases after him and despite the portal rapidly disintegrating, she plunges in.