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...

Imara made it through her first term without too many issues, but now that she is in the second term, a magic-draining fiend is stalking the students, and her familiar is bored with guiding her through the early stages of magic. He has taken to giving her misinformation to see if she can use her own judgments. It is a challenge she doesn't really need.

XIA agents are taking courses at the college, and one of them ends up next to Imara during her ethics course. A few conversations lead to a lunch date, and now, she must determine if a social life is worth more than her scholastic...