All 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school --- and life in general --- with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot to ask. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit. She tells Cam there is a cure --- if he’s willing to go in search of it. With the help of a death-obsessed, video-gaming dwarf and a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips through a twisted America into the heart of what matters most.

It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered and her father a laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic runs wild. Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic to herself and forged unlikely new alliances. Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test these bonds.

In this sequel to A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY, Gemma Doyle must save the Realms by binding the magic before the wrong people gain control of it. Once again, she faces danger and mystery while learning about love, trust, and the perils of Victorian London's high society.

It's 1895, and 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is sent from her home in India to an English boarding school, where she is lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future. To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls --- and their foray into the spiritual world --- lead to?