Obedience. Self-restraint Endurance. Silence . These are the responsibilities of a Highborn female, and like the veils, masks and tight-fitting underskirts feminine Kencyr students are appreciated to put on, Jame finds them damnably constricting. Sent here by her sibling Torisen, Highlord from the Kencyrath, she has tried valiantly to fit in, but the unruly young lady can’t help tossing the quiet Women’s Halls into an uproar. It’s not entirely Jame’s problem, though. While Tori’s vain and vicious consort treats her like about Seeker’s Face mask an underling, the Kencyr Matriarchs, identified to winnow out her secrets, plan to make use of her to their personal benefit. And her very own brother wants nothing to do with her. Moreover, Shadow Guild assassins have come hunting her, wanting to fulfill a long-held agreement to dispose of the last of the effective Knorth clan. It’s no wonder that Jame decamps. In the company of her telepathic hunting cat, Jorin, a runaway priestling called Kindrie, and a chance-met squad of cadets, she pieces out to save a pal from a cruel and ambitious Kencyr lord who seeks the deadly Book Bound in Pale Natural leather. Dodging ghostwalkers and shadow assassins, traveling weirdingstorms and peripatetic trees and shrubs, Jame discovers that her existence is normally tangled up in a much larger purpose. For the war against Perimal Darkling cannot application until three horrible items of power, as well as the avatars who will wield them, show up. And she just might be one of these. . . .