Mags returns to the Collegium, but there are mixed feelings--his included--about him actually remaining there. No one doubts that he is and should be a Herald, but he is afraid that his mere presence is going to incite more danger right in the heart of Valdemar. The heads of the Collegia are afraid that coming back to his known haunt is going to give him less protection than if he went into hiding. Everyone decides that going elsewhere is the solution for now.

Mags was a Trainee in the Heraldic Collegium in Haven, Valdemar’s capital city. Though his background of poverty and abuse at Cole Pieters’ gem mine set him apart from most other trainees, nonetheless he had found his own group of friends. Bear, Lena, and Amily were all students whose situations in life set them apart from more usual Trainees. The four of them had found mutual support in their shared misfortunes, and together struggled to help one another find solutions to their individual problems.

Mags was an orphan and slave of ‘bad blood’ who toiled in a gem mine all his young life. He would have died before adulthood, had he not been Chosen and taken to Haven to be trained in the new Herald Collegium. Now, Mags was never hungry and never cold. He slept in a real bed in his own room and, most importantly, he had Dallen, who was like another part of himself. And yet, aside from Lena and Bear, both loners like he was, he couldn’t relate to most of the trainees.

In this chronicle of the early history of Valdemar, Mercedes Lackey's best-selling world, a 13 year-old orphan named Magpie escapes a life of slavery in the gem mines when he is chosen by one of the magical Companion horses of Valdemar to be trained as a Herald. Thrust into the center of a legend in the making, Magpie discovers talents he never knew he had - and witnesses the founding of the great Heralds' Collegium.

Herald Mags, the King of Valdemar's Herald-Spy, has been developing a clandestine network of young informants who operate not only on the streets of the capital city of Haven but also in the Great Halls and kitchens of the wealthy and highborn. In his own established alternate personas, Mags observes the Court and the alleys alike, quietly gathering information to keep Haven and the Kingdom safe.