On her first day at Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts, thirteen-year-old Rachel Griffin uses the secret gift she inherited from her mother to venture into a forest where she finds a statue of a winged woman. Nowhere in the books or legends of her world is there any mention of a woman with wings. When she goes back, the wings are gone. Not vandalized. Gone as if they had never been there. Where the wings had been, moss is growing on the statue’s back.

Before coming to Roanoke Academy, Rachel Griffin had been an obedient girl - but it is hard to obey the rules when the world is in danger and no one will listen. Now, she's eavesdropping on Wisecraft Agents and breaking a great many regulations. Because if the adults will not believe her, then it is up to Rachel and her friends - crazy, orphan-boy Sigfried the Dragonslayer, and Nastasia, the Princess of Magical Australia - to stop the insidious Mortimer Egg from destroying the world. But first, she must survive truth spells, fights with her brother, detention, Alchemy experiments, talking to elves, and conjuring class.

All her life, Rachel has wanted to visit Beaumont Castle in the kingdom of Transylvania, the last known location of her hero - librarian-adventurer “Daring” Northwest. Only, falling out of the land of dreams onto her face was not how she had expected to arrive. Now, the castle is right there, looming over her. Only her best friend, the princess of Magical Australia, does not want to go in, so as to avoid an international incident. But what if the castle holds some clue as to her hero’s final fate?

Rachel Griffin should be having an amazing freshman year. She has the princess of Magical Australia and crazy orphan Sigfried the Dragonslayer for friends and a handsome sorcerer boyfriend romancing her with charms magical and otherwise. But otherworldly forces conspire against those she loves.

She has discovered she has an older sister named Amber, who was stolen away as a baby. Nobody but Rachel remembers her—not even their parents. Rachel is determined to find Amber and restore her to the family. But how? She doubts it will be as easy as overhearing the name Rumpelstiltskin.

An old enemy returns! With the Heer of Dunderberg dead, Rachel Griffin is determined to save her beloved Roanoke Academy before time runs out, but to do this, a new covenant must be forged with the island's fairies. On top of this, an old enemy has escaped and might reappear any moment. Rachel has learned not to wish on stars, but what should she do when she yearns for help? She is troubled by other questions, too: Where do the dead go? What became of her beloved late grandfather? Most annoying of all, with such a wonderful boyfriend, how can she be in love with two boys?