Out from under Verity's thumb, Allie must navigate the streets of LA-a hotbed for dark alchemists-in search for a way to free those they left behind. With Mark and Jackie at her side, they must brave the real, but no less strange, Alchemist Academy. Gaining a few friends, and even more enemies, the trio search for those whole can help them and at the top of the list is Allie's missing mom, Cathy Norton. But will Cathy be anything like the mother she remembers from her childhood? A war between Alchemists is brewing, but what side should even win.