"Evil speaks the words we wish most to hear." For the price of a loaf of bread, young Jen spins her spells in the squalid marketplaces of the City's slums. But when her father sells her to the wizard Barras for gold, Jen finds herself bound to a man who holds her utterly in his power. So begin five years of reluctant apprenticeship, while Jen schemes to open a gateway to the Otherworlds, her only hope of escaping Barras' binding. Yet she remains blind to another, more profound binding-the abuse she suffered as a girl that poisons her soul and allows a dark and ancient entity housed in a black stone to entice her into its power with promises of freedom. Before she can resist the whispers of the malevolent spirit beguiling her into evil, Jen must first conquer her own inner darkness.