Quinn is the most disliked human and necromancer in all of Cinder. Or at least it feels that way when she's pushed so far north she has to make a living hunting the animals in the mysterious and feared North Forest. When bounty hunters force her to cross the border into Rainon she meets Meyron the Black, the definitely insane former professor of necromancy from the Academy of Mages. But she's been pushed out too, and together they're going to look for the five rejected necromancer applicants she fished out of the headmaster's wastebin. Together they will build the foundation of the Black Fortress Academy.