Thalia Kostis and her cohort knew the CIA was funding their group of research mathemagicians, but they'd never demanded results like this before! After terrorists use magic to kidnap hostages from the agency's headquarters, the Center for Applied Topology finds themselves torn from their cubicles and dragged across three continents, from holding cells to terrorist safehouses as the superiors who never believed in them before are now demanding impossible results. Now academics who can't organize a donut run are finding out there are worse fates than loss of funding... If they don't find and stop the magicians responsible, they're going to lose their lives!