"Shall I tell you a secret, Alleria, as to why you make me so hot I want to lose control?" He leaned in close. She stiffened, she could feel his breath on her cheek. "When I look into your eyes, I know where you've been, I know what you saw that night in the forest. I know what you are now." Scholars rule the empire and Alleria, an uncanny teenage genius, is about to become the youngest Scholar in history. Some loathe her for her gender, class and age, while others fear what she will become when she grows too wise to be controlled. And there's one strange boy who knows her secret - a boy who whispers about demons in the shadows and the haunting melody that comes with them. Stepping up to stand among the sharks and snakes of the patriarchal imperial politics, Alleria sets her heart on solving the world's greatest mathematical problem - and perhaps also its greatest crisis. The path she chooses will either make her the most successful woman in the empire - or lead her to her own demise - or both