Miss Emmeline Luck has always strived to be a dutiful daughter, but thinking for herself has never won her favor with society—or her domineering father.When Earl Luck announces her engagement to a slimy man unfit to be left with a scullery maid, she tries to comply. But the reality of the despicable nature of her fiancé reveals a power buried deep within Emmeline is a mage. Magic is a new and controversial force in Victorian England; its emergence stirring unease while the Queen remains silent. Desperate for training, Emmeline turns to Miss Antoinette Carlton and her mentor, the Bengali mage Rohan, who has a familiar. As Emmeline delves into her training, she realizes magic could upend her family—and threaten the security of Britain itself. When her father kicks her out, Emmeline faces an impossible conform to a life without freedom or carve a path on her own terms in a society that deems a woman without a man worthless. Armed with magic, intelligence, and the law, she sets out to challenge her father’s tyranny. But with powerful forces seeking to use her as a pawn, Emmeline must summon all her strength and cunning to claim her own destiny. In a world where magic is both feared and coveted, can she rewrite the rules—or will she remain at the mercy of others?

Silas Emmason has always known his a bastard without a future.After a decade of service in the East India Army, he returns to England expecting little more than to die as a servant. Instead, an earl is waiting for him. Introduced as a potential heir, Silas is thrust into a world of wealth and status, making him an unexpected presence in the lives of his new half-siblings. Grateful for the opportunity but deeply mistrustful of the earl’s motives, Silas keeps one foot in his old life, taking a job as a club staffer to maintain his independence. That independence shatters when he’s mugged on the streets of London and magic—wild and untamed—erupts in his defense. Staggered by this newfound power, Silas begins experimenting on his own until his half-brother, Duncan, reveals his own magical talents and insists they seek training together. Reluctant but unable to ignore the dangers of untrained magic, Silas joins Duncan and finds an unlikely mentor in Carlyle Barclan, who offers more than just magical a vision of a life beyond servitude or hollow titles working for the Crown. But Silas’s new life is far from simple. Juggling his fractured family, his duties, and his growing magical abilities becomes a near-impossible balancing act. When his siblings and mentor need him, Silas must decide what kind of man he truly wants to be. Can a bastard rise to meet the challenges of family, magic, and duty—or will the weight of expectation crush him?