The worlds of noble and guild are about to collide, with seventeen-year-old Allie Donovan as the catalyst... Allie lives in a shadow world until she is thrust into the light of the aristocratic St Matthew's Academy. More at ease with a blade than a needle, she is stalked along the ancient corridors by a Scottish lord intent on determining why she is among them. She stumbles onto the reason when soldiers arrive to see her friend, Zeb, a mechanical genius. On the hunt for answers, she breaks into his underground laboratory. There, Allie discovers Zeb is not just constructing sentient mechanical creatures, he is building a devastating new weapon for the military. To protect her friend, Allie will have to stop the guilds from snatching the weapon and its creator. But if she betrays her world, she forfeits her own life. Unless she can rely on bonds of friendship to save both their lives...

Can Allie walk the line between shadow and light, or will she fall? Allie Donovan returns to the elite St Matthew's Academy with mounting problems. Her heart wants Jared, but her bain argues their relationship is doomed. Weasel is acting strange, and Eloise is giving off sparks. Then Allie finds a kindred spirit looking for escape in the library - Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent. The heir to the British throne is on a temporary hiatus from her mother's tight control. But as friendship grows, the young woman turns into a catalyst who could shatter a five hundred year old treaty between the Noctis and Lux. Unless Allie can stop the chain of events from unfolding, her new friend will never become Queen of England. When you were born and raised in a shadow world, decisions aren't black or white. How far will Allie go, to protect the future queen...?

There is more to being free than removing a chain… Allie has served her sentence and been released from servitude, but she disappears into the London crowd. Jared is frantic to find the woman he loves, and when he does, the spark of life is missing from her eyes. Meanwhile…Eloise and Zeb are called upon by Drina to use all their skills to save her future reign. Duncan encounters an unusual assassin who laughs often and makes his stomach churn. Jared must work with a rival to bring down the Consortium. The friends must pull together, each using their own skills, to find the missing piece of Allie’s soul before she is lost to them forever.