Welcome to Ravenridge College. Get drunk. Make stupid decisions. And kick serious interdimensional butt. Petra Brightshade was under the impression that college meant going to, like, classes. But she was recruited to this “prestigious mage college” because she’s something called a primal. Her innate magic is uniquely suited to fighting monstrous creatures from another dimension. Those creatures are pouring through a breach in the fabric of the universe right into the college’s library. Petra would rather carve the word “primal” into her own stomach than fight those freaking creatures. She’s been fighting them her whole life, and they haunt her nightmares. But that hot gargoyle that recruited her said that she was pretty much the only hope to save the world. And he’s intriguingly straight-laced. She can’t help but want to loosen him up a bit. And it’s true that the other primals seem to subscribe to the philosophy, “Fight hard. Party harder.” So, Petra’s in. She’s going to fight. As soon as she gets some coffee, that is.

Petra Brightshade gets captured and then wakes up on a circus train in a car with some elephants, with a dampener on her wrist that keeps her from using her primal magic. It’s not exactly her favorite day ever. When she finds out she’s been captured because her blood is the only thing that can reopen the breaches she just closed, she knows she’s got to escape, find the others, and figure out some way to stop her captors once and for all. No way is she reopening the breaches. No effing way.

Hello, Square One. So nice to see you again. To save Logan, Petra Brightshade had to reopen the breaches she just freaking closed. Now, she and her fellow primals are right back where they started. And it’s worse, because the interdimensional monsters are now in attack mode. They’ve got a plan to take over our entire world, and they’re not going to stop until they succeed. Or until Petra and the others stop them. Which they will do. Come hell or high water or the closing of their favorite bar—Wait. What? Barley and Bells is indefinitely closed? It may be their darkest hour yet.

Life’s a witch, and then you die. And if you’re Petra Brightshade, it happens accidentally, when you bleed out in an attempt to save the world from monsters. Or at least, it half happens. The human part of Petra has been dead for nearly a year now, and she misses it. When she finds out a new professor at Ravenridge College knows a spell to bring back her humanity, she’s got to have it. Of course, the professor’s got some secrets of his own. He’s being chased by his own monsters—not metaphorical ones, real ones—who are trying to kill him. But Petra manages to make a deal with him. He gives her the spell, she helps him out. Sure, that’s dangerous, and so is doing the spell. Pfft. Petra can handle danger. Now, the hangovers after the parties her friend Reid Darkmore keeps throwing? Those are brutal.