Though Jyximus Faire lives in a crumbling tenement in the Underground City, he escapes the squalor daily to attend lessons in magic and sorcery at the prestigious Academy in the City Above. But the pace isn't fast enough for Jyx. He wants to learn everything – and he wants to learn it now. Then the dread necromancer general Eufame Delsenza sets her sights on Jyx; she needs a new apprentice, and Jyx fits the bill. When she tasks him with helping to prepare royal mummies for an all-important procession, he realises this might be a chance of a lifetime. Will Jyx's impatience lead to him taking his education into his own inexperienced hands, and can a necromancer's apprentice really learn to raise the dead – and control them?

Can a young mage mend a broken heart that's made of stone? Apprentice mage Jyximus Faire has seen what lies beyond death. Now he's back among the living, he just wants a quiet life. But his home will be razed to make way for a rich prince's playground. And a Lord of Death wants to tear open the Veil between the worlds and destroy the living. The Academy's end-of-year exams would have been easier. Except he's supposed to be dead and his tutor, the necromancer general, is locked in a notorious prison. And she wants him to work with a Shadowkin, one of a race reviled as thieves and spies. Can Jyx go rogue to stage a jail break? Can he wake an ancient goddess and save his home? And can he keep the dead among the dead?