The scholar-warriors of the Amagium swear themselves to a sacred charge: governing humanity's inherent capacity to wield magic. Through a complex licensure system, they decree which spells and arcane artifice are permissible for public, “asfalis” use.
Arroyo, The City of Bridges and Roses, is a suburb of Los Angeles that seems like it crawled out of a storybook. Five palatial terraces of land are connected by a myriad of bridges over gulches where the brambles of a colossal, petrified rose briar reside. But this seemingly-tranquil city seethes with dark secrets and otherworldly threats amass in its shadows.
Sevardin Harker, a newly minted member of the Amagium's Peacekeeping Force, is thrust into the deep end on his second day on the job, when he has a life-threatening encounter with a form of magic most people believe to be fiction.
Meanwhile, Hace Matthews and Alinore Valmont, two precocious aspiring peacekeepers, begin their 11-year matriculation at Arroyo's Athenaeum, the Amagium's rigorous training ground…