Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she hasn’t had to.

She and her assistant, Caz, a magically sentient spider plant, have spent the last eleven years sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite. But when a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz save as many books as they can carry and flee to a faraway island Kiela was sure she’d never return to: her childhood home. Kiela hopes to lay low in the overgrown and rundown cottage her late parents left her and figure out a way to survive without drawing the attention of either the empire or the revolutionaries. Much to her dismay, in addition to a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor, she finds the town neglected and in a state of disrepair.

The empire, for all its magic and power, has been neglecting for years the people who depend on magical intervention to maintain healthy livestock and crops. Not only that, but the very magic that should be helping them has been creating destructive storms that have taken a toll on the island. Due to her past role at the library, Kiela feels partially responsible for this, and now she’s determined to find a way to make things right: by opening the island’s first-ever secret spellshop.

Her plan comes with risks—the consequence of sharing magic with commoners is death. And as Kiela comes to make a place for herself among the kind and quirky townspeople of her former home, she realizes that in order to make a life for herself, she must learn to break down the walls she has built up so high.