Warning: Book Spoilers

 The book begins with a prologue from David's POV. He is in Mississippi and is now having near constant headaches. He gets visions all the time and his eyes are permanently golden and glowing. He eats very little and sleeps even less. Worst of all, his visions are all blurry and disjointed, and when they come on him, it seems he unwillingly turns any young woman who happens to be near him into a Paladin. Meanwhile, Harper has been working as a lifeguard with Bee and bored out of her mind until one day she is attacked in the pool locker room by a girl claiming to be another Paladin. She tells Harper she is there to kill her because it's what David wants. While fighting, Harper feels herself losing all her strength, and only narrowly avoids death thanks to Bee finding her in time.  In a desperate attempt to find David, Harper gets Bee and Ryan to attempt a summoning ritual at the ruins of the old Ephor house. The spell doesn't seem to work, except that night they all have dre...

 Several months have passed since Cotillion and Harper is working with Ryan and David to help figure our David's powers without getting him killed or making him crazy. The friends have decided to try dampening David's visions (without his knowledge) because the visions are so painful for him. This seems to work until one night when David has an extremely powerful vision that leads him to the headquarters of the Ephors (the people tasked with overseeing the Oracle and who up until recently wanted to kill David), a home which up until weeks ago had been a burned out wreck. At the house they meet Alexander, one of the Ephors who reveals to Harper that she is not technically a paladin yet. Alexander informs Harper she must go through a series of trials called the Peirasmos, and if she doesn't do them, then the Ephors will simply keep coming after her and Ryan until they are both dead and they can make a new mage and paladin. Also, she doesn't actually have a choice in wheth...

It's Homecoming night at her expensive Alabama private school and Harper Price is expecting nothing more than to dance with her friends and be crowned Homecoming Queen. As she is touching up her makeup for the big announcement, one of the school janitors, Mr. Hall bursts in bloody and dying. As he dies, he kisses and her Harper feels something cold going through her body, and suddenly feels stronger than ever. Mr. Halls last words to Harper are that he is sorry, and he asks her to please "look after him." The bathroom door explodes and her history teacher Dr. DuPont bursts in wielding a scimitar and threatening to murder her. They fight, and Harper is barely able to escape by stabbing Dr. DuPont in the throat with one of her stiletto heels.  Harper is traumatized and runs out of the bathroom, and directly into the boy's bathroom where she vomits. She is, sadly, helped by her least favorite person in the world: David Stark, a guy she has hated since kindergarten. Harpe...

  While dancing at the International Katahk Classics dance semifinals in London, Radha overhears two other contestants gossiping that Radha only wins competitions because her mother (a former dancer herself) offers sexual favors to key judges. While Radha is upset, because she works extremely hard on her dancing, she also begins to question some of her mother's strange behavior lately, and wonders if she really COULD be cheating. Radha feels herself begin to have a panic attack, and decides to leave the dance competition. She is stopped on the way out by her angry mother, whom Radha confronts about the allegations, which she does not deny.  7 months later, and Radha's parents have separated and she and her mother have moved from Chicago to New Jersey, where Radha plans to attend an arts school, but no longer focus on dancing as a potential career. Her father, who owns an Indian restaurant back in Chicago, sends her a recipe notebook belonging to her grandfather, along with a l...