When a knight-in-training sets out on a dragonquest to win the hand of a fair princess, he expects to return in time for a pavilion wedding in the fall. But after fifty years of tracking his quarry across godforsaken hinterlands, he is starting to wonder if he has the stamina to finish the job.

Volume 1: Pickpocketing Living in secret and stealing to eat is a hard life , but it's all Kuro has ever known. Fear and necessity honed him from a young age into the finest young thief in in the wizard kingdoms. Nobody can hide forever, though, and a run of poor luck lands Kuro in a place where his quick hands and quiet feet count for nothing: Avalon Academy, school of magic. Out of his depth and unable to escape, can Kuro find a place among the other misfits at the school, or will his past return to ruin the one chance he has to leave his life in the shadows?