Billy Rogers knows Dean Jones is trouble. He has known this for three years. At Ramsgate Institute, an elite boarding school with a dark history, Dean is the boy nobody understands and everybody underestimates: clever, charming, violent, and just unstable enough to make Billy's life a living hell. Then one winter night, Dean turns up outside Billy's house - and for once, he isn't laughing. By spring, they're enemies again. By summer, they're almost friends. And by the time Dean sets a bully's car on fire-with the boy still inside-Billy begins to wonder whether getting close to him was ever a good idea. Seventeen is the age when childhood ends, adulthood begins, when petty mistakes can turn into fatal flaws. At Ramsgate, everyone knows the school motto: "Vincit Qui Se Vincit". He conquers who conquers himself. But what happens when you can't? This is a story about friendship, violence, obsession, and two boys who keep playing with fire... until someone gets burned.