If magic can't stop death, then what good is it? Nikolai's parents are dead, and a lifetime of magic couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. Now he's left with a house, an unpromising senior year, and the suspicion that his family spell books left out something important – like how to not die. After his parent's funeral, "something important" turns up in the form of Elsa, a classmate with a penchant for the occult and a past that even she isn't aware of. She offers to help Nikolai dig through the grimoires and spellbooks his parents left behind. What they find may be exactly what they're looking for... or something else entirely.