A desert-town math whiz meets an ambidextrous artist, a Scorpio... in the wake of a best friend's death, two white envelopes that freak people out, and a diamond pearl that might be LSD. In the outskirts of Las Vegas, freshman Aurora (a.k.a. Ari) takes refuge in calculus and probability problems to escape the demons of her painful past. Math was what the prestigious prep school Staglight Academy had recruited her for-her, a girl from the wrong side of the train tracks. Plus, numbers are logical; math makes sense. This predictable world built on immutable mathematical theorems doesn't plague you with chronic insomnia, doesn't let Katrina-your best friend-die, and definitely doesn't hurl a tornado through the middle of the Mohave. But a desert cyclone is exactly how their twin escapes begin-Ari, running from the horrors that have chased her throughout time, and Xanexa, running from the horrors that have chased xyr across the universe. They run until they meet, when Ari comes face-to-face with xyr, an amazing artist whose sketches are so real they could come to life. From that initial encounter, she begins to discover the dangerous, life-threatening truths that had been buried with Katrina. Under an increasingly constricting web of manipulation and deceit that imperil Ari and those around her, those truths resurface with the ones about herself that had been buried beneath the sands of time-truths that are wholly irrational, just like art-- --and pi, a number xe shows her the end to, even though it is real, irrational, natural, and never-ending.