The Book of Shades

Carissa Iliana believes she's cursed. First her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, then her father disappears. At the university, she's having trouble finding a mentor for her dissertation and bad things are happening to those who interact with Carissa, leading to the students shunning her.

Still, Carissa is determined to become an alchemist and licensed magi in the city-nation of Kiriyima, like her mother before her. She believes her luck might be looking up when she's assigned to a group project with the mysterious new divination student in one of her gen eds. Nearly everyone in the college looks up to him as an enigmatic genius, but he has a surly, aloof personality and eschews all non-academic pursuits.

Carissa's gentle nature gets under his skin, and leads to them becoming closer-revealing a conspiracy of heresy and unethical research, which Deucalion is at the center of. They must now work together to prevent disaster for Kiriyima, and discover the secrets behind the war of the gods.