Seventeen-year-old Sarah Lockwood doesn’t want to live solely for belly dancing and the Renaissance Fair circuit, so she joins her crush, Archer, in the Realm as his assistant. In this parallel world of magic and machines, they will guard a Pen that records important events. Pity he never mentioned assassinating the king as part of the job description.
Sarah’s pleasurable trip in a world of rolling hills turns sour when Archer joins the rebellion against the Usurper King, who forces his people to work in factories to build war supplies. Sarah has to deal with angry natives, the king’s mechanical tigers, and, worse, stem her jealousy over Archer’s rendezvous with the mayor’s daughter. When the Usurper kidnaps Archer to force him to use the Pen and write the future in the king’s favor, Sarah discovers her companion has kept secrets to protect her. The rebels he worked with have just as many hidden agendas, including a bomb from her world. She must decide whether to stop the Usurper and rescue Archer, or to terminate the rebel and save the Realm, her new home, which may burn to ashes if the rebels set off the bomb.
Elliot Jensen and Elliot Fintry have a lot in common. They share the same name, the same house, the same school, oh and they hate each other but, as they will quickly learn, there is a fine line between love and hate.