Kellen is looking forward to her sixteenth birthday. It's time for him to pass the test and become a Spell Maker. Only he has one problem: his magic refuses to work. And if he doesn’t immediately find a way to wake her up, he’ll have to go into exile or, worse, become a servant in his own home. To get his magic back, he is willing to risk everything, even his life. But when the mysterious red-haired wanderer Ferius Perfects arrives in town, his world falls apart. Brave, unpredictable, desperate, possessing the special magic of ancient cards, she can open a different path for him, teach him a different magic based on physical laws. Kellen faces a difficult choice - to accept the shameful fate of a servant or to trust a stranger... Sometimes you have to play with the cards you've been dealt. The book has been translated into 13 languages, and has also been nominated for the prestigious British award - the Carnegie Medal. "An outlandish and original fantasy, captivating from the first pages." Jonathan Stroud, author of The Bartimaeus Trilogy and Lockwood & Company