An instant New York Times bestseller!

For readers who have just finished Naomi Noviks The Golden Enclaves and are ravenous for more dark academia (Booklist), this pulse-pounding (Publishers Weekly, starred review) fantasy thriller follows six teenage wizards as they fight to make it home alive after a malfunctioning spell leaves them stranded in the wilderness.

Ren Monroe has spent four years proving shes one of the best wizards in her generation. But top marks at Balmerick University will mean nothing if she fails to get recruited into one of the major houses. Enter Theo Brood. If being rich were a sin, hed already be halfway to hell. After a failed and disastrous party trick, fate has the two of them crossing paths at the public waxway portal the day before holidays; Theos punishment is to travel home with the scholarship kidswhich doesnt sit well with any of them.

A fight breaks out. In the chaos, the portal spell malfunctions. All six students are snatched from the safety of the schools campus and set down in the middle of nowhere. And one of them is dead on arrival.

If anyone can get them through the punishing wilderness with limited magical reserves its Ren. Shes been in survival mode her entire life. But no magic could prepare her for the tangled secrets the rest of the group is harboring, or for whats following them through the dark woods