The moment Jem joins her class, Alice knows her life is irrevocably changed. Glamorous, different, a subversive, Jem seduces Alice — and then vanishes as abruptly as she came, leaving Alice bereft. Then, five years on, Jem blazes across her sphere again, trailing mystery, chaos and large-scale casualty. And the infuriating, demoniac Giovanni appears who, sharing Jem's gift for suffusing life with magic, becomes Alice's very own dangerous Sarastro, holding the talisman.