Demir Grappo is a powerful glassdancer and a successful military leader, even at his young age. Despite these innate talents and abilities, he has a solid moral compass and he shows unusual compassion to the rebellious factions that he is sent to put down. Such talent and promise breeds jealousy, and when a political rival maneuvers to turn his greatest military victory into a bloody massacre caused by his own troops, he mentally breaks. The emotional toll of what happened under his command is just too much to bear and Demir walks away from everything, including his eventual inheritance, to live out his life as a grifter. That is until his mother, a powerful political figure and head of his family, is murdered on the city streets. Demir returns from exile to use the resources of his family to uncover the truth about his mother's murder, and of course things get complicated very quickly.

Unholy Island, the mostly forgotten neighbor of Holy Island, is a strange place that everyone quickly forgets, except the few granted sanctuary there. Esme Gray escaped an abusive marriage and found her way to the island because their previous Ward Witch had died, and ridiculous as it seems, it's now her job to run the guesthouse while she maintains the island's protections. Luke Taylor has been searching over a year for his missing twin brother and follows a rumor that leads him to Unholy Island, where a suspicious murder leaves the island in need of a Book Keeper, which he finds a strange term for someone who runs a bookshop. Then there is the kindly old mayor Tobias who was the island's first resident so long ago he barely recalls his true nature. All three of them are weaker than they should be, but together they form a tenuous bulwark against the end of the Earth.

Despite growing in power as a wizard, Kazamir Wolfe still finds himself unable to do much to stop the impending convergence of our world with the netherworld. He does know that it will be apocalyptic if the gods of the netherworld make their way to Earth, so he must ensure that doesn't happen. His ability to see the flow of magic shows him that magic is growing throughout Europe and he can even see multiple anchor points where he expects portals will open when the time comes. However, all of his efforts to destroy those anchors have proven to be a waste of time. Frustrated and desperate, he convinces his eclectic team of misfits that the best course of action is to tackle the problem from the other side. That means it is time for a road trip into the netherworld itself. What could possibly go wrong?

The last time we saw Kaylin Neya the Chosen was rescuing an old woman named Imelda and her ghostly roommates from an evil Barrani wizard. Imelda has joined Kaylin's eclectic household, but there are still many questions about her ability to see and communicate with ghosts. Only Kaylin knows that Imelda can also command spirits because tales of necromancers are all about armies of undead, not grandmotherly women who take cookies to Elantra's police and the dragons are already nervous enough. Speaking of dragons, Bellusdeo is enraged again. As the only female dragon everyone expects her to waste no time producing more and she finally chose Emmerian as a potential mate because he was the least annoying. Unfortunately, the whole idea still drives her crazy so she attaches herself to Kaylin's continuing investigation of Imelda's situation to avoid the issue. Once again the Elements are disquieted and it seems to be related to an Ancient, aka those beings that made the worlds and various races, that was being used by the Barrani wizard as a power source. Kaylin freed it but it's power is now leeching into the world and distorting reality. Kaylin has no idea what she can do since it says it's already dead, but once again it's up to the Chosen to save the world.

Stopping a convergence from happening is priority number one, but the band of misfits trying to prevent the nether gods from invading our world isn't exactly the A team. A noob wizard who can barely control the magic he attempts to use, and usually winds up blind after he does anything, a talking dog, a cat from the nether, an untrustworthy djinn, and two knights from the past are partnered up with two operatives from the present in order to get the job done. Unfortunately they are up against an ancient organization with more resources and firepower, so they are going to need some assistance. If you think that the next member of the team is going to be an elite soldier capable of turning the tide of battle, think again, because it turns out to be a vacuum cleaner infested by a demon. The only reason that the djinn was able to summon a demon into our world in the first place is because the barrier between our world and the nether appears to be weakening. With time running out, Kazimir finally convinces everyone that it's time to go on the offensive.

Corvinian Hark comes from a respected line of villains and received top marks at the exclusive university where his ancestors received their degrees in villainy. Alas, human corporations have nearly cornered the market on villainy, and the only internship in London was snapped up by one of his classmates, who quickly took over the Tower by dispatching her predecessor. Left without any good prospects, Corvinian temporarily took a post as caretaker of a safehouse for magical folk needing a bit of help surviving in expensive London. After eight years, Corvinian has noted that his tenants are just as temporary as his job. In fact, the vampire Michael was living there before it was a safehouse a century ago. After slipping into a hospital to kill his phoenix tenant before anyone notices she's not human, and sneaking out with the baby, The Powers That Be, aka his employers, promptly saddle Corvinian with a new and problematic tenant. Analiese is a foreign exchange student from Belgium and more importantly she's unclassified. Corvinian is given six months to figure out her status, in which case he will be promoted, or he's fired. Also, just in case she's actually a generic human, no one can let slip the magical world exists. How hard can it be for ten magical people, if you include Corvinian, to pretend to be normal humans for a few months?

Kazimir Wolfe remains on the run from both the law and an ancient order trying to kill him, but staying hidden is becoming harder and harder as his group of traveling companions continues to grow. It started with Duke the talking golden retriever, who's mind is inhabited by an ancient wizard, and then added on two knights that were sent forward through time to protect him. Then a wise cracking djinn was added, who does nothing but insult Kaz all the time for being stupid, and finally the grumpy 30 pound cat from the Nether, known as Mr Boots. As stated in book one, this urban fantasy doesn't take itself too seriously, and now that The Order has successfully opened a portal to the Nether, Kaz and his group of misfits must figure out how to close it. And then, of course, deal with the creatures that came through before the entire world realizes that magic is real. The dragon might have something to say about that though.

Kazimir Wolfe has been on the run since he was a teenager. It started the night that unknown assailants killed his aunt while he was out, and he has been on the run from those killers ever since. Those killers were looking for him that night, and from then on law enforcement has been as well, since they think he was the one who killed his aunt. Why did an unknown organization want to kill him as a teenager? Because he is wizard. And as far as Kaz knows, he is the only wizard in our modern times. And unfortunately, he isn't a very good one. I mean, there aren't any other wizards around to teach him, and It doesn't help that there isn't a lot of magic available in our world to work with. But there used to be, and now it is coming back. You would think that was a good thing for Kazimir, but not exactly. Magic seems to be building up for a "Convergence" between our realm and the Nether world, and only a wizard can stop it.

On a desert world a village struggles to survive. Pell's passion is deciphering the odd bits and pieces that the Ancients left behind. Her neighbors consider it a waste of time and would rather melt the artifacts down for the metal they so desperately need. Everything changes when a stranger, the first Pell has ever met, asks her to help repair Ancient machines in what the villagers thought was an impenetrable Tower. Driven by curiosity to see inside the Tower, and Moseus' promise of payment in the form of scrap metal, she agrees. In the Tower she finds three Ancient machines, all larger and far more complex than anything she has seen before. She also meets the other inhabitant of the Tower, Heartwood, and she wants to decipher his mercurial moods as much as she wants to know what the machines actually do. Almost immediately she begins to have visions, or maybe memories, of the Tower and its inhabitants, which draw her ever deeper into the mysteries of the Ancients, a tale of warring gods, and the history of the village of Emgarden.

A man wakes up with no memories and is horrified to find himself in a room that clearly belongs to a dark wizard given its decor. He's even more horrified to discover that he himself is the dark wizard who styles himself Dread Lord Gavrax. He's a middle aged mediocre dark wizard living in a tiny castle above a pathetic village served by goblins and a creepy majordomo who mostly talks about torturing people. Gav even has a princess locked away in the dungeon. Unfortunately, he can't just free the princess and sneak away to live anonymously because it seems she's a component in a ritual that he agreed to participate in with three other, far more impressive, dark wizards. If he fails to show up with the princess they will obviously hunt him down and kill him slowly, but the more he learns about this ritual the more wary he is about participating, let alone sacrificing an innocent woman.