Sixteen year old Jessica Langden awakens her magic in the same accident that puts her mother in a coma.  A state no one with or without magic is able, or willing, to fix.  Thus with the sponsership of the US Office of Paranormal Affairs, she decides to attend the Akademiya, a Russian school of magic in order to learn to heal her mother and spy on the dangerous human-hating races that attend it.  A decision that will be frought with peril, and lead to her uncovering secrets both about herself and her unknown father... just as he reveals himself to be an enemy of all she holds dear.