Two years after a horrible incident made them run away, vampire princess Lissa and her guardian-in-training Rose are found and returned to St. Vladimir's Academy, where one focuses on mastering magic, the other on physical training, while both try to avoid the perils of gossip, cliques, gruesome pranks, and sinister plots.

Upon the death of her mother, a Los Angeles attorney, fifteen-year-old Keelie is sent to live with her father, a woodworker at Renaissance fairs, and discovers that the odd "allergy" she has to wood is actually powerful earth magic that she must learn to control.