In an unusual House set in a small southern U. S. city, we find a powerful (and perhaps a little unstable) sorcerer with a deeply disturbing past who has gathered a mismatched collection of talented young magic wielders to fight against growing forces of evil. Whose side is he really on? We join the story as a desperate young woman comes into his shop. . . .

Belle, a talented researcher, works with the Ancients' language at the Icarus station & encounters the difficult scientist Nicholas Rush. Fascinated but too unsure of herself to approach the man, she learns that all on board Destiny are doomed as the ship is propelled headlong into a star. Facing certain death, she finds herself at his door with a desperate proposition.