After more trials and tribulations than any eighteen-year-old should have to face, Ferius Parfax is at last ready to set out on her Argosi path. Only one thing holds her back, a deck of cards depicting her debts to the people she's harmed and for which she must now make restitution. But one debt leads to another. While infiltrating a notorious prison to free Arissa, the young thief who befriended her years before, Ferius encounters a cold-hearted killer who confronts her with a much greater debt, one she owes to the Mahdek clans who raised her and face imminent extinction at the hands of the Jan'Tep mages who stole their lands. Now Ferius, helped by a band of young mages on their own quest for redemption, must guide the ragged remnants of her people to a new homeland. Aboard an enchanted galleon capable of sailing across a sea of shadows, Ferius Parfax will face her greatest test yet as the dispair instilled in the Mahdek over centuries threatens to propel the ship towards destruction.