\tThe summer Thaddeus turns fourteen, an old vagabond appears in Beewicke and offers promise of a fine education and trade for the boy. Gold exchanges hands and the youth goes off in the old man’s cart to the fabled College of Sorcerers. On the journey, he is joined by two other boys recruited by their new Master, Silvestrus of Somerset . Their journey to the College is perilous, and on the way they are beset by brigands, a daemon, a black-haired courtesan, the king of the moths, members of the thieves’ guild, tree fiends, ghost legions, and greensward Aelvae before they finally achieve their goal -- the ancient and revered Collegium Sorcerorum.