After learning that she is the Princess, Jenna is whisked from her home and carried toward safety by the Extraordinary Wizard, those she always believed were her father and brother, and a young guard known only as Boy 412--pursued by agents of those who killed her mother ten years earlier.

Pulled through a glass that brings him back in time, Septimus Heap becomes the apprentice of an alchemist.

Wolf Boy is sent on a Task by Aunt Zelda, while Septimus and the dragon, Spit Fyre, fly off to bring their friends home, but they all wind up on an island whose secrets are as dangerous as its inhabitants.

Septimus must battle the remnants of the Dark Domaine, which will remain until the power of the evil Two-Faced Ring is destroyed forever. To accomplish that, the ancient Alchemie Fyre must be relit -- a task that sends Septimus to the very origins of Magyk and Physik, testing both his skills, and his loyalties to ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia Overstrand, and Alchemist Marcellus Pye.