For Kip, growing up in shadow of the human men-only Prince George's College of Sorcery has been 19 years of frustration. Magic comes naturally to him, yet he's not allowed to study sorcery because he's a Calatian - one of a magically created race of animal people. But when a mysterious attack leaves the masters desperate for apprentices, they throw their doors open, giving Kip his chance. 

As he fights to prove his worth to the human sorcerers, he encounters other oddities: a voice that speaks only to him, a book that makes people forget he's there, and one of the masters who will only speak to him through a raven. Greater than any of those mysteries or even whether the College's attacker will return to finish the job is the mystery of how Kip and his friends can prove that this place is where they belong…