Cressida has escaped school, brought its cruel Headmaster to account for his crimes against her and her classmates, then watched him usurp her Empress. Justice may be elusive, but she isn't done with him-and he isn't done with her.
The Chocolate Rebellion has regrouped at Malimar, and as spring thaws Belovia, they begin to plot. The Headmaster, now Regent of the Empire, keeps his interest in Cinderbloom Academy. The members of the Rebellion find themselves at odds with the deposed Empress, who would much prefer they loose the Headmaster's claws from her empire as quickly as possible. But Cressida and her friends have too many attachments to Cinderbloom to let it go.
However, when events pull them back to Cinderbloom, they find the two questions hopelessly entangled. The Headmaster seems to have invited some old friends to the school to test a theory of his, and the ramifications promise to ripple to the nation and perhaps the world.
Cressida is determined not to let it get that far. With the help of her scrappy group of students past and present and the legendary Adash'aan, she sets out to confront the Headmaster at the dual seats of his power-the school that took too much, and a dying Empire on the verge of something new.
She may have left her school days behind, but the question they asked of her remains: what is she willing to lose to succeed?
