When Eli and Ember are taken by Aneira, she is forced to make a deal to save the man she loves. A curse is placed on Ember that if she uses the sword against the Seelie Queen, Eli dies. A price she might not be willing to make. The fight for Earth is on, and old enemies must work together to stop Aneira from bringing down the wall between Earth and the Otherworld, making humans servants to the fae and killing all those who oppose her reign.

Zoey Daniels has been tossed from foster home to foster home, where she grows up fast and tough. When she is placed in her "last chance" home, she finds a reason to stay and turn her life around: her foster sister, Lexie, who is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. After high school, Zoey is hired by a special government agency, the Department of Molecular Genetics (DMG), where she meets the other reason to remain: Daniel, her coworker. The man she loves. But there is something unique about Zoey.

Three years have passed in Earth’s realm when Ember and her friends finally return from the Otherworld. Eli feels her the moment she steps back, and the beast is far from delighted. Believing for the last three years she was dead, he has become violent and cruel in her absence.

Ember discovers she is not only fae, but is one of the most feared type in existence—a Dae—considered an abomination among their kind. Her race is hunted down and killed because of their power. After her magic causes an electrical storm which destroys Seattle, Ember is on the run, pursued by the both the light and dark fae.

After Ember Brycin finds her mother brutally murdered, her mind begins to see things that shouldn’t exist, like creatures that belong in scary fairytales. The more she feels her sanity slipping, the more bizarre and inexplicable things start happening around her, even burning down one of her schools, turning Ember into an outcast. When she and her stepfather, Mark, move to Olympia, Washington, they think it will be a new start. However, things only continue to get worse.