Leah Reich is the only child of an ignoble baron of a city nobody cares anything about. Her father's love has long gone cold in the face of her antics and he threatens to disown her at the age of twelve if she steps out of line one more time. Change is hard though, and Leah eventually does find herself cast out of her home, her family, and her way of life five years later.

With the help of a witch whose interests are less than charitable, Leah goes to her country's academy for guards, a debt incurred and her options limited. In the academy she discovers seeds of an insurrection and is unable to decide whether her own loyalties lie with the class of people she left, or the class of people she now calls friends.

She discovers that being a man is not always safer than being a woman, and that trouble sometimes seeks you whether or not you try to hide from it. Leah rediscovers the person her father tried to bury and loses her fear of the future as she learns that success isn't and never will be found through groomed footpaths and decisions made for her by others.