For centuries, the gadda have worked to keep their identity secret from the rapidly expanding human race. All this is now at risk - the most terrible of gadda teachings, the Forbidden Texts, have been stolen and the race is on to find them. Ione Gorton may have got her best friend back from Australia, but Maggie's elevation to the ranks of the guardians means that she's not around as much. And when Stephen O'Malley, almost the youngest (and definitely the hottest) ever candidate for the sixth-order test, needs a place to stay after still more strange violence hits Sclossin, Ione is all too happy to lend a hand...But Ione, like Maggie before her, is soon a target for the forces behind the theft of the Forbidden Texts, and the now-urgent search for the artefact will change life for gadda and human alike.