"The darkest moon ignites the brightest stars. This is the darkest moon and we are the brightest stars."

Twenty years after The Bacra Chronicles...

Enchanted objects are stubborn things, not always willing to do what they're told. They choose on their own how to interpret the spells infused by a lightbinder witch, which often leads to unexpected side effects, especially when the witch is particularly eccentric. Most of these objects turn out to be moderately benign, such as a pair of anti-fatigue shoes that cause the wearer to temporarily be afraid of mollusks, but sometimes a spell goes remarkably awry.

Mischievous starlight is sixteen-year-old Sparrow Ragan Coldstar's favorite light source to enchant with, but he often experiments with others. Daylight, firelight, sunsets and sunrises?he catches them, contains them in vessels, and collects them in his bigger-on-the-inside pockets for later use. The lights he covets most are the ones that are the most difficult to catch, and his current fixation is on the elusive meteor light. Because of this quest, Sparrow leaves his desert home to research celestial events at the Starlight Library's observatory above Bacra's new capital city, Jadeshire.

During a quiet moment at the Library, Sparrow solves the supposedly-impossible puzzle box that was given to him by a meddling cousin. This heirloom is more than a simple puzzle, and the spells trapped within have unexpectedly dangerous consequences. Sparrow finds himself transported to the wild ruins of Bacra's former capital, and he is not alone. The young lightbinder and several of his family members, including two who have been estranged for decades, must work together to solve the real puzzle?the series of riddles that has been trapped in the box for over a century. If they fail, there is little hope of anyone escaping the malicious magic of feral Anthora.