The moment Jem joined her class in the middle of Silent Reading, Alice knew her life was irrevocably changed. Glamorous, different, a subversive treading the exciting line between reality and fantasy, Jem seduces Alice with The Magic Flute, esotericliterature and the vivid fabric of her past - and then vanishes as abruptly as she came, leaving Alice bereft. Until, five years on, Jem blazes her sphere again, trailing a chaotic wake of mystery and cosmic casalty. And then the infuriating demoniac Giovanni appears. Giovanni who, sharing Jem's gift for suffusing life with magic, fantasy with life, becomes Alice's very own dangerous Sarastro, holding the talisman...