The mysterious figure known only as the Journeyman is charged to use the ancient Anvil of Time to travel through history and find the lost stories that fell to no one's notice. He is told to observe and not to interfere, a task that is easier said than done . . .

Tythonnia never expected magic to be like this. A red-robe in training, sent with Par-Salian and Ladonna to find and expose wizards renegade against the Towers of High Sorcery, she found instead that the world was larger than she had ever thought -- and the questions it asked no easier.

Magic finds her darkest secrets, her innermost self, and reveals them to her, but the knowledge she finds is never comforting, nor what she wants to believe. Tythonnia struggles against what she should do and what she wishes to do, trying to find the path that winds between the two extremes.