But Sonea both distrusts the Guild for their apparent lack of compassion for the poor dwells and fears their reprisal for her accidental injury of Lord Fergun.

However, her attempt to learn more is unsuccessful, and Sonea continues to lose control of her powers, setting fire to her surroundings repeatedly, before Lord Rothen at last locates her.

At the magician's Guild, Lord Rothen and the sinister Fergun fight for Sonea's mentorship, though she is uninterested in training and only wants to return home to her friends and family.

In order to prove Fergun's guilt, Sonea submits to a mental examination, or 'truthreading', by Administrator Lorlen, who, finding the memory of the black-robed magician, reveals the man to be Lord Akkarin, head of the guild, explaining that she saw him practising black magic which is forbidden in Kyralia.

Sonea decides then to join the Guild and train her magical potential.the next scene is the epilogue in which Lord Rothen is teaching her to create a globe light as used by magicians earlier in the books; he then questions what made her change her mind and stay, to which she replies that there is something that administrator Loren wants him to know; then the book ends presumably with Sonea telling him of the black magic being practised by Akkarin .