My twin brother is a Wizard and thinks he's the only magician in the family. It's actually a little funny that he hasn't suspected anything different over the last 17 years - with my constantly need to keep his idiot face out of danger and stupidity - but that's not today's problem. You see, someone's trying to kill him.

In a world where thoughts shape reality, Vern watches as the laws of physics crumble around him. But while others embrace mysticism, this scientist sees an opportunity to reverse engineer the new rules governing Victorian Elmhurst. Marked by an elder god's rune burning in his mind and racing against its corruption, Vern forges his own way. Armed with years of scientific knowledge, he develops a unique power: the ability to perceive and manipulate Balance itself.

Kelvin Wiltshire lives the life of a simple cook in a remote village on the far side of Trendham. The townsfolk think little of the man and his son and believe him to be just another refugee from the Terabinian war. On cold winter nights, they share rumors of the bloody conflict and the mysterious death of Will Cartwright, the mighty mage who had the power to command storms. They like the new cook. They fear the fallen king. But the two men are one and the same.

Betrayed by his former gang and thrown into the Rendhold Underprison, Dantes has spent the last five years scraping by. A bastard of human, orcish, and elvish blood, he's lived on the periphery of the periphery, lying, cheating, and stealing to survive.

The ancient magic of wizards was anything but dark. It was the enlightenment that lifted humanity from the squalor of superstition, and the worship of fell spirits and capricious gods, but those days are gone. The shining glory of the sorcerers burned away the subtlety of wisdom, replacing it with easy power, held only in the hands of the elite - a new age built upon the elemental supremacy of aristocrats and the ignorance of the masses.