An amazingly familiar—and at the same time alien—world. A world where there was no World War II, and in 2020 high-tech armies of corporations fight for world domination against magic-wielding aristocrats. There, he was thirty-five. Here, he’s not even fifteen—but problems are a hundredfold: hate from unexpected relatives, a coat of arms erased by a bastard’s band, the contempt of others, and a forbidden gift whose use carries the death penalty. And there’s still the school that he has to attend.