Elizabeth couldn’t get up. The pain in her legs was getting worse, and was now a searing heat that passed through her groin and up into her stomach. She looked down. Her body seemed transparent — her veins could be seen clearly through her skin and were filled with a blue fire, an arcing fluorescent flame. It fought its way like slow lightning onward, toward her head. The dancing lightning was incredible to watch, and horrifying at the same time. It seemed to crackle and snap as it weaved through her lower limbs. She was about to pass out when she noticed the figure above her, reaching down, silhouetted against the falling sun.

"Dad?" she managed as the fire entered her head and overcame her at last.

But it was not her father who picked up her unconscious body and made for the car with the open door.

Elizabeth Barker is an ordinary eleven-year-old, until the day she encounters the blue flame for the first time, and comes face-to-face with a centuries-old family secret. The blue flame brings with it gifts, power and danger — and all this before her first day in high school!