Four years before the events of The Spirit Thief, Miranda Lyonette was a young apprentice Spiritualist on the cusp of a promising career. But on the eve of her return from bonding a wind spirit, a night that should have been a celebration, she finds instead that her father has come to take her home. Now, Miranda must choose between her duty to her family and her future at the Spirit Court. But while she's trying to make her parents see reason and avoid an arranged marriage to a man she can't stand, she stumbled across the one spirit who needs her more than any other, a caged ghosthound who doesn't want her help. To save him, Miranda will have to earn the dog's trust, but what she gets in return is a friendship deeper than anything she expected.