Her first night at Paloma's, Daire has a dream of two brothers: one kind, one evil, and both magnetic. Noël taps into the universal adolescent impulse to resist authority, even though Daire knows she needs the guidance of someone more experienced to navigate the strange things that are happening to her. Faced with the possibility of institutionalizing her daughter, Jennika decides to take Paloma up on her offer-much to Daire's disgust. Then Jennika receives a call from the long-absent Paloma, who offers to take Daire to her adobe house in Enchantment, New Mexico. When Daire awakens, she discovers she's restrained, and a doctor administers something to knock her out for the flight home to the U.S. As they wind through the Moroccan streets, Noël conjures the smells of goat grilling in the open air, exotic oils and jasmine, and the steady pulse of the gnaoua drum that induces Daire's first vision-a disturbing illusion of glowing people, decapitated heads and crows. The teen star of the film takes Daire out to celebrate. Daire, who narrates, has accompanied her mother, Jennika, a professional make-up artist, on location for a film. Readers meet Paloma's granddaughter in the next chapter, in Marrakesh on her 16th birthday. In a cryptic opening, a murder of crows circles a graveyard where Paloma Santos stands next to a casket, convinced "that her son's sudden death was no accident." The woman also senses in her son's girlfriend an unborn child "whose fate had long been foretold," and whose safety Paloma bears in mind as she removes herself from the funeral, vowing to re-enter the child's life when she turns 16. Alyson Noël (the Immortals series) mines her New Mexico setting and brings to life the land of enchantment in this kickoff to a quartet about Daire Santos, the reluctant heir to an ancient line of shamans.
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