After a year at the palace, Miri and her friends are ready to return home to their beloved Mount Eskel. But when the king orders Miri to start her own princess academy in a faraway swamp for three royal cousins, she is utterly dismayed. She must go on this journey alone, away from everyone she loves and everything she knows.

Miri's new students are not at all what she expected. Astrid, Felissa, and Sus are more interested in hunting, fishing, and wrestling than learning about etiquette and history, and they know next to nothing about their royal ancestry.

As Miri spends more time with the girls, she starts to suspect that they are part of a long-buried secret, and that the key to solving it rests in her and the sisters' hands. With her new friends at her side, Miri must gather all her strength to solve the mystery--and finally make her way back home.

Fans of Shannon Hale won't want to miss this gorgeously woven return to this best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning series.