Though Jyximus Faire lives in a crumbling tenement in the Underground City, he escapes the squalor daily to attend lessons in magic and sorcery at the prestigious Academy in the City Above. But the pace isn't fast enough for Jyx. He wants to learn everything - and he wants to learn it now. Then the dread necromancer general Eufame Delsenza sets her sights on Jyx; she needs a new apprentice, and Jyx fits the bill. When she tasks him with helping to prepare royal mummies for an all-important procession, he realises this might be a chance of a lifetime. Will Jyx's impatience lead to him taking his education into his own inexperienced hands, and can a necromancer's apprentice really learn to raise the dead - and control them?