After learning that she is the Princess, Jenna is whisked from her home and carried toward safety by the Extraordinary Wizard, those she always believed were her father and brother, and a young guard known only as Boy 412--pursued by agents of those who killed her mother ten years earlier.

When Princess Jenna is pursued by a dark wizard, it is the apprentice, Septimus Heap, who must save her while enduring such terrors as a night in the Forest with hungry wolverines and carnivorous trees.

Wolf Boy is sent on a Task by Aunt Zelda, while Septimus and the dragon, Spit Fyre, fly off to bring their friends home, but they all wind up on an island whose secrets are as dangerous as its inhabitants.