I always thought I'd be a grown up when I grew up

Serafina, a woman of Ethiopian ancestry, has come to Alpennia in hopes of developing her gift of mystical vision. She has left behind an increasingly loveless marriage to a man who has come to prefer traveling Europe in support of his own professional interests. But although Serafina manages to secure the interest of Margerit Sovitre, now the royal thaumaturge, the nature of Serafina's own powers remains frustratingly elusive: although she can see visions and vividly describe them, she does not seem to be able to manipulate the energies she sees. Serafina becomes disappointed with her own lack of utility and feels increasingly that she will always be the outsider in the society of Alpennia.

While she works with Margerit, Serafina lodges with Luzie Valorin, a widowed music teacher who has hopes of becoming a composer and who rents rooms to help support her two young sons. As the two women become close, Serafina begins to wonder whether there is something more than just musical talent in Luzie's compositions.

Meanwhile, Margerit and her inner circle continue their lives and their work. Margerit starts to make her dreams of a university that accepts women as equals a reality, Antuniet starts a Great Work that is not what it seems, and Barbara earnestly pursues the responsibilities of a baroness — until a near-tragedy interrupts her new routine.

Providing an uneasy background to all this activity is the condition of the nation of Alpennia itself. The principal river is running low and not flooding as expected. The more sensitive of this group of adepts start to suspect that this situation is not natural.

These disparate elements come together for a very interesting climax. I enjoyed this one.

Some reviewers have noted that the previous Alpennia books focus on the lives of women of wealth and position who have the resources of money and status to enable them to lead the lives of their choices. Here, Jones starts to focus on women who do not have such great advantages. Serafina and Luzie are leading comfortable-enough lives, but they are both very much dependent on their current somewhat-precarious sources of income: Serafina on a stipend from her husband, who assumes that she is back home in Rome, and Luzie on her pupils and the musical odd jobs (transcription and such) that she does for a well-known composer.