On a quest to find and return the Coronnan dragons and save the Commune of Magicians, journeymen magicians Marcus and Robb take shelter from a storm in a long abandoned monastery—only to become ghosts, trapped and invisible inside ruins no one visits, with only mounds of gold for company.

Healer Vareena has inherited the ability to care for the ghosts only she can see and hear in the old monastery. Exhausted, Vareena understands why her mother died tending the ghosts and acting as healer for a community well off the main trade routes. To save herself, she must escape her family, her village, and the ghosts.

Not all the gold in the ruins is enough to buy her freedom.

Then two more ghosts turn up.None of them can leave. Ever. Unless the two hapless magicians can break the curse.