The day before the trees died, Valeria Garcia wasn't thinking about magic. She was thinking about a boy. As beautiful as she is cruel, seventeen-year-old Valeria is next in line as high priestess of a secret coven. But beneath a mask of perfection, she feels bitterly alone. Luke Nichols, a handsome fellow witch, is her only solace, until he abruptly dumps her when she needs him the most.

Shy, unmagical Gwen Foster has been the target of Valeria's bullying for years. As children, the two shared a forbidden friendship. Now, Gwen spends her days lost in gothic novels, desperate to stay out of Valeria's crosshairs.

When Gwen strikes Valeria with a blast of silver flames, it's clear she has, impossibly, developed magic of her own. The more Gwen learns about her new abilities, the closer she gets to Luke, the witch who broke Valeria's heart. But Gwen's powers arrive just as an unknown force attacks the coven, killing the trees in the coven's forest, and robbing Valeria's parents of their magic. Gwen and Valeria must work together to learn the source of Gwen's power, and to confront the evil that threatens to consume one of them. Can their childhood bond prevail against the temptation of Malevolent Magic? And can the two girls trust each other after all the (sometimes literal) bridges between them have burned?