Veranix Calbert is The Thorn: the street vigilante who became a legend to the people of Maradaine, especially the gangs that run the neighborhood of Aventil. The Thorn continues to harass Willem Fenmere, the drug kingpin of the Dentonhill neighborhood, determined to stop him and the effitte drug trade.

It's also Exam Week at the University of Maradaine, where Veranix is a magic student. With his academic career-and future as a mage-riding on his performance, Veranix needs to devote himself entirely to studying and participating in a fellow student's thesis experiments.

But with a series of dangerous magical pranks plaguing the campus, it becomes clear that there's someone with a vendetta against the university, and The Thorn may be the only one capable of stopping them. Between the prankster, a war brewing between the Aventil gangs, and the flamboyant assassins Fenmere has hired to kill him, Veranix may end up dead before the week is out.