With the ink drying on the contract for their fake relationship, Lady Juvelian and Max take their first awkward steps into high society as a couple. While tea parties and balls might be enough for Juvelian to start feeling comfortable with this new arrangement, they do little to assuage her father's disapproval. Under the best of circumstances, he would never allow his student to date his daughter, but as soon as he discovers that Max has real feelings for Juvelian, he makes plans to tear them apart.

Those plans may have to wait, however, for the deranged emperor has schemes of his own, and in order to protect Juvelian, her father and Max might find themselves on the same side. What no one expects, of course, is for Juvelian to take matters of her fate entirely into her own hands...