Enter a dangerous game of magic beetles, buried secrets, and shifting time.

Winslet Nubek knows bugs better than she knows people. The sixteen-year-old, homeschooled entomologist is determined to earn her place among the ancient and dangerous ranks of magical insect hunters. With her father’s failing mines pushing them toward bankruptcy, winning the Tournament of Scarabs becomes her only shot at securing her dream and saving her family from ruin. But when she touches a forbidden time scarab before the competition begins, she’s left with a mark she can’t explain and trips into the past she can’t control. Forced to hide her mistake, Winslet enters the tournament with a growing fear of being discovered. As her secrets grow, so do her slips through time.

Rafe Stormholt charts maps like other people write diaries, but his own future isn’t his to navigate. He needs the tournament prize to keep his grandfather’s company out of treacherous hands. After the preliminaries go awry, Rafe ends up on a team of academic misfits, including the bug girl he’s already judged as a liability. But when he’s dragged into the past alongside her, Rafe uncovers truths that shatter the faith his family has held for generations.

Bound by a time-slipping curse, Winslet and Rafe must navigate the tournament’s perilous trials while unraveling a conspiracy buried centuries deep. As enemies close in and the past begins to bleed into the present, they’ll have to decide what they’re really fighting for and what they’re willing to lose to win.