Born into a powerful magical family that focuses on medicinal synthing, an ability to diagnose ailments by seeing colors, Halla struggles balancing her family's legacy and expectations with her own career running her apothecary in a quickly modernizing world.
As she navigates through her own struggles, she gets entangled with a powerful family and framed for a poisoning, putting everything she's ever worked for at risk, which sets her on a journey with her ranyi, a reclusive and mythical six-taloned fish-snake, to rediscover her family history, reclaim synthing powers she's long suppressed, and figure out just who exactly is plotting against her.