Twig, a young sky pirate captain, is the only one who can save the floating city of Sanctaphrax from the Mother Storm.

Rook Barkwater, one of the apprentices chosen to make a dangerous journey to study in the Deepwoods, joins the sky pirate Captain Twig in opposing the Guardians of the Night and learns more about his own past.

Hedgehog, who hibernates through the winter, wants to know what winter feels like, so he asks his friend Rabbit to save him a little bit of winter to share in the spring.

Apprenticed to the Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax, a floating city of scholars, gossip, and treachery, fourteen-year-old Quint runs increasingly dangerous errands, which eventually bring him to a place of gruesome monsters that threaten his life and those of his friends.

Quint finally begins his training at the Knights Academy, Maris adjusts to life in Undertown, and Sanctaphrax shivers in anticipation of a legendary storm, while a storm of a different kind brews between sky-scholars and earth-scholars.

An unbonded knight traveling as a "free lance" meets more than his share of trouble when he signs on with Lord Big Nose to recover a crown from the Lake of Skulls.

When heavy rains arrive, Rabbit, a day creature, gets his wish to spend more time with his friend Hedgehog, who usually sleeps during the day.

When Sir Knight saves a damsel in distress, she is forced to return the favor.

Nate Quarter, a lowly lamplighter in the phraxmines of the Eastern Woods, must flee for his life when the mine sargeant wants him killed, while elsewhere, a storm unlike any ever seen is building.