Thanks to many generations of careless magicians, the city of Helm is overflowing with magic, which has made it a perilous place to live. Leave anything alone for too long and it will transform into something else: your house will turn to gingerbread, your teapot will start pouring pond water or – if you're really unlucky – your floor will turn to lava.
The magicians liked to pretend it’s they who keep the worst magical hiccups in check, but the real heroes of the whole sorry situation are of a wholly different occupation: equally well known but decidedly less respected.
The heroes of the city of Helm are the cleaners.
Ward, an ambitious twelve-year-old cleaner, wants nothing more than to belong to the League of Cleaners, who will grant him the prestige and popularity he's been looking for all his life – if only he can pass three near-impossible tests. Struggling toward this goal with a team he doesn't trust, Ward's world is upended when his friend disappears and mysterious magic-eating monsters appear all over the city and start tearing holes in the fabric of reality. Suddenly, his ambitions are the least of his problems…
Tagged magic