Amari and the Despicable Wonders

The third installment finds thirteen-year-old Amari Peters, a born magician and Junior Agent at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, hiding in a motel room with her best friend Elsie Rodriguez, a weredragon, and fellow trainee Jayden Daniels. In the previous book, Amari lost the Great Game to Dylan Van Helsing, who claimed the Crown of Vladimir and stripped Amari of nearly all her magic. Dylan has since attacked the Atlanta Bureau's headquarters, and Amari's brother Quinton, a legendary Special Agent, has only recently awakened from a years-long curse. Acting Prime Minister Elaine Harlowe is consolidating power using a secret mind-control ability.

A fairy journalist named Columbo reveals that Harlowe plans to declare Amari and Elsie enemies of the supernatural world, triggering a worldwide manhunt. To protect their mother, Quinton erases Mama's memories of her children. She walks out without recognizing them, and Amari vows to set things right.

That night, Amari is pulled into a Dream Meet, a form of telepathic communication originating with the Night Brothers, the legendary original magicians. She watches Dylan address the assembled League of Magicians, demonstrating his absolute power and revealing a mysterious swirling blue light. A sympathetic apprentice named Lucas hides Amari and tells her she still has allies in the League.

After fleeing the compromised motel, the group takes refuge at Chamberlain Manor, a haunted mansion designated as a House of Horrors, a classification for supernaturally dangerous dwellings. From there, Amari watches Dylan destroy the London Bureau headquarters and demand the Bureau's dissolution. Agent Magnus, Amari's mentor, arrives and plans with Quinton to arrest Harlowe, but Quinton refuses to let Amari join the mission.

Elsie identifies Dylan's blue light as anti-magick, a force that destroys anything magical it touches, contained within ancient artifacts called Wonders. Against Quinton's orders, Amari visits Dr. Jekyll, the sole survivor of a catastrophic Bureau experiment with anti-magick, who confirms its nature. Lucas, who leads a small resistance of apprentices opposed to Dylan, accompanies her. Dr. Jekyll transforms into his violent alter ego, Mr. Hyde, and Amari barely escapes before Quinton arrives.

Dylan pulls Amari into a private Dream Meet and offers to spare her loved ones if she stays silent about the Wonders. Amari refuses, and Dylan reads her mind, learning Quinton is awake. News breaks that Dylan has been captured at the Supernatural Smithsonian, but Lucas confirms the capture was staged; Dylan used the raid to steal a mural depicting all eight Wonders.

Harlowe announces a Victory Gala. Amari discovers through Eurg, the supernatural messaging app, that Harlowe is using mind control to force her partner Lara Van Helsing to attend. Disguised as Mrs. Chamberlain, Amari infiltrates the gala with Elsie and Jayden. She finds Lara, but Lara, brainwashed by Harlowe, attacks her. Dylan's true strike then unfolds: He broadcasts from the Congress Room, cracking open the time stone that has kept Merlin and the Supernatural World Congress frozen, releasing anti-magick that erases them from existence. Quinton and Magnus arrive, and a battle erupts. The group escapes through a portal Lucas creates.

With the Bureau freed from Harlowe's mind control by a cleansing spell, the War Council, the Bureau's strategic leadership body, votes against allying with Lucas's resistance. Quinton casts the deciding vote, admitting he does not trust magicians. Magnus, however, covertly authorizes Amari to act independently.

Amari's team raids Dylan's Siberian cabin and escapes with a damaged copy of the mural. A hex turns resistance apprentice Hannah to stone during the mission. The group decodes the mural, identifying key Wonders: the Regretful Blade, a knife that destroys both its target and its wielder, and the Lens of Increase, which can stabilize anti-magick for controlled use. A classified Bureau letter warns that whoever possesses the Lens could destroy all supernatural life. Amari activates a hidden feature of the mural, materializing the Lockless Key, a Wonder that opens doors to any location.

Using the Key, the group traces clues to the Van Helsing lake house, where they uncover Dylan's hidden notes and are ambushed by his forces. Amari uses her Victor's Ring, which contains a faint remnant of her former magic, to initiate a Dream Meet with Dylan and pulls an involuntary image from his mind: the apprentice of Moreau, one of the Night Brothers, who knows where the remaining Wonders are hidden.

The apprentice is imprisoned in the Sightless Depths, a lightless underground prison. Armed with a single defective candle, the group descends into darkness and finds him embedded in stone. He provides coordinates to Moreau's workshop in exchange for the Key, then flees with the candle, stranding them. Amari uses the last magic in her Victor's Ring to cast a fading light spell and recovers the Key, allowing the group to escape.

At the Wandering Isles, the Eternal Spiders, Anansi and Arachne, guardians of every person's life thread, show Amari a vision: She holds both the Regretful Blade and the Lens, facing Dylan. Her life thread ends at that moment, but it is the only future in which everyone else survives.

Amari enters Moreau's workshop and finds three remaining Wonders: the Regretful Blade, a horn-shaped Wonder, and the Lens. Lucas appears through a portal, but Dylan follows. He reveals he has been forcing Lucas to track Amari since capturing him at the cabin, using Hannah as leverage. The Dream Meet Amari initiated never tricked Dylan; he planted the image of Moreau's apprentice, manipulating her into locating the Wonders for him. Dylan seizes the Lens and the horn Wonder and escapes. Amari secretly recovers the Regretful Blade, lying to her friends about its fate.

The Bureau launches a raid on a warehouse where the League is reportedly hiding, based on intelligence from Harlowe, who escaped Dylan's custody. Amari and Lara warn Magnus, now promoted to Director, that Dylan possesses the Lens. They deduce the raid is a trap: Dylan recorded Harlowe's mind-control commands during her captivity and plans to replay them. The raid has already begun. Dylan plays the recording, and every agent surrenders involuntarily. He channels anti-magick through the Lens into a controllable sphere, eliminating helpless agents.

Amari reaches the warehouse office and plays a counter-recording of Harlowe's voice, breaking the mind-control hold. Dylan loses control of the sphere and drops the Lens. Amari retrieves it along with the Regretful Blade, pursues the temporarily powerless Dylan, stuns him, and removes the Crown from his head. Understanding the spiders' vision, she plunges the Blade into the Crown, shattering it.

The Blade's curse takes hold: Amari begins flickering out of existence. Magnus wraps his hand around the knife alongside hers, invoking his promise that adults must protect the children they love. Amari releases the knife. Magnus vanishes, the Blade's price paid in her place.

Amari wakes with Mama's memories restored. Her friends confront her about lying about the Blade but reconcile. Quinton apologizes for not trusting magicians. The Bureau holds a ceremony honoring the group. Amari visits Dylan in a magic-canceling cell, where he has lost all magic without the Crown. She tells him she will never forgive him and intends to leave the supernatural world.

Walking through the Bureau lobby, Amari feels a tingle in her fingertips: Her magic has returned. She creates an illusion of Magnus, larger than life in his cowboy hat, replacing the old lobby statue, and promises to make him proud.