Lyra Wilder has a fire problem—literally and emotionally. As a volatile fire witch with a reputation of leaving scorch marks wherever she goes, she's one magical mishap away from being expelled from Coven Crest Academy. When she's sentenced to a year of community service with the academy's stoic, reclusive groundskeeper, she expects misery and manual labor. She doesn't expect Cairn: a brooding minotaur with soil-stained hands, quiet strength, and a soul more deeply rooted than the gardens he tends.

Cairn Axton has kept his world small and quiet for a reason. He doesn't need chaos. He doesn't need fire. And he certainly doesn't need a defiant, impulsive witch disturbing the fragile peace he's worked so hard to build and protect. But what begins as reluctant cooperation slowly blossoms into something neither of them planned: respect, vulnerability . . . and a forbidden love that could cost them everything.

As the seasons shift and their connection deepens, Lyra and Cairn must confront the fears and scars they've both buried. Because love, like magic, has rules—and breaking them could set a fire that'll be impossible to put out.