Aerimanders are extinct.  Or so the government would have you think, having centuries earlier destroyed the last of these deadly, dragon-like creatures. So when wealthy twelve-year-old chemistry student Eva Alexander unwittingly purchases an aerimander egg, she becomes the target of the Thieves' Union and its newest member, thirteen-year-old orphan Dusty St. Ichabod. But Eva is no easy mark, and soon she and Dusty are driven into a maze of sinister threats, betrayals and surprises - all while fighting to keep the egg away from power-hungry hands. As the unlikely duo races against time, their fates - and that of the whole world - are at stake.