"After unearthing a conspiracy at court, Red Sparkle Stone, the foundling orphan Empress Elisa has taken under her wing, dares to become a recruit for the Royal Guard-something no woman has done before"--

"All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer's Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery -- magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power. Then an act of sabotage...

"Though Imhrien's memory is clouded by sorcery, she must take vital news to the King-Emperor of Caermelor. Since no commoner may approach the royal court, she assumes a new identity as Rohain, a noble visitor from the distant Sorrow Isles."--Adapted from back cover.

When Tanya's guardian dies, having lost her home and the tavern where she has spent most of her life, she sets out on a perilous quest to petition the queen for help. "Tanya broke up her first fight at 11. By the time she was a teenager she knew everything about the tavern, and she could run it with her eyes closed. She'd never let anyone-- a drunkard or a captain of the queen's guard-- take advantage of her. But when her guardian dies, she might...

Cloaked in mystery, Auralia grows up among criminals outside the walls of House Abascar, where vicious beastmen lurk in shadow. There, she discovers an unsettling--and forbidden--talent for crafting colors that enchant all who behold them, including Abascar's hard-hearted king, an exiled wizard, and a prince who keeps dangerous secrets.

Twelve-year-old Lexington, a foundling raised in a zoo, spends a summer cementing friendships, growing closer to the elephant that saved her life, and learning about her family and herself.

Eilean was born a "wretched"--a lowly foundling raised by the Aldermaston of Tintern Abbey. Then she's chosen to assist in establishing the new abbey of Muirwood, now the site of a castle in the swampy Bearden Muir. Eilean's role is as night servant to the druid Mordaunt, the king's exiled advisor--and prisoner. He's clever, dangerous, and invaluable to the Aldermaston. Mordaunt's priceless secret: the hiding place of an ancient tome that reveals...

Having grown up in a home for foundlings and possessing a girl's name, Rossamünd sets out to report to his new job as a lamplighter and has several adventures along the way as he meets people and monsters who are more complicated that he previously thought. Includes glossaries and maps.