Fifteen-year-old Georgia, who loves horses as much as she hates her bullying stepbrother, buys a figurine of a winged horse and finds it has magical powers that transport her from present-day London to the sixteenth-century world of Talia where, in the city of Remora, similar to Sienna, Italy, she finds danger and intrigue as well as friendship and a chance to perfect her riding skills.

Seventeen-year-old Matt, painfully dyslexic and insecure, discovers that he can travel between worlds after being transported to Talia, where he joins Luciano and other Stravaganti in trying to prevent the di Chimici family's breakthrough into our world.

When desperately unhappy Laura, who secretly performs self-mutilation, finds her talisman and transports to Fortezza, a parallel world that resembles the Italian Renaissance city-state of Lucca, she faces battles on the field and of the heart.