Sabine Velde, a teen podcaster on the hunt for a big idea, finds inspiration in her mother's old lecture notes from the Concepts of Modern Natural Science, a freshman subject from decades ago. Hidden between the notes is a handwritten message: "If I disappear, know that they took me." Sabine suspects the message is from Dr. Julia Rogoff, the enigmatic professor who taught the subject--she disappeared twenty years ago. The message launches Sabine straight into the heart of an old campus mystery which, to this day, keeps students and faculty wary of the shadowy "Pale Men", believed to be the omens of death. As Sabine untangles the clues surrounding Julia's long-ago disappearance, she believes the Pale Men are the ones being referenced in the message. But they do not want to be found. Sabine's investigation lands her in the crosshairs of the vicious occult society that might be responsible for Julia's fate, while her mother's entanglement with the society twists everything Sabine thought she knew about herself, pushing her toward the point of no return. Will she resist the magicians or lose herself to their dark thrall?