The last ordinary morning of Viridia's life smelled like scorched bread and her mother's tea.

Three days later she walks through the gates of Hazel-the most prestigious school for mages in the country-orphaned, silent, and certain of one thing: no one is ever going to see her grieve.

Viridia is good at not being seen. She is about to learn why it has kept her alive.

In a world that long ago tore its magic cleanly in two-light from dark, safe from forbidden-Viridia was born whole. Both halves. The one thing Hazel was built to make certain could never exist. To be known is to be killed. So she makes herself small. She learns, in secret, what she truly is. And she lets in one person: Alice, the only girl at Hazel who sees the drowning underneath the quiet.

Then the people who fear what this school hides decide to burn it down-and a girl who survives by disappearing must choose between the many she can save and the one she cannot bear to lose.

A quiet, lyrical fantasy about grief, found family, and a girl who refuses to be made small, Hazel Academy is the first book of The Saeren Chronicles-for listeners of Allison Saft and Margaret Rogerson who want grief held with control, found family that costs something, and a heroine whose quiet is her armor until she decides it isn't.