At the last fair of the season, the toymaker Torin proposes to the beautiful sorceress Sharys, and watches his world shatter. Sharys refuses his marriage token because she has just accepted the proposal of his best friend, the adventurer Valdart. Torin's brother falls suddenly and mysteriously ill, and hovers at the brink of death. Valdart's valuable marriage token is turned into a citron fruit, and he accuses Torin, an ex-magician, of enchanting the necklace to stop his marriage to Torin's beloved. And Torin, who may have created magic in his dreams, doesn't know whether or not he changed Valdart's gift in his sleep.