She ran away from witch school. She came home with a cursed Scottish ferret. Now someone wants to kill the Duke — and a talking weasel is the only witness.Ondine de Groot has had it with Psychic Summercamp. No more astral projection exams, no more howling at the moon — she's fifteen, it's summer, and she deserves to be having fun. So she grabs her suitcase, scoops up the suspiciously friendly ferret who followed her everywhere, and makes a break for home. Simple enough. Except the ferret talks. In a thick Scottish brogue. And he isn't just any ferret — he's Hamish McPhee, Laird of Glen Logan, a real man trapped in a weasel's body by a very offended witch. A witch who turns out to be Ondine's great-aunt.Back at the family's chaotic hotel in Brugel — a wonderfully odd little Eastern European duchy where talking animals are practically normal and plütz vodka flows freely — Ondine barely has time to process her impossible new companion before Shambles overhears something far worse than an embarrassing family secret. There's a murder plot against the Duke himself, and the only way to stop it is for a flustered teenage girl to march into a palace and convince royalty to trust a ferret's testimony. Can Ondine hold her nerve, keep her impossible secrets, and save a duke — before a cursed Scottish mustelid with terrible table manners ruins absolutely everything?

She ran away from witch school. She came home with a cursed Scottish ferret. Now someone wants to kill the Duke — and a talking weasel is the only witness.Ondine de Groot has had it with Psychic Summercamp. No more astral projection exams, no more howling at the moon — she's fifteen, it's summer, and she deserves to be having fun. So she grabs her suitcase, scoops up the suspiciously friendly ferret who followed her everywhere, and makes a break for home. Simple enough. Except the ferret talks. In a thick Scottish brogue. And he isn't just any ferret — he's Hamish McPhee, Laird of Glen Logan, a real man trapped in a weasel's body by a very offended witch. A witch who turns out to be Ondine's great-aunt.Back at the family's chaotic hotel in Brugel — a wonderfully odd little Eastern European duchy where talking animals are practically normal and plütz vodka flows freely — Ondine barely has time to process her impossible new companion before Shambles overhears something far worse than an embarrassing family secret. There's a murder plot against the Duke himself, and the only way to stop it is for a flustered teenage girl to march into a palace and convince royalty to trust a ferret's testimony. Can Ondine hold her nerve, keep her impossible secrets, and save a duke — before a cursed Scottish mustelid with terrible table manners ruins absolutely everything?