Since childhood, Diana Foster and Carmen De Luna were inseparable. But after suspecting her father of hiding a dangerous past, Diana pushes Carmen away to protect her from the Foster family history, leaving Carmen to attend the college they'd chosen together without her. Diana's family moves to a small beach town, where her neighbor, Lena Asai, gets swept up in the Fosters' dark tide when she begins a romance with Diana's brother, Quinn.
In her first year at Mondegreen College, Carmen witnesses her professor leading a ritualistic meeting of a secret society, during which he ingests a strange purple substance. When Carmen decides to seek the truth about the society, what she discovers poses a threat to the social balance of the College, and to her roommate's friend group, a circle Carmen is unwittingly thrust into.
Logan Richardson is the professor's son and heir to the society's seat of power. He has rejected everything his father indoctrinated him into, including the society itself, known to his peers as the Jargonauts. But as scenes from his past plague him, his future place in the society descends upon him.
Livvie Deveraux is quickly losing sight of herself amid the partying and social codes of her sorority, leaving her best friend Naomi in the lurch. When Livvie meets a dealer of the purple drug, Neil Austen, they fall fast for each other. But their relationship is strained by addiction and the man who Neil owes money to and is running from.
Though estranged or strangers, Diana, Carmen, and the others are connected by one entity: the wealthy and patriarchal cult controlling the town of Mondegreen. Before long, they find themselves deeply entrenched in the society's machinations with no discernible escape.
