Eight--year-old Emma and her little dog Tristan take a magic carpet ride to the distant land of Barakash to help a genie recover his stolen magical nose ring.

In the fifth book of the Magykal series, Septimus and his friends wind up on a mysterious island with a dangerous Syren and a villainous band of sailors. Wolf Boy is sent on a Task by Aunt Zelda, while Septimus and the dragon, Spit Fyre, fly off to bring their friends home, but they all wind up on an island whose secrets are as dangerous as its inhabitants.

Dangerous adventures continue for the djinni Bartimaeus and his master, seventeen-year-old Nathaniel, a powerful magician who is serving as England's minister of information.

In their continuing adventures, magician's apprentice Nathaniel, now fourteen years old, and the djinni Bartimaeus travel to Prague to locate the source of a golem's power before it destroys London.