Alex Scire never thought much about the supernatural - until he mistakenly took his dad's magical ankh. Suddenly, he starts seeing ghosts everywhere, including his twin sister, Deborah, who's stuck in the afterlife. Desperate to move on, she asks Alex to help her find the Palantir, an object with extraordinary magical powers.

After discovering a clue to the Palantir's location, Alex joins an archeological expedition headed to the ancient Mayan city of Lamanai to search for the object. But to find it, he has to battle a tyrannical ghost king, survive assassination attempts by those who killed his family, and gain the trust of two skeptical Druid apprentices.

This is the first of eight books in the young adult fantasy series - The Maqlû.