Learning about time capsules in school, Nancy Clancy and her best friend, Bree, discover an old silver key and investigate its story in the hope of finding treasure.

To achieve her dream of attending Princeton University, sixteen-year-old Lily Carter accepts the challenge of seeking the Ivy Key to a magical realm, where she finds herself caught in a power struggle between two worlds, with her family at its center.

Melanie Gate, a foundling with a peculiar talent for opening the unopenable, agrees to accompany a gearling automaton named Traveler on his quest to find a home, only to be pursued by the most dangerous wizard in the land and, along the way, discover her true powers.

Neither Cleo nor Evan like the new school librarian, Ms. Crowley, but they are very curious about where she disappears to at the back of the library, so one day they follow her--and find a secret door, a magical library full of locked books, and a letter from the previous librarian telling them that she is trapped somewhere between the covers of one of the enchanted books, and they must travel through the stories in order to save her.

This time Cleo, Evan, the evil Mr. Locke, and his two trolls have all been transported to the Titanic--and if they do not find and save the priceless jeweled copy of the Rubiyat before the ship hits the iceberg and sinks they may all be lost at sea.

In their third trip through the enchanted library, Cleo and Evan land in "The Werewolf's Curse" where Evan is promptly bitten by a werewolf, and the two need to find the cure--and the next key--before the full moon rises and Evan becomes stuck in this horror story forever.