Fifteen year old Robbie Merlin's turbulent coming-of-age draws him through the furnace room at his high school into the hidden Arthurian world of Dragon Light. Here he learns he is a Fire Tender charged with re-igniting the forge and freeing his dragon. Years later, with Dragon Light behind him and his thirty year teaching career at the same high school coming to an end, he mentors a talented artist in the afterschool program whose art raises the possibility Dragon Light really exists.