Aster surgically removes a child named Flick's gangrenous foot, damaged by extreme cold from ongoing power outages in the lower decks.

Theo visits Aster and asks for her reluctant help treating Sovereign Nicolaeus's worsening and mysterious illness.

Giselle tells Aster that Nicolaeus's symptoms — blindness, confusion, dissociation — match descriptions found in Lune's encoded notebooks.

Aster uses her medical pass to access the Baby engineering deck, where her mother once worked.

Aster discovers that Baby is fully functional and that a large magnet likely caused all the ship's power disruptions.

Sovereign Nicolaeus dies, and the cruel Lieutenant assumes power as the new ruler of Matilda.

During the autopsy, Aster deduces that both Nicolaeus and Lune were killed by the same rare heavy metal poisoning.

Aster finds a walled-off secret shuttle bay filled with Lune's star charts and engineering notes.

Reading Lune's notes, Aster discovers that Matilda has been on autopilot since its course was secretly altered.

Melusine finds a missing library book on light-speed travel, last checked out by Seamus Ludnecki on the day Aster was born.

Lieutenant publicly executes Flick during a mandatory mass devotion ceremony to intimidate the lower-deck population.

Aster meets Seamus and learns that Lune used a powerful magnet to secretly reroute Matilda toward Earth.

Lieutenant's guards capture Aster and bring her before him, where he smashes her hand with a hammer.

During Giselle's public execution, Lieutenant stabs Giselle and Theo injects Lieutenant with poison, sparking a mass revolt.

Aster discovers her mother's bones inside the escape shuttle, then launches toward Earth carrying her loved ones' bodies.

Aster Grey lives in the oppressed lower decks of the generation starship Matilda, practicing medicine under brutal conditions caused by mysterious power outages. When the ship's ruler Sovereign Nicolaeus falls ill, Aster is drawn into investigating a conspiracy rooted in her dead mother Lune's hidden engineering journals. Her investigation uncovers that both Nicolaeus and Lune were killed by heavy metal poisoning and that Lune secretly rerouted the ship toward Earth before dying. The cruel Lieutenant seizes power after Nicolaeus's death and escalates violence against lower-deck residents, culminating in the public execution of a child named Flick. As Aster pieces together the full truth with help from a man named Seamus, the insurrection she and her companions have planned finally erupts in a violent climax. Giselle is killed, Lieutenant is poisoned by Theo, and Aster escapes to Earth carrying the bodies of her mother and her closest companion.

The key events that drive Matilda's revolution from oppression to escape.

Flick's great-meema gives Aster a cloak as a gift of thanks after the amputation surgery.

Giselle confronts Aster in the hidden botanarium, demanding to know why she cannot heat the entire lower decks.

A drunken guard beats Aster's bunkmates at night but backs down when Aster invokes her connection to Theo.

A malfunction in the field rotation mechanism wounds Aster, allowing her to slip away to Theo's care.

Theo and Aster share an intimate meal after field work, exchanging whispered anatomical recitations.

Giselle appears with a rifle and shoots a guard dead when he moves to rape Aster in the fields.

Giselle reveals to Aster that she has been secretly sneaking into Sovereign Nicolaeus's private chambers.

Giselle and Aster are arrested for a curfew violation and jailed overnight; Giselle is raped while imprisoned.

Theo cuts Aster's hair and dresses her in men's clothes to disguise her for Lieutenant's coronation ceremony.

Aster, disguised as a man, slips Flick's preserved foot among the coronation gifts as a silent act of protest.

Lieutenant summons Aster to his office, threatens her, and demands she cut ties with Theo.

After Flick's execution, a grief-stricken Aster retreats into silent isolation in her botanarium, unreachable even by Melusine.

Theo, fearing for Aster's safety, orders her to leave his quarters and not return.

Disguised as Aston, Aster meets Cassidy Ludnecki at an upper deck lecture and learns how to find Seamus.

The crowd guides Aster through the ship to the hidden shuttle bay after the insurrection erupts.

Behind the headline events of Matilda's revolution lie countless acts of courage, danger, and survival by Aster and those around her. Aster navigates brutal guards, covert alliances with Theo, and the ever-present threat of violence in the lower decks, while Giselle's fierce protectiveness repeatedly saves her life. Key relationships are deepened through confrontations, close calls, and small acts of defiance — from hiding Lune's journals to sneaking into enemy territory in disguise. The new Sovereign's cruelty forces escalating acts of protest and punishment, including Aster's devastating act of leaving Flick's preserved foot at the coronation. Through detention, grief, and mounting losses, Aster and her companions build toward coordinated revolt despite being pushed to their limits. The pool ends with the insurrection erupting and the crowd guiding Aster toward her escape.

The daily dangers, alliances, and personal risks that shaped Aster's path to revolution.

Giselle reveals that what appear to be ordinary engineering notes in Lune's journals are actually written in a hidden code.

Aster discovers that the official engineering room maps conceal a hidden area that appears only on Lune's private map.

After disappearing, Giselle reappears and tells Aster cryptically that she has been 'with your mother' before vanishing again.

Aster's inherited radiolabe activates unexpectedly when she approaches Sovereign Nicolaeus's body during the autopsy.

Reading Lune's notes in the secret shuttle bay, Aster learns the deadly metal is called siluminium and can compress space-time.

Giselle claims that Sovereign Nicolaeus died on her silent command while she was visiting his private chambers.

Melusine tells Aster that Lune gave the ship a directional flick to reroute Matilda's course toward Earth.

Giselle's concealed rifle fires accidentally in the corridors, directly leading to their arrest and overnight imprisonment.

In a flashback, a teenage Giselle is brought to Theo for an illegal abortion, and Theo first recognizes Aster's extraordinary genius.

In a flashback, Theo rescues Aster from Lieutenant's custody and takes her on as a servant, beginning her medical education.

Theo tends to Aster's hammer-crushed hand and the two finally confess their love for one another.

Giselle reads love letters between Aster and Theo in the botanarium, then deliberately sets a fire intending to destroy herself and the research.

Aster and Theo devise a plan to secretly swap the execution poison with an anesthetic to save Giselle's life.

On the way to Giselle's execution, Aster discovers her bunkmates have ingeniously replicated working rifles from the old design.

Aster arrives safely on Earth and buries Lune and Giselle in the ground.

The deepest layer of An Unkindness of Ghosts is built on a chain of revelations — hidden codes, unexpected technologies, and buried family truths that gradually rewrite Aster's understanding of her world and herself. The discovery that Lune's journals are written in code opens a sequence of secrets: a concealed chamber, a space-warping metal called siluminium, and the stunning truth that Matilda has been heading toward Earth on autopilot for twenty-five years. Personal turning points run alongside these discoveries, from a flashback revealing how Theo first recognized Aster's genius to their eventual confession of love. Giselle's psychological deterioration leads to a desperate act of self-destruction that sets the final chain of events in motion. The pool closes with Aster completing her mother's mission, arriving on Earth to bury Lune and Giselle in the ground and reclaiming the history that was taken from her.

The discoveries, revelations, and emotional turning points that change everything for Aster.