Mary Finch dies, and her greedy nephew Robert ignores her will and sells Isabel and Ruth to the Locktons.

Isabel and Ruth are transported by boat from Rhode Island to New York City as the Locktons' enslaved servants.

Curzon meets Isabel and proposes she spy on the Locktons in exchange for help securing her and Ruth's freedom.

Isabel overhears a secret meeting where Lockton's allies reveal a Crown-funded bribery scheme, and she reports it to Curzon.

Isabel overhears Master Lockton and the city mayor plotting to pay a soldier to assassinate General George Washington.

Ruth suffers a violent epileptic seizure, and Madam Lockton beats her with a broom, convinced Ruth is possessed by a demon.

Isabel steals the conspirators' name list from Lockton's desk and bargains the information for her and Ruth's freedom with Colonel Regan.

The assassination plot is uncovered, and Master Lockton secretly escapes the city hidden inside a dairy crate.

Madam Lockton drugs Isabel's milk and sells Ruth away to a family in the West Indies while Isabel sleeps.

Isabel confronts Madam Lockton and flees to the Battery, but Colonel Regan refuses to honor his promise and help her.

Isabel is captured, imprisoned, tried, and branded on her face with the letter I for insolence on Madam Lockton's orders.

Curzon contacts Lady Seymour, who nurses Isabel through a dangerous fever before returning her to the Lockton household.

British forces invade New York City, and Isabel's escape attempt is thwarted when Master Lockton returns with the British army.

Madam Lockton reveals Ruth was sent to the Charleston plantation and never sold, then imprisons Isabel in a potato bin.

Isabel breaks a gravely ill Curzon out of Bridewell prison and rows them both across the harbor to New Jersey.

Isabel and Ruth are sold to the Locktons after their owner's dying wish to free them is ignored by her greedy nephew. In New York City, Isabel agrees to spy on the Tory Locktons in exchange for Colonel Regan's promise to help return the sisters to Rhode Island. After uncovering and reporting a plot to assassinate George Washington, Isabel is savagely betrayed when Madam Lockton sells Ruth away and has Isabel branded on her face. With her freedom bargain broken and Ruth gone, Isabel sinks into despair under the British occupation of New York. When Madam finally reveals Ruth's true whereabouts and imprisons Isabel in a potato bin, the revelation becomes the spark Isabel needs to act. She rescues the gravely ill Curzon from Bridewell prison and rows them both across the harbor to freedom in New Jersey.

The headline events of Isabel's fight for freedom amid the American Revolution.

Robert tries to sell Isabel and Ruth on a tavern doorstep; tavern wife Jenny feeds the girls and tries to buy them.

At the Lockton mansion, Ruth is made Madam's personal maid and Isabel's given name is forcibly changed to Sal.

Lady Seymour visits the Lockton home for the first time, asks for Isabel by name, and insists on seeing both sisters.

Bellingham and soldiers arrive to harvest lead from the Lockton home for ammunition and proceed to arrest Master Lockton.

Isabel is sent to fetch Lady Seymour after Lockton's arrest and is warmly received with food, milk, and kindness.

Isabel secretly plants her mother's seeds in the yard and slips into the forbidden library to read Robinson Crusoe.

Thomas Hickey is publicly hanged for his role in the plot against Washington, with Isabel and Ruth watching in the crowd.

Isabel watches a jubilant crowd hack apart King George's statue after the Declaration of Independence is announced in the city.

Becky vanishes after the British occupy the city, leaving Isabel to manage the entire Lockton household entirely alone.

A massive fire tears through New York City, and Isabel helps Lady Seymour escape before Lady Seymour suffers a stroke.

The Locktons host an extravagant dinner party celebrating the British capture of rebel prisoners while the rest of the city suffers.

Isabel tells a prison guard that Curzon is her brother to gain entry to Bridewell and begins smuggling him food.

A prison sergeant asks Isabel to report Bridewell's wretched conditions to Continental commanders in exchange for Curzon's protection.

Captain Morse bakes a rebel victory message inside a loaf of bread for Isabel to secretly deliver to the prison.

Master Lockton announces his departure for London, leaving Madam Lockton and Isabel alone in the British-occupied city.

From the desperate tavern sale that first delivered the sisters into the Locktons' hands, Isabel is thrown into the chaos of a household at the center of colonial politics. She is stripped of her name, separated from Ruth, and slowly begins to find fragile community through Lady Seymour's quiet kindness and the enslaved people she meets at the Tea Water Pump. The sisters witness the war's defining public spectacles, from Thomas Hickey's hanging to the jubilant destruction of King George's statue, as the city transforms around them. When the great fire burns most of New York and the British complete their occupation, Isabel becomes the sole keeper of the Lockton house. Her secret visits to the imprisoned Curzon pull her into a web of smuggled food and rebel messages, giving her a renewed sense of purpose even as Master Lockton sails away to London and Madam's cruelty intensifies.

The supporting events and relationships that shape Isabel's world in New York.

Isabel visits her mother's unmarked grave during Mary Finch's funeral and secretly pockets a handful of her mother's seeds.

Isabel imagines the grief of enslaved ancestors during the ocean crossing, connecting her suffering to generations stolen across the water.

Madam Lockton slaps Isabel across the face at the New York dock when Ruth laughs during the soldiers' baggage inspection.

Curzon urges Isabel at the Tea Water Pump to search for written documents and letters proving Lockton's Tory allegiances.

Master Lockton strikes Madam in private, but Madam falsely blames the injury on Isabel for leaving candle wax on the floor.

An enslaved woman passing in the street sings a coded warning, sending Isabel into the shadows during her nighttime journey to the Battery.

Colonel Regan gives Isabel the secret password ad astra and instructs her to return the stolen conspirators' list to Lockton's desk.

British warships fill New York Harbor and their cannon fire sends a congregation fleeing when it disrupts a church service Isabel attends.

Curzon visits the Lockton house to apologize to Isabel for Regan's betrayal, but Isabel furiously slams the door in his face.

An elder called Grandfather kisses Isabel's branded scar at the Tea Water Pump and urges her to seek her own river Jordan.

Isabel spots Curzon among a ragged procession of captured rebel soldiers being marched into Bridewell prison.

Isabel finds Phillis Wheatley's poetry book at a stationer's shop and receives a secret copy of Common Sense by Thomas Paine.

On Christmas night, Isabel bakes a pudding and delivers it to a family in need, feeling genuine peace for the first time.

Madam Lockton strikes Isabel with a riding crop for carrying a message, and Isabel defiantly burns the incriminating letter in the fire.

Isabel forges a travel pass under the name Isabel Gardner and takes Lady Seymour's money with the dying woman's silent approval.

Isabel's journey begins with the small but powerful act of pocketing her mother's seeds at a graveside, a symbol of the family roots she will fight to preserve across every hardship that follows. Each stage of her transformation is marked by a moment of betrayal, discovery, or quiet resolve — from a coded street song that saves her life, to a door slammed in a friend's face, to an elder's cryptic blessing at the water pump. The arrival of British warships, a secret pamphlet, and Curzon's reappearance as a prisoner all gradually deepen Isabel's understanding of what freedom truly costs. A stolen Christmas night delivering pudding to strangers marks the moment she begins to reclaim her inner self even while still enslaved. In the final chapters, each act of defiance — burning a letter, forging a new name, accepting a dying woman's coins — becomes Isabel's personal declaration of independence before she sets out to find Ruth.