Alobar discovers a white hair and hides it rather than accept death, defying his kingdom's customs.

Noog's raven plucks a white hair from Alobar's head while he sleeps, exposing his aging secret to the court.

Alobar wakes in a shallow grave after appearing to die, no longer a king but alive and free.

The village shaman advises Alobar to seek the Bandaloop and reveals to him that the Earth is round.

Alobar meets Pan in a grotto and both declare they are running away from death.

Alobar and Kudra reunite at the Samye lamasery and exchange their full life stories beside a river.

Alobar and Kudra find the Bandaloop caves abandoned and claim them, declaring themselves the new immortals.

Alobar and Kudra spend seven years inside the Bandaloop caves and learn the secrets of immortality.

Pan attends the reburial of Descartes in Paris, already rendered invisible by the growing Age of Reason.

Alobar and Kudra attempt to teleport to America, but Kudra vanishes from the material plane.

Alobar creates the perfume K23 using beet pollen and fills the small Pan-engraved bottle with it.

Priscilla meets Wiggs Dannyboy at a Last Laugh Foundation event, and the two begin a romantic affair.

Wiggs Dannyboy tells Priscilla he met Alobar in a Massachusetts prison and learned almost all of his secrets.

V'lu steals the K23 bottle from Priscilla's Seattle apartment while Priscilla attends the Foundation event.

Kudra rematerializes in Paris believing only hours have passed and delivers the message 'Lighten up!'

Pool 1 traces the central spine of Jitterbug Perfume, beginning with Alobar's first act of defiance against his kingdom's death customs and ending with Kudra's mysterious return centuries later. It follows Alobar's escape from execution, his discovery of immortality with Kudra in the Bandaloop caves, and the catastrophic moment when Kudra vanishes during a teleportation attempt in Paris. Alobar's creation of K23 and his journey to the New World with the weakened god Pan connects the ancient storyline to the modern one. In the present day, Priscilla's romance with Wiggs Dannyboy draws her into the mystery of Alobar's history, and V'lu's theft of the precious bottle sets the final act in motion. The pool closes with the novel's joyful resolution as Kudra rematerializes in Paris with a message that echoes across centuries.

The immortal king's journey from defying death to reunion.

Priscilla finds an unaccompanied beet mysteriously delivered to her Seattle apartment door.

Madame Devalier finds a beet deposited on her sleeping cot inside Parfumerie Devalier.

The LeFever cousins in Paris bicker over the mysterious provenance of a red beet delivered to their offices.

Alobar and his exiled wife Frol settle together in the Christian village of Aelfric.

Alobar and Frol have twin children in Aelfric and Alobar experiences monogamous village life for the first time.

Alobar is declared King of the Bean at a Christmas ceremony and learns he faces ritual execution.

Eight-year-old Kudra witnesses a suttee ceremony and is comforted by the traveling exile Alobar.

Alobar and Kudra's incense business in Constantinople collapses after their unnatural youthfulness is discovered by locals.

Kudra wills herself to physically age in appearance to match Alobar after an existential rift opens between them.

The nymph Lalo, disguised as an aged prostitute, dies in Paris before the couple's planned Atlantic crossing.

The small K23 bottle washes ashore near the Mississippi and reaches Parfumerie Devalier through beachcombers.

Marcel LeFever checks himself into Wiggs Dannyboy's Last Laugh Foundation immortality clinic.

Madame Devalier and V'lu sample the trace K23 remaining in the recovered bottle and resolve to recreate the formula.

Bingo Pajama, Madame Devalier's jasmine supplier, is shot dead by police and releases a swarm of bees.

Priscilla spots her ex-husband Effecto on television and travels to Argentina with Ricki to reunite with him.

Pool 2 covers the significant secondary events that flesh out the novel's world without belonging to its headline arc. It opens with the mysterious beet deliveries that arrive at all three modern-day locations simultaneously, signaling that something larger is afoot. In the ancient storyline, it traces Alobar's detour through village life in Aelfric, Kudra's childhood encounter with a suttee ceremony, and the couple's long years running a Constantinople spice trade before immortality forces them to flee. The pool follows the K23 bottle's improbable journey from the bottom of the ocean to a New Orleans perfume shop, and tracks Marcel LeFever's decision to seek Wiggs Dannyboy's immortality clinic. It closes with consequences that ripple beyond the main cast — Bingo Pajama's death, the swarm of bees it releases, and Priscilla's final journey to Argentina.

The supporting moments that built the story's world.

Alobar confides in his concubine Wren about his white hair, and she agrees to help him conceal his aging.

Wren swaps out the poisoned egg meant to kill Alobar with a death-mimicking concoction, saving his life.

Alobar abandons his wife Frol and their twin children in Aelfric to follow the shaman's call toward immortality.

Alobar reaches the Bandaloop but finds them hostile and cryptic, and retreats to the nearby Samye lamasery to study.

Kudra chooses to flee rather than commit suttee or accept permanent widowhood after her husband dies young.

Kudra runs ahead toward the Bandaloop caves without consulting Alobar, trusting he will follow her there.

Alobar and Kudra visit Pan and the nymphs in Greece, who implore the couple to protect Pan's legacy.

Kudra receives a prophetic vision of a tall Black man dressed in modern clothing holding a swarm of bees.

Alobar and Kudra open an incense shop in Paris near the monastery that will one day house the LeFever business.

Alobar receives a message written in dust in his long-dead wife Wren's handwriting that reads 'Erleichda!'

Priscilla steals the K23 bottle from Parfumerie Devalier and brings it with her to Seattle.

Priscilla discovers that Wiggs Dannyboy has been the anonymous source of the beet deliveries sent to perfumers.

A mob attacks the Last Laugh Foundation, killing Dr. Morgenstern and putting Huxley Anne into a coma.

Huxley Anne wakes from her coma with the help of perfume and speaks of having experienced the other side.

Alobar reveals that beet pollen is the secret bottom note of K23, and Marcel LeFever signs a deal benefiting everyone.

Pool 3 focuses on the pivotal choices and revelations that drive characters across a threshold — moments where the story could have gone differently. In the ancient world, it begins with Wren's secret pact to help Alobar survive and traces the cascade of decisions that follow, from Alobar abandoning his family to Kudra choosing flight over widowhood. Key discoveries punctuate the couple's immortal centuries, including a prophetic vision and a cryptic message from a long-dead wife. In the modern storyline, the pool tracks the revelations that draw Priscilla deeper into the mystery — learning who sent the beets, witnessing violence at the Last Laugh Foundation, and a miraculous awakening that hints at the supernatural. The pool closes on the moment the novel's central mystery is finally solved, when Alobar names the secret ingredient that makes K23 the most extraordinary perfume in the world.