Darrow and Matteo meet. Matteo expresses grief for the deaths of Theodora, Orion, and Dancer, and Sevro appears during Matteo’s eulogy. Matteo leads them to Quicksilver, who has long been watching Darrow through a powerful telescope. Darrow asks for military support, but Quicksilver declines. He does not have weapons, as he and Matteo have used their resources to create Tabula Rasa, a space-based community that they have populated with isolated Homo sapiens. Upset, Sevro walks away, and Darrow asks for further clarification.

Darrow walks with Quicksilver in a garden on Tabula Rasa. They have yet to launch the ship, as they have been waiting for the Rim’s Shadow Armada to get far enough away for them to safely depart. Quicksilver explains that he had children with his first partner and that he elected to save himself instead of his family. He now sees the humans aboard the Tabula Rasa as his children, though he will never meet them to avoid accidentally tainting their culture with the Color hierarchy: “I am contaminated […] We are all contaminated” (319). Quicksilver fired the man who killed his family into space, and he will pass that ship in the Tabula Rasa; Darrow advises Quicksilver to kill him as they pass.

Darrow requests help from Quicksilver in the form of information and resources. He uses Quicksilver’s telescope system to surveil the solar system and sees that Mars is not under immediate threat, as Lysander and the Rim forces are returning to Jupiter’s moons.

The Archimedes’s crew forms a new plan to venture to Jupiter’s moons to meet the Daughters of Ares. Volsung Fa is attacking the area, and Darrow plans to use the chaos as a cover. The others are worried about Darrow confronting Athena since he provided the names of Sons of Ares members to Romulus. Darrow argues that Sevro deserves to go home—“[W]e’re brothers, so in a way it’s my inheritance too” (325).

Lyria has healed from the surgery that removed the AI from her head, and Matteo puts her through one last test to ensure that she is healthy. Matteo gives Lyria the parasite, letting her destroy it. He tells her that Darrow is there. She meets Darrow and is impressed: “It was easier to criticize him from afar. Up close, seeing his body is enough to make me realize the distance between our experiences” (328). Lyria asserts that she wants to go to the Rim to find Volga, but Darrow refuses.

The next morning, Matteo wakes Lyria and takes her to the auto-piloted ship that is to take her and Sevro to Mars. Lyria apologizes to Sevro about Ulysses, quickly realizing that Sevro hadn’t known that his son was killed. She tells Sevro that she was with Victra during childbirth and that the Red Hand killed Ulysses. Sevro gives Lyria a recorded message for Virginia and leaves. Lyria puts the message on the ship bound for Mars and stows away on the Archimedes.

Darrow prepares to leave. He was healed, the Archimedes was repaired, and he was supplied with advanced armor called Godkiller Mark I. In parting, Quicksilver refuses to shake Cassius’s hand. After Cassius leaves, Quicksilver questions whether Cassius will be able to handle Lysander’s death. He also gifts Darrow Fitchner’s first helmet, the Twilight Helm, and his own golden ring. As Darrow is parting with Quicksilver and Matteo, Sevro, sporting his old warhawk haircut, boards the ship.

Lyria sneaks out of her hiding place on the Archimedes. Food has been left out, but she bypasses the fresh food, taking a few prepackaged, ready-to-eat meals and refilling her water. Her resolve falters, and she goes to take a slice of ham and is trapped by Sevro.

The others join, and Sevro frees Lyria and then leaves. Lyria reasserts that she is going after Volga, and Cassius and Aurae defend her, with Cassius agreeing to put Lyria to work on the ship. Darrow and Lyria agree that she will obey Darrow and that she will take any chance to get to Volga.

Aurae takes Lyria to the showers and then to her new cabin, and Cassius brings Lyria fresh clothes. He asks for her call sign, and she tells him that it is “Truffle Pig,” which makes him smile.

Diomedes invites Lysander aboard the Dustmaker during their voyage to the Rim. He boards the ship, handing over his razor and joining Diomedes on the bridge. Diomedes and Lysander go to Helios’s office to eat, and Diomedes updates Lysander, saying that Helios has gone “dark” to further infiltrate Volsung Fa’s forces. Lysander knows about the brutal Ascomanni—lethal Obsidian descendants—since Octavia taught him about them. They talk about the Garter on Io, where food is grown in the otherwise inhospitable Rim, and discuss battle plans. Diomedes wants Lysander to be on the Dustmaker when they arrive at the Rim.

The Dustmaker arrives at the Rim, and an injured and exhausted Helios boards the ship after he and Diomedes exchange their agreed-upon codes. As Diomedes ceremonially transfers control of the ship back to Helios, Lysander notices that something is off. Diomedes asks Helios another coded question, and Helios answers incorrectly, so Diomedes pulls up the sleeve on Helios’s arm, revealing that someone has been surgically fitted with Helios’s body parts.

The imposter and his companions attack, trapping Diomedes in a strange black material and injecting Lysander with a poison that causes intense pain. The imposter calls Volsung Fa, and Lysander realizes that the imposter is Atlas, who has been posing as the Allfather and controlling the Ascomanni. Atlas, still posing as Helios, calls Dido and then destroys her fleet, killing her.

Still wearing the leech, Lysander begins to recover from the poison. The Rim forces attack the Dustmaker, but a hidden Ascomanni fleet joins the fight, destroying the Rim forces, who choose to stand and fight rather than retreat. When he is able to move, Diomedes pushes Lysander into an escape pod but is unable to escape himself. Lysander’s Praetorians, including Rhone, reveal that they are undercover Gorgons.

The Archimedes discovers the remains of Atlas’s attack on the Raa’s forces. While Sevro laughs, Darrow is concerned about the strength of the Ascomanni. Darrow asks Cassius to fly through the wreckage, and they find a horrendous scene—“a sight so inhumane that it puts lead in [his] guts” (371). Darrow feels guilty, as he once led the Obsidians who partook in the massacre. While searching, they pick up a message from Athena, triggering a contingency plan, and Aurae explains that they will need to infiltrate Sungrave, the home of the powerful Raa family. They also find and retrieve Diomedes, taking him prisoner and giving him medical attention.

Sevro wants to torture Diomedes for information, but the others do not let him, with Cassius declaring that he won’t allow torture on the Archimedes, especially since Diomedes saved Cassius’s life. Aurae points out that Diomedes is conditioned to withstand torture.

They continue toward Jupiter’s moons. Sevro accuses Darrow of being jealous of the Ascomanni’s strength. Darrow shares his confusion about the total devastation, and Sevro argues that the Rim forces chose to stay and die, not having learned that honor is an illusion: “Honor, if it ever existed, was the first casualty” (379).

Rhone comes to Lysander and tells him about his past, when he used to go by the name “Fleabite,” and speaks of the sacrifices that he and numerous others made for the Lune family. Lysander realizes that Rhone poisoned him with the Lament, although Rhone had no intention of killing Lysander.

Lysander is taken to see Atlas, who has had Helios’s body parts surgically removed. Atlas has a Yellow kill Helios, and he tells Lysander about his history with the Ascomanni—he befriended Volsung Fa and spent 12 years manipulating the Ascomanni, first uniting their fractured tribes and then directing their aggression toward the Obsidians, who possess advanced technology that Atlas wants to control.

Atlas offers Lysander a deal. Lysander will step in as the “savior” who defeats the Ascomanni instead of Atalantia stepping in. At first, Lysander refuses, but he changes his mind when Atlas threatens to kill him and take his body parts to create a double. Atlas argues that his motivations are good: “I do this because I believe in the Society enough to be the tool it requires” (389). Lysander agrees to ally with Atlas.

Panicked, Lyria wakes Darrow to tell him that Sevro is torturing Diomedes. Cassius hears and follows. Cassius sends Lyria to initiate the fire protocol, which unlocks the door to the cell. Sevro stops, Aurae tends to Diomedes, and Darrow lets Cassius follow and fight Sevro, though he stays to mitigate the fight.

Sevro and Cassius verbally and physically fight. Cassius criticizes Sevro’s behavior, and Sevro criticizes Cassius’s history: supporting the Society and Lysander and killing Fitchner. Lyria joins, asking Darrow to stop the fight. Cassius hits Sevro and says something about not being there for Victra. Lyria tries to intervene but is hit and knocked unconscious, and Darrow stops the fight. Cassius grabs Lyria, whose face is badly injured, and runs to the medical bay. Sevro tells Darrow about Ulysses. When Sevro says that he can’t have a normal family life—that he needs to be the Goblin—Darrow stops him, arguing that Sevro has done a lot of good. Rather than offering sympathy, Darrow tells Sevro to leave if he cannot appropriately help them. He also gets angry with Sevro for his attitude toward Cassius, arguing that Cassius has also experienced loss. Darrow leaves him with a choice—either Darrow will find him passage home, or Sevro must start cooperating.

Lysander is disguised as an Obsidian, and he goes with Atlas to meet with Volsung Fa. He is troubled when he sees enslaved people being transported. Lysander makes a comment about destroying the Garter, where the Rim’s food is grown, and Atlas argues that he doesn’t want it destroyed but controlled: “Absent a dependable source of food there is no civilization’” (402). He talks to a nearby Gorgon who does not like the Ascomanni or the Obsidians.

Fa arrives with a dragon, which is slaughtered for a celebration. Afterward, Lysander and Atlas meet with Fa, who is unarmed and relaxed. Fa and Atlas joke about using religion to control the Ascomanni and Obsidians: “What’s a soul to an atheist?” (409). Fa brings out the surviving members of his family, and Lysander argues that he can marry Diomedes’s young sister when she grows up in a quiet effort to save her from being killed.

Fa is pleased to hear that he will only have to stay in his role for three more weeks until Lysander “defeats” Fa’s forces. Fa has been promised a quiet retirement alongside his daughter, Volga. Fa has lied to Volga, and Lysander questions whether she will trust Fa, but Fa is unconcerned: “She will love me more when she understands my sacrifice” (412). They move on to discussing battle plans—Lysander will reclaim the Garter, winning the love and support of those in the Rim, and then, with the Rim forces, Lysander will lead the final attack on the Ascomanni, with Fa’s death being faked. Millions of civilians will die in the process, but Atlas argues that the following period of peace will last longer if the violence is intense. Atlas lets Lysander choose a moon to spare, and he selects Ganymede—the most populous.

Atlas reveals another part of his plan—to steal a biological weapon, Eidmi, which can be targeted to eliminate any of the Colors. He also says that he has no intention of killing his mother, Gaia, who they have taken prisoner.