Morrigan tells Hawthorne and Cadence about meeting the Darlings. Hawthorne in turn reveals that he has been invited to perform an exhibition ride at the Winter Trials. Cadence shares a series of books called the Silverborn Saga that are lightly fictionalized stories of people from the Silver District. Morrigan stays up late reading one.

The next morning, Fenestra the Magnificat (a large, talking cat) asks Morrigan to come see Jupiter. When Morrigan arrives, Jupiter is gone, but his nephew, Jack, is in his study and explains that Jupiter was called off-realm for the League of Explorers. When Morrigan suggests that Jupiter left to avoid her, Jack snaps that there is more going on in the world than what revolves around Morrigan.

Morrigan decides not to attend Modestine’s wedding. However, Lady Modestine shows up at the Deucalion on her wedding day and implores Morrigan to attend. Modestine says that she was only eight when Meredith left but that she felt close to her sister. Modestine offers Morrigan a gown to wear. The best man, Sunil Ghoshal, whom they call Sunny, drives them.

The wedding is held at the Chapel of the Divine Thing in the Paramour Pleasure Gardens. Morrigan thinks Modestine and the groom, Dario Rinaldi, look very good together. Morrigan walks the Pleasure Gardens and notices the many footbridges crossing the canal that circles the park. The wedding planner fetches her to participate in the photographs with the family, which includes Lady Margot and her husband, Tobias, and Lady Miriam and her wife, Winifred. Margot explains that Dario will take the name Darling since the Darlings are one of the Great Houses. Dario is a dragonrider and will be performing at the Winter Trials the next day. Margot reflects to Morrigan that Modestine and Dario are both young and silly, like golden retrievers. She tells Morrigan that her mother wore the same dress Morrigan is wearing and loved it.

Morrigan is hailed by a pair of twins, Lottie and Louis, who want Morrigan to sit with them at the “fun table.” They gossip about fellow wedding guests, and Morrigan learns that Cosimo Rinaldi is called the Ogden Town Dario, implying that he is a lesser, poorer version of his brother.

A shabbily dressed man appears at the reception, insisting he was invited. Aunt Margot makes an effort to welcome him. Lottie calls him “the Vulture.” Modestine announces that she has a wedding gift for Dario: a performance from Gigi Grand and the Gutterborn Five. Gigi was born in the Silver District as Georgette Devereaux but ran away to join a jazz band and is considered a disgrace by her family. The Devereaux leave in a huff. When Morrigan goes to gather dessert, she sees Lottie and Louis greeting their father, who is Laurent St. James.

Morrigan, fearing that the twins were trying to trick her, hurries away. She overhears Aunt Margot scolding the wedding planner, Mr. Stirling, for how he treated the Vulture, whom she calls Mr. Smithereens. Mr. Stirling is angry that Modestine has ruined his reputation by bringing in a jazz band. Morrigan goes to the boathouse and considers stealing a boat but instead falls into the canal. When she climbs out, she overhears Dario, who is riding in the Rinaldi family’s dragon-shaped gondola, pleading with someone he calls his sweetheart. It is Gigi, and she asks why they have to wait to be happy. Dario says Basking is coming and that when the Silver Assembly is over, they can be together (the Silver Assembly is an event at which the Silver District votes on which Houses qualify as Great Houses). Morrigan uses Wunder to dry her dress and then goes back to the wedding, wondering how to tell Aunt Modestine what she overheard.

A beautiful and precious dragon called Alights on the Water Like a Seabird arrives. She is the dragon Dario rides, and as dragon and rider perform, she writes a message in the sky: “I love you a million dragons” (171-72). Morrigan realizes that the message is for Gigi, not Modestine. As the dragon flies off, Morrigan sees the dragon-shaped gondola floating down the canal. In it is the body of Dario, who is dead.

The commentators at the Winter Trials discuss the shock at the death of Dario Rinaldi, one of dragonriding’s favorite riders. They speculate on who might be Dario’s replacement. As they sit in the stands, Morrigan updates Cadence on what happened at the wedding. Cadence wants to solve the murder.

Seven riders and their dragons participate in the exhibition, but Hawthorne stands out. When he joins Cadence and Morrigan, Hawthorne reveals the gossip that Dario was stabbed to death. He wonders if the murderer was another rider since the sport is highly competitive and the best dragons are coveted. They hear that the wedding planner, Mr. Stirling, was arrested.

Cadence turns Unit 919’s “Civic Tasks” class into a strategy session, enlisting everyone’s support to investigate Dario’s murder. She has found a series of books called the Silverborn Mysteries, which are set in the District. Cadence notes that in these books, the guilty person is always someone from outside the Silver District and that the culprit is exposed by the Silver District Watch rather than the usual police force, called the Stink.

Morrigan usually loves coming home from school, but this night she is uncertain about whether she wants to see Jupiter. She and Hawthorne discuss whether she could use Tempus to create a “ghostly hour” to see who murdered Dario. Such hours are “small, preserved pockets of time—useful or interesting moments plucked from history to be observed in the present” (196).

After Hawthorne goes home, a black shadow horse appears, and Morrigan rides across a Gossamer bridge to meet Ezra in a pale pink room high above the city. He asks Morrigan to feel the energy in the window, and she realizes that they are in a Skyfaced clock. Squall believes Morningtide is ending and Basking is coming. He describes Basking as an energetic season. Morrigan asks about learning to create a ghostly hour, and Squall insists that she is not sophisticated enough for that; moreover, reaching into the past can “bruise” or alter it. Morrigan tries to bargain, saying that Squall can remove the Hush in exchange for teaching her Tempus, but Squall reveals that he has already lifted it. When Morrigan starts to explain that she wants to revisit the moment of Dario’s murder, Squall calls Dario the “Falling Star” that heralds Basking. Squall proposes that she learn three new Wundrous Arts and receive the corresponding seals from the Divinities (the gods that embody different Arts); then, he will teach her Tempus.

With the Hush lifted, Morrigan worries about how to tell Jupiter her secret. Hawthorne and Cadence are shocked and upset when Morrigan tells them while they are visiting the stable of Volcano in the Sky, one of the Wunsoc dragons. Morrigan protests that trying to learn the Wundrous Arts from dead Wundersmiths using ghostly hours isn’t as helpful. However, her friends believe that Squall is dangerous and are worried about her.

Morrigan continues to worry about how to approach Jupiter. Lucinda Hallewell, a girl from Unit 920, the class behind hers, gives Morrigan a letter. Lucinda is from the Silver District, and the letter is from Aunt Margot, inviting Morrigan to attend a memorial service for Dario at Darling House.

Cadence gathers her classmates to update them on her investigation. Morrigan is impressed but a little alarmed by Cadence’s efforts. Hawthorne agrees to look at the dragonriders to see if he can find clues: He believes that getting a chance to ride a prestige dragon might be a motive for murder. Anah notes that in murder mysteries, the killer is always the one the reader would never suspect. Morrigan suggests that they look at the wedding photographs to see who was not present for the cake cutting, as that might yield a suspect.