Benjamin tells Letta he is leaving on a word-finding trip the next morning.

A wounded young man named Marlo collapses on the wordsmith shop floor after being shot by a gavver.

Letta hides Marlo in the Monk's Room as gavver Carver searches the wordsmith shop.

John Noa tells Letta that Benjamin is dead and gives her Benjamin's satchel.

Letta visits imprisoned painter Hugo through the prison grating and he tells her how to contact Marlo.

Letta finds an anonymous message in the wordsmith shop's drop box reading 'BENJAMIN NOT DEAD.'

Letta overhears Noa ordering that Benjamin be tortured and then banished to the forest.

Letta, Marlo, and Finn attach an ink canister to Benjamin's transport cart to track its path through the forest.

Letta, Marlo, and Finn follow the ink trail and find a gravely injured Benjamin near Edgeware's fire.

Benjamin warns Letta not to drink the water, reveals Noa plans to make everyone wordless, then dies.

Scientist Solam explains that Nicene is a chemical that destroys the brain's language center when dissolved in water.

Noa orders gavver Carver to kill the imprisoned Leyla; Letta immediately warns Amelia of the order.

Letta hides inside a water barrel and is hoisted to the top of Noa's tower.

Letta stabs Noa during a confrontation on the tower platform and he falls to the floor far below and dies.

Letta opens the package Benjamin left in his study and discovers her parents' maps and charts.

Letta is left alone as wordsmith when her mentor Benjamin disappears on a routine word-finding trip and never returns. After Noa falsely declares Benjamin dead, Letta uncovers contradictions in the official story and begins working with the rebel Creators to find him. She learns that Noa secretly plans to poison Ark's water supply with a chemical that destroys the brain's capacity for language, and that she has been unknowingly helping him destroy words all along. Following Benjamin's death from torture, Letta commits fully to stopping Noa and infiltrates his tower by hiding inside a water barrel. In a climactic confrontation on the tower platform, she foils the poisoning plot and kills Noa. With Noa dead, Letta inherits her parents' maps from Benjamin's final gift and prepares for the next chapter of the resistance.

The rise and fall of Ark's wordsmith against Noa's plan to silence humanity.

Letta prepares new word boxes for students, removing words including Dream, Hope, Love, and Faith from the List.

Gavver Carver visits the wordsmith shop, corrects Letta's language, and drops the tea tray burning her ankles.

Gavvers seize carpenter's apprentice Daniel in the street and beat him before dragging him away to be banished.

Letta discovers a woman named Leyla playing a saxophone on a rooftop by the wheat fields.

Letta travels to the shantytown Tintown to find scavenger Smith Fearfall and is attacked and robbed by street children.

An old painter named Hugo defiantly displays a painting of the forest on the mill wall and gavvers beat him to the ground.

Noa unexpectedly visits the wordsmith shop while Marlo is present; Marlo poses as 'Leo from Tintown' to avoid detection.

While exploring Noa's building, Letta discovers a laboratory where word cards are being pulped and destroyed.

Letta impulsively climbs onto Benjamin's transport cart to touch him before it throws her off at the South Gate.

Marlo takes Letta to the Creators' pump house, where artists paint by candlelight and Leyla plays saxophone.

Leyla asks Letta if she is Freya's daughter and reveals the song she sang was Letta's mother's favorite.

Gavver Carver arrests Letta and beats her in a prison cell until Noa arrives and stops him.

Amelia tells Letta on the beach that she was the one who left the anonymous 'Benjamin not dead' message.

Scavenger Fearfall spots Letta on the street and shouts to alert the gavvers; she escapes by climbing into a manhole.

Amelia assumes power in Ark after Noa's death and quickly proves herself a ruthless new enemy.

Life in Ark is defined by rigid linguistic control, made vivid when children's word boxes are stripped of concepts like Dream, Hope, and Love. Letta's first encounters with the Creators—witnessing Leyla's rooftop saxophone performance and Hugo's defiant painted mural—begin to crack her belief in Noa's regime. Her investigation into Benjamin's disappearance takes her through Tintown's brutal poverty and eventually to a hidden pump house filled with music, art, and family revelations. At the pump house, Leyla reveals a blood connection that transforms Letta's sense of who she is and what she is fighting for. As Carver beats her in a cell and Noa's grip tightens across the city, Letta's loyalty to Ark finally breaks for good. The aftermath of Noa's death brings no clean resolution, as Amelia immediately seizes power and reveals herself as a formidable new enemy.

The world of Ark and the moments that pulled Letta toward the resistance.

Scavenger Smith Fearfall finds a metal canister labeled NICENE washed up on the beach.

A feverish Marlo shouts the name 'Finn' and warns Letta not to tell anyone about the pump house.

Letta sneaks to the wheat fields and tells Creators' leader Finn that Marlo is at the wordsmith shop.

Letta studies Benjamin's map and realizes the river location contradicts Amelia's story about where Benjamin was found.

Letta meets Fearfall in Tintown; he denies recognizing Benjamin's bag and flees when she asks about the river.

Letta leaves a secret note under the Goddess statue to make contact with Marlo after receiving the anonymous warning.

Letta visits Noa and proposes adding the word Hope to the List; Noa refuses and dismisses hope entirely.

Letta hides under Noa's desk and retrieves the banishment order, learning Benjamin will be taken through the South Gate.

Benjamin opens his eyes and says Letta's name after she nurses him in a forest cabin.

Edgeware reveals that Noa cut out her son Thomas's tongue as a wordlessness experiment; Thomas later hanged himself.

After burying Benjamin, Letta decides to return to Ark and fight Noa from within as the wordsmith.

Under questioning by the Creators, Fearfall admits that the canister he brought to Noa was labeled NICENE.

Amelia reveals that Letta was born in Noa's house and lived there for four years before her mother betrayed Ark.

Werber delivers a personal water supply from Noa to Letta, signaling that Noa's contamination plan is now imminent.

Marlo gives Letta a knife to hide in her boot before she climbs into the barrel at the beach.

From the opening scene in which a mysterious canister labeled NICENE washes ashore, the novel seeds its central revelation about Noa's true plan. Letta's suspicions about Benjamin's fate deepen when she notices contradictions in the official story and discovers that Fearfall is lying about what he found. Her investigation crosses a point of no return when she sneaks into Noa's office, hides under his desk, and steals the critical information needed to stage a rescue. Benjamin's death strips away Letta's final doubts, and a cascade of revelations—the horror of Edgeware's story, Nicene's true purpose, and the shocking truth about Letta's own origins—reframes everything she thought she knew about Ark. The moment Werber delivers Noa's personal water supply, Letta understands the poisoning is imminent and the time to act has come. Armed with a knife from Marlo and a clearer sense of who she is, Letta climbs into a barrel and heads toward the confrontation that will decide the fate of language itself.

The secrets and decisions that transformed Letta from loyal apprentice to rebel.