Sheikh Sasan offers Amina a deal: He will give Dalila a merciful death if Amina and Raksh leave immediately. Amina refuses to negotiate until she sees her friend. Sasan has a battered and bound Dalila brought before them, revealing that his brother had been romantically interested in Dalila and that Dalila’s betrayal of the guild got his brother killed.

The tense meeting is interrupted by a series of arrivals. Ishaq, Amina’s vengeful ex-husband, had been posing as the barman from the start and had prepared a poisoned drink intended for Amina; he is unmasked only after Raksh steals her untouched cup, reacts to it, and the Banu Sasan strip away Ishaq’s disguise. Before he can be dealt with, more of Amina’s old adversaries storm the meetinghouse, drawn by the news of her presence: a warrior named al-Uqab, a gang of arsonists led by Taumuriya, and the pirate princes of Kish. As the various criminal factions begin to fight, Raksh, energized by the escalating conflict, claps his hands and unleashes a wave of magical chaos, driving everyone into a violent battle frenzy. A fire breaks out. In the ensuing brawl, Amina frees Dalila. The two escape through a window into the water and navigate the canals to a hidden canoe. Pursued by Raksh’s disembodied voice, they flee through the mangroves and reach Amina’s ship, the Marawati.

Aboard the Marawati, now sailing away from a burning Sarilaglag, Dalila is weak and emotionally withdrawn. In the ship’s galley, she confides in Amina that she betrayed the Banu Sasan years ago because she discovered among them one of the men responsible for the destruction of her home village. However, when she notices that Amina has her meteor blade back, Dalila becomes agitated and evasive, shutting down the conversation to focus on rebuilding her poisoner’s kit.

The crew grows wary of Dalila’s obsessive and paranoid behavior, since Dalila spends all her time foraging flotsam and trying to assemble something from it. Amina tries to ask Dalila what she is doing, but her friend remains secretive. After Amina glimpses a brief vision of a green shore and white city and sets course for it, the constellations in the sky begin changing completely every night, leaving her crew lost without a way to navigate.

The narrative is addressed in second person to a primordial entity, recounting the origin of what would become the spindle’s spirit. She is a weaver from a peaceful seaside village renowned for its beautiful textiles. The village is raided; the men and boys are slaughtered, and the women are enslaved to reproduce their craft. The woman’s husband and infant are killed in the raid, and she and her daughter are raped. The daughter survives the raid but is left unable to speak. She becomes the only reason for the enslaved woman to keep living. One day, an overseer monitoring the craftwork of the enslaved women and girls beats the daughter to death for her silence using the daughter’s own spindle. Overcome with grief and rage, the woman uses the splintered spindle to kill the overseer. As a fire engulfs the workshop, she cradles her daughter’s body, and a mysterious supernatural entity summons her into the surrounding forest.

She follows the call of the entity into the forest where she feels she merges it with it, now referring to herself as “we”. The entity, an old vengeful goddess, commands the woman to use her spindle to spin. The woman realizes that she can now use the spindle to spin not just yarn but also memories, illusions, and manipulations for mortals. She is seized by a hunger for vengeance as well as creation. Returning to the town of her captors, she spins maddening memories and visions, till the townspeople turn on each other and burn the city down. There are no survivors.

The Marawati is caught in a violent, unnatural storm. The ship is battered, the main mast snaps, and six crewmen are swept overboard and lost, including a young lookout named Firoz. Amina reaches Firoz and pulls him to her chest, but a support snaps and strikes her unconscious; by the time the crew pulls her in, Firoz is gone. She awakens on a beach where the Marawati has been wrecked. Majed, the ship’s navigator and Amina’s old friend, informs her of their losses. The island is strange and ominous, and they find remnants of other shipwrecks along the shore. Amina is certain this is the realm of the fabled Queen Lab.

The crew sets up a camp. While Amina and Tinbu, the first mate, are in the forest, they encounter a flock of peculiar sheep with tear-like markings. The group is soon approached by four friendly locals, led by a young man named Arno, who offer food and aid. Arno explains they are in the kingdom of Khatti Ugal, ruled by a line of queens all named Lab.

Amina, Dalila, Majed, and Tinbu are guided by Arno toward the city of Khatti Ugal. Arno describes it as a paradise, though he confirms that no one ever successfully sails away from the island’s treacherous waters. They arrive at the White City, a unique settlement of unwalled, open-air buildings that seems to be blending with the wilderness. Some Khatti Ugalans wear white robes, while others are dressed in ornate cloaks. Arno explains that the brightly colored cloaks worn by some citizens are reserved for those who have completed certain religious “rites.”

While resting in a plaza, Amina experiences a brief, jarring vision in which she sees the pristine city as a crumbling ruin. Concerned for Amina’s health after her head injury, her companions urge her to rest. Their wait is cut short by the arrival of the queen’s steward Mitanni and a contingent of armed guards, who have come to escort the newcomers to the palace for an immediate audience with the queen.

The woman walks away from the burning town, coming across a hunting party of three men. She senses a new opportunity to weave havoc, of which she cannot let go. She uses her spindle to fill the men with violence against each other. Two of the men are killed and one flees. Such forays become a part of the woman’s practice, till she gains a reputation as a murderous witch. One day, a party of men accost her. Kicking her spindle away before she can react, they beat her till her body is broken, though her consciousness lingers. The men try to break the spindle but it is indestructible. They throw it in a fire, where it remains whole. Seasons pass, and the woman’s spirit and the spindle wait for a new host.

Mitanni escorts Amina and her companions to the throne room, where they meet Queen Lab, a beautiful and commanding ruler. When Lab wonders if Amina’s group are pirates, they present their rehearsed cover story: Majed is a scholar, Amina his hired captain, and Dalila her physician—a role Dalila claims for herself by cutting in before Amina can complete her intended introduction, overriding Amina’s earlier suggestion that she pose as a mute servant. Amina tells Lab that they did not intend to come to her island, but lost their way. Lab questions them intensely, finding a female captain and physician highly unusual. 

One of Lab’s councilors, Zidanta, declares that Khatti Ugal law forbids oceangoing vessels, and the Marawati must be destroyed to prevent locals from attempting to escape the island. Queen Lab intervenes and proposes a deal: She will provide the resources to repair the ship if Amina and Dalila remain at court to share their worldly knowledge with Lab’s people. Since Khatti Ugal is a perfect land, the people have not ventured out much, which makes them a little naïve. Very few people ever land up at the island either, with recent arrivals before Amina almost non-existent. As a final condition, Lab insists that a group she selects—those she deems not essential to sailing—must remain behind, framing it as borrowing rather than hostage-taking. With no other options, Amina agrees to the terms.

Queen Lab takes Amina for a walk in the palace gardens. Lab expresses her determination to protect her people from the dangers of the outside world but also reveals her desire for knowledge. She mentions that a courtier recently vanished while trying to escape and that she hopes Amina’s advanced ship might succeed where others have failed. She confirms the terms of their deal: Amina and Dalila will stay at court, the Marawati will be repaired, and a portion of the crew she selects will remain behind.

Back in their luxurious guest quarters, Amina informs her companions of Labs terms. They are deeply unsettled by the prospect of leaving crew members behind. Dalila defends her decision to pose as a physician, arguing it gives her more value to the queen. The group reluctantly agrees to play along with Lab’s plan while they secretly search for the magical spindle they were sent to retrieve.

The spindle lies dormant in the forest for years until a young potter named Ozmer discovers it. The entity possesses Ozmer, feeding on his petty jealousy toward a former lover. It uses its power to curse the woman with miscarriages, making her a social outcast. Ozmer’s life and career flourish, but when the cursed woman takes her own life, the entity begins to starve, driving Ozmer to madness and his own suicide. Over centuries, the entity passes through many hosts, learning to be a more subtle and effective predator.

The next morning, feeling ill and aching from her injuries, Amina dresses in the local unstitched white clothing. Mitanni escorts Amina and Dalila to court. Dalila impresses the steward with her intellect, and he mentions that Queen Lab also “dabbles in potions” (214).

Amina is taken to a pavilion to share her knowledge with an audience of Khatti Ugalans who are intensely curious about the outside world. During the session, she has another disturbing vision, seeing the pavilion in ruins and the people as tormented, vacant souls. An old man in the crowd first mutters in a sailor’s creole that recent survivors “were not right” and “did not fit” (220), then later, as Amina is escorted away, weeps that he wants to go home. Amina finds it puzzling that he speaks Creole since that is not the language of Khatti Ugal, suggesting the man is an outsider. Amina recalls Lab saying that the island has had no recent visitors, which contradicts the man’s presence. Amina collapses and attributes it to her head injury.

Later, Majed returns from the Marawati. He reports that Queen Lab provided supplies but that repairs will take at least six months. He also describes the city as having a strange, dream-like stillness and its people as being in a stupor. Faced with a long stay and unsettling visions, Amina and her friends reaffirm their plan to repair the ship and find the spindle.