Matilda grows quickly, and Zenia raises her to be cautious of the gods who may seek to kill her and absorb her power, sending her to the eternal mists powerless. Because Matilda is both and neither Underling and Skyward, she has no allies, so she allies herself with Zenia’s allies: Bade, god of war, Phelyra, goddess of revelry and coin, and Alva, goddess of dreams and nightmares.

The four gods frequently gather to talk and seek advice from each other. After Phelyra and Alva leave, Bade often remains to seek Zenia’s advice about various conflicts. He asks Zenia about the Poet Queen Adria, a mortal woman who rose from nothing by the merit of her poems, to wage war to oust the king. She has now stolen supplicants from Bade himself. Matilda has only visited the mortal realm with Zenia, but she’s seen the devastation from the war and wonders why Bade delights in it.

Bade contemplates killing Adria, but Zenia cautions him that killing her will make her a martyr to the mortals, and she’ll receive even more prayers. Zenia advises Bade to meet with Adria and romance her. She offers him her powers of cunning for three days. In exchange, Bade agrees to make a salt vow to Matilda, a promise that he will always be Matilda’s ally, teach her to fight, and even protect her with his life. Bade thinks the vow is a high price, as Matilda is young, and it’s unclear if she’ll want Bade for an ally when she’s older.

Bade signs the vow on parchment, and he and Matilda recite it together before eating the parchment, which tastes like salt. Zenia then marks Bade, infusing him with the magic of cunning that she stole long ago by killing another divine. When Zenia and Bade leave, Matilda reads a dream scroll, given to her by Alva, whose scrolls capture mortal dreams. She witnesses the dream of a mortal boy named Vincent, in which he tries to join the Poet Queen’s forces before drowning and waking. Matilda wonders what it would be like to have a thorn in her side like the Poet Queen is a thorn in Bade’s.

Matilda’s magic remains dormant. She knows she won’t be as powerful as Zenia and her allies, who are in the High Court, but Bade’s training promises to coax her magic out. He spends three days wooing the Poet Queen, and when he returns, without a circlet of trust from Adria, he and Matilda begin their training.

Bade takes Matilda through the underground tunnels, and Matilda meets his mortal vassal, Hem, a blacksmith. Matilda asks why Bade has a mortal vassal, and Bade avoids giving her an answer, though Hem serves him willingly. Bade asserts that it is his right as a god to force mortals to serve him, but Matilda internally questions this belief and pictures Vincent again.

Bade asks Matilda if her “fault line,” or the weakness that can end her immortality, is within her head, near her throat, or her heart, in her chest. She wants it to be her head, but she knows it’s her heart. Bade asks her to guess his, but she’s not sure.

They spar, and Matilda only defends her heart. Bade reminds her to defend her head as well so that her enemies cannot discern her true weakness. After what feels like hours of fighting, Matilda is overwhelmed by emotion and runs to her mother’s burrow, but her mother is not alone.

Zenia sits with Phelyra in front of the fire. On the table between them are several strange coins and a scale from an eithral, a creature belonging to Dacre, god of healing and lord of the Underlings. The eithrals terrorize the mortals and Skywards, and Matilda has only seen them once.

Zenia questions why Matilda isn’t with Bade, especially because Matilda is forbidden from traveling the Underling realm alone. Matilda replies that her magic will never manifest if Zenia smothers her. Zenia strikes Matilda in the face, which shocks her.

Bade arrives, and Phelyra leaves to allow Bade and Zenia to speak privately. She sneaks the coins and scale into the pockets she manifests as the goddess of coin, magic she stole to become a member of the High Court. Bade reveals the Poet Queen doesn’t trust him. Zenia advises him to go back, and he leaves to try again, this time without Zenia’s cunning.

Alone with Matilda, Zenia says that she and Phelyra are building something for Matilda out of the eithral scale. They cannot tell Bade, however, as he is allied with Alva, Dacre’s sister, as Dacre would be angry. Matilda questions Zenia about the Skyward coins, and Zenia shows them to her before throwing one into the fire. As it burns, it releases beautiful music.

Matilda questions Zenia about the eithral scale, and Zenia reveals that Phelyra found it in the eithrals’ enclosure deep in the Underling realm, as sometimes Dacre wounds and then heals them in order to keep them in line. Matilda has empathy for the eithrals; Zenia doesn’t.

Zenia reveals that she plans to trade an eithral scale to the Skywards. This is forbidden, as eithral scales can cut through a god’s fault line, killing them. Matilda questions why Zenia would give a scale to the Skywards, and Zenia asks Matilda what she’d give to hear the music of the burnt Skyward coins again. Matilda reads another of Alva’s dream scrolls and finds Vincent, dreaming of rivers and Matilda.

Matilda watches as Vincent dreams that he’s drowning before she pulls him out of the water. Matilda wonders how she’s slipped into Vincent’s dreams, given that he’s never seen her.

When Zenia falls asleep, Matilda sneaks to Alva’s burrow, which is full of dream scrolls. Matilda asks about Vincent’s dream, and though Alva doesn’t know how Matilda appeared in it, she theorizes that when Matilda read the scroll of Vincent’s first dream, a connection was forged between their souls. The soul does not move through time linearly.

Alva offers to stop lending Matilda the dream scrolls, but Matilda wants to keep reading them. Vincent keeps dreaming of Matilda, and Matilda keeps reading his dream scrolls after Alva transcribes them. Vincent stops dreaming of drowning and instead dreams of adventuring with Matilda, forging a friendship bond with her.

As winter comes and Matilda approaches her 13th birthday, Zenia and Phelyra gift her an enchanted moonstone belt. It is imbued with Phelyra’s pocket magic and will allow Matilda to carry everything she needs when she begins to serve as a herald. Matilda touches one of the moonstones, and it begins to turn dark. Zenia thinks it’s a tainted stone, but Phelyra can’t replace it without ruining the magic. Matilda knows it’s something different, that there’s something “dark and slumbering” within her (41).

Bade returns from the mortal realm, but when Matilda questions him about the war and Adria, Bade refuses to answer. When he leaves, Matilda follows him through the passages until he goes through the door to the mortal realm. Matilda follows him and realizes that he’s returning to Adria. Matilda thinks he’s a fool for risking his immortality to forge a connection with a mortal.

Spring comes, and Zenia sleeps while Matilda stands guard, as sleep is a vulnerable time for a god. Bade comes and goes, and Matilda doesn’t ask him about the Poet Queen or the mortal world. In the nights before her 13th birthday, everything falls apart. Matilda hears the eithrals rise from the depths, then the drums of Dacre, summoning all the Underlings to court.

Matilda wakes Zenia, who is confused, as they recently had court. They go to the chamber and sit with their assigned courts, Zenia with the High Court, closer to the dais and Dacre’s throne.

Matilda watches as Bade enters last, wearing a circlet from the Poet Queen and holding a bleeding mortal tightly to his chest. She sees that the mortal he holds is Adria herself, her chest plate shredded by one of Dacre’s eithrals. Dacre is angry that Bade killed one of his eithrals and questions why Bade now protests the eithrals’ destruction of the mortal world.

Bade asks Dacre to heal Adria, and Dacre says he will, in exchange for Bade’s forge, weapons, and his vassal, Hem. Bade is willing to agree, but Orphia, his mother, arrives and tells him not to: If Dacre heals Adria, she must live to serve him and the Underlings. However, if Adria dies in the mortal realm, her soul can ascend to the mists and be free.

Bade tells Orphia he’ll give up his immortality and let someone kill him if Adria dies. Orphia offers an alternative: She will give four of her eight stars to Adria to make her immortal, but Orphia’s sister Rowena, the Skyward matriarch, must give up four of her stars, too.

Bade asks Matilda to go to the Skyward realm and ask Rowena, and Matilda agrees. Orphia writes the message on parchment and gives it to Matilda, though she has no advice for reaching the Skyward realm. Matilda feels magic pulling her, and she leaves.

Matilda emerges into the mortal world. She attempts to follow the tug of Rowena’s magic, even though she has no idea how to reach the Skyward realm. She sees the battle-ravaged fields of the king’s victory over the Poet Queen Adria.

When she sees eithrals, she tries to run. She trips and, when she looks down, she sees Vincent. He calls her Red, a nickname he’s come up with for her, and pulls her close as the eithrals approach. Matilda uses the shield Bade gave her, holding it over her and Vincent to protect them. When she puts the shield down, Vincent tries to kiss her but misses. He apologizes and calls her the bravest girl he’s met. Matilda kisses him.

They laugh, and Matilda asks Vincent why he’s there. He says his older brothers were called to serve the Poet Queen, and he’s waiting for their return. Vincent asks Matilda to come with them, but Matilda says she must go to Skyward. Vincent realizes she’s a goddess.

Vincent’s brothers, Finnian and Marcher, appear in the distance on horseback. Matilda’s magic urges her to run, and Finnian and Marcher chase her. The Skyward god Shale, the god of wind, appears to Matilda. She says she must go to Rowena’s villa, and Shale takes her.

Vincent thinks that his life began when his dreams of Red became real. He knows the constellation of stars that belong to her, the six stars that appeared when she was born, shortly after Vincent. Vincent’s uncle Grimald chides him for letting her get away; Grimald wants to catch Matilda and demand her name and favor.

Vincent realizes the only way he can keep Matilda safe is by letting her go instead of holding her close. He returns to Wyndrift, his family home, feeling foolish for trusting and loving her.

Shale drops Matilda in Rowena’s orchard. She sees that Rowena appears like an ancient crone but has eyes like her sister Orphia. Rowena remarks that she’s woven the threads of Matilda’s fate wrongly, but Shale says it’s too early to tell. Rowena leaves, and Shale tells Matilda that she needs to learn to harness the trade winds so that she can ride them between the mortal realm and Skyward.

Shale leaves, and Matilda wanders the orchard, searching for Rowena. She stumbles upon Warin, the god of spring, who tells her that her essence smells of parchment, ink, and cloves. He questions her presence in Skyward, but Rowena interrupts and sends him away, making him promise to keep Matilda’s presence a secret. She agrees to give him counsel the next day.

Matilda follows Rowena to her villa and sees her loom, the twin of Orphia’s. Rowena explains that they communicate through their looms, and they each weave patterns that the other tries to unpick. Rowena didn’t know Matilda was half-Skyward when she spun her threads of fate, but it’s too late to change them.

Matilda gives Rowena the parchment from Orphia with the request to save Adria, and Rowena says she saw this coming. She cuts her palm and draws a five-star constellation in her ichor (blood of the gods) on the parchment before returning it to Matilda.

Matilda’s magic pulls her to Adria, whom she senses is in Bade’s burrow. Rowena tells her to take the west trade wind and avoid Skyward Hall for now. Rowena then tells Matilda that the goddess of peace can bring fate and death together.

Matilda rides the trade wind back to the mortal realm. She approaches the Underling door in the ruins of a castle, but she feels called to a bedchamber door. When she opens it, she finds herself in a strange realm, in which she can see all the constellations of the gods.

She then sees a gate that leads to Vincent, who can see her. He calls out to her, but Matilda senses danger and retreats through the door. She hurries to the Underling realm and Bade’s burrow. Adria is still bleeding badly. Matilda gives the parchment to Orphia, who dips her finger in the ichor and draws a five-star constellation on Adria’s palm to match the four-star constellation on her other palm. Adria rests, and Bade hugs Matilda like a father.

Adria sleeps for three days and nights. While the gossip of her new godhood and Bade’s dishonor spreads through the Underling court, Zenia, Alva, and Phelyra drink wine and discuss the implications of Adria’s godhood. Alva wonders how Adria’s magic will impact the Underlings. Phelyra thinks that even though the magic is a powerful nine-star constellation, peace magic will be weak or exploited by Bade.

Matilda remarks that Bade loves Adria and won’t use her. Phelyra claims that Matilda doesn’t understand mortals, but Alva suggests that she does. Matilda worries that Alva will expose her connection to Vincent, but Alva says Matilda is a herald to all three realms, including the mortal. Matilda realizes Alva isn’t drunk when Alva gives her another dream scroll. She wonders what game Alva’s playing.

Matilda reads the scroll and watches Vincent’s dream. Vincent sits at his desk. The door flies open, and he sees Matilda. He calls to her, but she looks afraid and closes the door. Matilda realizes that Vincent dreamt of her appearance to him, and she sneaks out of the burrow to find the realm again.

She reaches the wasted door and enters the realm, calling out for Vincent. He doesn’t appear, so she wanders, dropping Underling coins to leave a path back to the door; the coins turn to Skyward coins when she drops them. She cannot find the obsidian archway to Vincent’s dream.

She hears a man’s voice and finds Xan, the Underling god of iron, who asks Matilda if she’s there to escort him to the mists. Matilda asks if he’s dreaming. He reveals that he’s dead, but the dead can speak until they reach the gate to the mists. Xan reveals that this realm is where all gods and mortals go when they die. They all must walk until they reach the gate to the mists, where the Gatekeeper deems them worthy of passing on.

Xan and Matilda reach the bony white gate to the mists and find the Gatekeeper, a giantess crone with one eye and sharp teeth. The Gatekeeper states that Matilda has brought her eye back to her, and Matilda realizes that the strange moonstone on her belt is the eye. Matilda offers it back, and the Gatekeeper reveals she planted it for Zenia to find.

Matilda asks the Gatekeeper about the realm. The Gatekeeper says the realm is so old it’s nameless, older even than the Gatekeeper, who birthed Orphia and Rowena and whose blood made the constellations. The realm is referred to as the wasteland, where souls who don’t pass through turn to nightmares and where living souls go during dreams. Alva has never visited physically, but Matilda can, as she’s the herald of words and “something else.”

The Gatekeeper asks Xan why he’s worthy to pass to the mists. He tells her about his life, and Matilda realizes the Gatekeeper doesn’t care about good deeds but how much of a mark a person made on the world. She lets Xan pass, offering to allow Matilda to escort him, but Matilda doesn’t know how. Before Xan passes through, Matilda asks who killed him and stole his magic; he says it was Warin of Skyward.

Matilda follows her coin path back toward the door. She sees an obsidian archway sprout from the ground, depicting Vincent’s nightmare, and without hesitating, she passes through it.

Vincent repeatedly dreams of climbing a hill with a dead eithral atop it, attempting to claim an eithral scale for its magic, not to kill a god. In his dreams, Hugh and his brothers encourage him to kill. In one night’s dream, Vincent is stuck on the side of the cliff, nearly slipping in the rain, when Matilda appears beside him. She claims to have traveled through a gate to reach him. She tells Vincent to climb, assuring him that it’s his dream, and he’s in control.

They climb the mountain and reach the dead eithral. It has been killed by Bade’s sword, and all its scales but one have been taken. Matilda offers the final scale to Vincent, but he doesn’t want it. Vincent tries to make the scales regenerate, since it’s his dream, but they don’t. Matilda theorizes that the Skywards took the scales, as the Skywards use them for power.

Matilda asks Vincent to take them away from the mountain, and he takes them to his bedroom. She shows him how to burn Skyward coins to make music. Vincent hesitates before asking Matilda her name; Matilda answers honestly and says that she’s a herald. Uncle Grimald enters the nightmare and demands that Vincent hold Matilda. Vincent hesitates, and Grimald grabs Matilda. She tells Vincent to wake up as Grimald drags her away. Vincent wakes in bed alone with Matilda’s name on his tongue.

Matilda returns to Zenia’s burrow, and Zenia questions where she went. Matilda claims to have wandered, and Zenia reminds her of the danger she’s in, especially because of Bade’s disgrace and the instability of Adria’s new godhood. Zenia also tells Matilda that Xan was slain by Warin with an eithral scale, and though Zenia and Phelyra have sold scales to the Skywards, they’ve never sold one to Warin.

Phelyra interrupts them to tell Zenia that Dacre found the dead eithral, and all its scales are intact. Matilda is relieved, but Phelyra and Zenia are worried because Dacre will know that someone sold Warin a scale, instead of assuming he took it from the dead creature. Zenia tells Matilda to stay in the burrow and not open the door, and she and Phelyra leave.

Alva visits Matilda, but she refuses to open the door. Alva leaves another of Vincent’s dream scrolls behind, and Matilda reads it. She realizes it’s the dream she previously entered, and she sees herself telling Vincent about how the Skywards want the eithral scales and buy them on the black market. She realizes that Alva now knows about the scales.

Matilda hurries to Phelyra’s burrow to find Zenia and Phelyra. She tells Zenia about her dream experiences with Vincent. While Zenia is enraptured listening, Phelyra cuts her throat with an eithral scale fashioned into an arrow. Matilda holds Zenia as she dies. Zenia’s last word is “Thile,” the name of Matilda’s Skyward father.

Thile is the god of dusk, oaths, and summer, and the Lord of the Skywards, but his name doesn’t stir anything in Matilda as she holds Zenia’s corpse. Matilda asks Phelyra why she killed Zenia, and Phelyra answers that she and Zenia’s plan fell apart, and she needed to protect herself by taking Zenia’s voice away. Phelyra tells Matilda to run before Dacre catches her and tortures her for information. Matilda hears Dacre and Alva approaching. She puts the eithral scale arrow in her pocket before fleeing.

Bade finds her in the hallway and takes her to this burrow. Matilda tells Bade and Adria, whose strange magic Matilda can now feel, about her mother’s death and Phelyra’s betrayal. Bade tells her she must flee the Underling realm. Adria gathers provisions and water, but the water is boiling, indicating a hot summer in the mortal realm. She gives Matilda wine instead, promising that Matilda will return to them someday.

The hot summer hints at Thile’s recognition of Matilda as his daughter, since he is the god of summer, and Zenia finally uttered his name. Matilda considers going to Vincent, but Bade says a mortal can’t protect her. She must go to Skyward. Bade leads Matilda toward a door to the mortal realm.  Dacre and his hounds chase them, and Bade stays behind and fights the hounds. Alva tries to lure Matilda back with false promises of safety, but Matilda escapes to the mortal realm.

Matilda reaches the Dark Lake. She sees Thile approaching, calling out for Zenia. He finally sees Matilda and realizes that she’s his and Zenia’s daughter. He seems emotional when Matilda tells him about Phelyra murdering Zenia.

Thile asks Matilda what she wants, and Matilda asks him to take her to Skyward. She regrets not following her mother’s soul to the mists and speaking to her one last time, but Thile takes Matilda with him to Skyward.

Vincent thinks of Matilda often, but she’s vanished from his dreams. His nightmares return, and he even prays to Alva for relief, though his family hasn’t been devout since Vincent’s mother left to become a Skyward vassal. He writes to Matilda, but she doesn’t answer.

He writes his last letter to her when he’s 16. Grimald betrayed his family, slaying Vincent’s father and Finian and Marcher in a coup. Vincent was badly wounded, but he was saved by Edric, the guard captain, who took him to a tower where the other survivors, including Vincent’s youngest brother and Alyse, his father’s seneschal, were recovering. Vincent becomes Lord of Wyndrift, and he doesn’t think of Matilda for years.

As Matilda grows older in Skyward, time moves quickly. She reminds herself of the danger that love poses for immortals, remembering Bade and even seeing Thile’s lingering feelings for Zenia. Matilda enjoys the revelry of Skyward and works as a herald. She hides her true emotions, pretending to be a Middle Court goddess with no empathy for mortals. Each year, she asks Thile to visit the mortal realm, but each year, Thile refuses.

Warin challenges Matilda to an archery contest; if he wins, she agrees to a courtship with him, but if she wins, he must give her the eithral scale he used to kill Xan. Matilda loses, and she becomes Warin’s lover. After they have sex, Warin asks about the Underling realm, but Matilda keeps her answers vague. He asks to marry her, but Matilda refuses. She knows he only wants her for information about how to find the Underling doors. She spends 13 years in Skyward before returning to the Underling realm.