Over the Mueller Line and stalking across the Eastern homeland she betrayed during the Grand War, Marta Childress now cares for the catatonic Caddie Hendrix, whom she has been tasked to deliver to the child’s father. Too bad Marta secretly intends on killing the man to save the nation of Newfield a second civil war.

Executed on the spot if anyone uncovers her identity, Marta also flees the relentless Render Graff and an unstoppable glassman, only to learn too late that worse horrors await her in the East. Fortunately, she can depend on her new freebooter friends Isabelle and Luca.

Yet Luca harbors secrets of his own, a grubber boy born with nothing but whose ambition earned him an imbued lockblade enchanted to ensure his victory so long as he holds it in hand.