When Frey was seventeen, the village of Endwoode begrudgingly did him the favour of shooting him. Inoculation by lead was the only known preventative against the terrible ill that festered among the remains of humanity, commonly known as 'the Frothe'. Hated and loathed in his home village for something his father had done, Frey flees after his only friend Nell is banished to the Outside. Together, they must forge a friendship strong enough to survive monstrous horrors, endemic violence, and each other.