As an apology for the apocalypse, the pantheon promised there'd be children born faster, stronger, and more powerful than the survivors they'd be sworn to protect. These children would institutionalize under the name of Palisade, call themselves Partisans, and conscript each new generation in service to the six territories of Auditoria.

Eight-hundred-some years later, Rhian Sinclair is bored. Grumpy and still grounded, Rhian plots her way off the Isle of Palisade and back to work—even if she's sure the next job will be her last.

Meanwhile, Andrei Strauss is resigned. He never wanted to be a priest, and after he's assigned to an isolated village, he must reach out to Palisade for help in solving a series of indiscriminate kidnappings.

Old friends are reunited, ancient secrets are revealed, and an assassin and a telepath walk into a bar at some point separately. From legend to life, truth to lie, fiction to fact.