Wainwright Arcan is a down-on-his-luck fixer for interstellar corporations and governments. When an easy job lands on his desk—a young alchemist on an outer-world planet is healing the sick to the fiscal dismay of Jupiter Pharmaceuticals—he takes it. Little does he know that his target, the young Perrette D'Antelle, is a mark far more dangerous than the paycheck is worth.

D'Antelle is an aberrant, the name across the galaxies for people who develop strange quirks and abilities. But D'Antelle's aberration, alchemical ability, hasn't protected her from her drug-addicted father or raised her from the slums of the city she was born into. Jaded and bitter, she begins sabotaging drug mills with her powers and now has her sights on a bigger project—springing the notorious Julien Smarthe, a fellow alchemist, from prison.

The collision between Arcan and D'Antelle reverberates outwards, affecting a host of major players on the planet of Rensadour including a straight-shooting detective, a reformer district attorney, a criminal with revolutionary ideas, and a powerful and scheming corporation. What results could alter the very landscape of Rensadour.