Hawk West has done the impossible: She survived the Holian Rift, a tear in our reality leading to another universe that destroyed a solid chunk of Boston in the moment of its birth. She made it back to our mundane world, and even got the architect of this disaster, billionaire philanthropist Kaiser Willheim, arrested for his role in these disasters. But her husband, Alex, might as well be dead. He's now the enigmatic Shadow, a barely human shell with enormous power.  But then it all fell apart. Willheim escaped, murdering her friend Henry Dyson in the process, and somehow transferring Henry's mind into the former Archon, Mattias, the Shadow's closest friend...and the only person that being is willing to kill for. Their alliance with him--and any hope of reconciliation--may die with them. And then the Holian Gods--former humans who devoured part of the Shadow to gain enormous power--attack from the safety of the Holian Rift. Worse, the Rift is doomed to collapse soon, taking hundreds of thousands of human lives with it. They need the Shadow's help, but the Shadow only cares about Mattias. Now Hawk has to find a way to save Henry's mind and Mattias's body. Otherwise the world as she knows it will come to a fiery end. But with the Gods threatening war from the Holian Rift, and Kaiser still on the loose, any solution may be the straw that sends the universe plummeting down to ruin...