Beneath billowing yellow smog gushing from a gunmetal sky lies the city of the Twelve Meeks, where all are slave to the drug Sachi which fuels arts arcane and scientific alike. Ningyo, no stranger to the drug, returns to the Twelve Meeks, seeking revenge against her Sachi-obsessed mentor Morfran for the murder of her son five years ago. What she finds is a working class poisoned by the yellow gases released in the drilling for Sachi, their children dead or dying, desperate for Andalaf Incorporated in the sky-city above to provide relief. When Ningyo joins a terrorist group involved in destroying the Sachi drills to draw Morfran out of hiding, and to help the people of the Meeks, the first bombing goes a little too smoothly. Is Andalaf Inc. just letting it happen? And why? Reality morphs and bends as Ningyo uses more and more Sachi to fight against those who produce it, and an internal voice speaks to her, as if Ningyo were an invader of her own body, asking who she is and where she really came from, and Ningyo finds she cannot answer. All she knows for certain is that her son is dead, and the man who killed him is somewhere in this city, and she will find Morfran even if it costs her sanity—even, she realizes to her horror, if it costs the whole city.