When Balthazar Pierce, an unremarkable but efficient Assessor, is fired and tried for a mishap that gets an acolyte killed in the Fringe, the entire ordeal is all that is talked about on the streets for about two weeks before it is all forgotten. Ayesha Delarossa, the Proctor responsible for affirming his illegal misuse of magic, isn't entirely convinced that he is guilty, certain that Pierce is only a sacrificial lamb for a sinister plot that feels eerily familiar. In the shadow of the ever questionable Ministry of Higher Mysteries, Delarossa has to cope with recruiting the initially hostile Pierce, uncover the identity of a faceless murderer intent on killing off the Institute of Oneirology's most prized Adepts and deal with the fact that her daughter might not be dead... but in the hands of a mysterious figure determined to create another Breaking of the Worlds...