An earthquake leaves the city of Cantagna on edge. The Philosophic Confraternity pronounces it the work of ancient monster Dragonis, imprisoned beneath the lands of the Costa Drago. In every street and market philosophists rant of the dangers of sorcerers, whose purpose, they have always claimed, is to free the monster. Magic sniffers lurk in every alleyway.

Meanwhile Romy experiences a series of increasingly disturbing dreams, even as she struggles to make sense of the Shadow Lord’s abrupt request for the Chimera to thwart an arranged marriage. The bride, the brilliant daughter of a high-ranking city official, has written an incendiary treatise that exposes the philosophists’ teachings as nonsense. The groom, the strange, reclusive son of a high-ranking Confraternity Director, displays an unremitting loyalty to his family's beliefs.

When the partners of the Chimera spirit the two to a ruin outside the city, they are drawn into an unraveling chain of conspiracy, murder, and corruption, along with a terrifying suspicion that the philosophists' age-old warnings might be right after all.