The war for history has left its scars. Hiding in Turin, Italy, Guardian Kenna Amari is haunted by what Silas Thorne's technology did to her friend, Alistair, leaving him a man with a fractured soul. Their only hope emerges from an unlikely source: a collection of fragmented papyri in the world-famous Museo Egizio.

Thorne wants the artifact destroyed at all costs, and Kenna soon discovers why. The papyrus is haunted by the restless ghost—the Ba—of an ancient scribe, a Guardian who died trying to create a cure for Thorne's soul-severing weapon. To save Alistair, Kenna must form a tense alliance with a skeptical museum conservator to reassemble the text.

As Thorne's agents lay siege to the museum, Kenna is trapped in a race against time. She must perform an ancient ritual to free the tormented spirit and learn its final secret—a desperate gambit that will either grant them the cure they need or seal their doom within the museum's haunted halls.