Yoelin Thibbony performs Rescues of children, people, and articles, sometimes for a fee, sometimes for free. But she has begun to doubt her own identity; her childhood memories of abuse and slavery are starting to make less sense to her. Now, events tumble around her. A former lover who betrayed her has been killed, and the authorities are looking for her. His three-year-old son has been brought to Yoelin by a mysterious woman with an even more serious agenda; their spaceship is blown up at the Spaceport. Yoelin, unwilling to abandon a child in need of a Rescue, must follow a line of investigation that leads her into her own dubious past, and to a vast and secret conspiracy—a long game—that threatens the lives of the people she cares about most. This time, the confrontation is one that almost certainly she cannot win.But when did that ever stop her?