Two years after the Wyrmhole incident, Jack and Billie, his ever-enigmatic fourteen-year-old ward, have set up a new shop in a new town. Yorkstone, with its clean streets and virtual sunny skies, is a far cry from the hellhole of the Locality. It's also far more difficult to drum up business—until Bridgett Farrell darkens Jack's door.

The job: Find a metallic tablet inscribed with ornate writings. It's very valuable—and made of a substance unlike any known to science. It seems an antique-dealing associate of Miss Farrell's has made off with the valuable artifact, which may have been stolen from an archaeological dig in the ruins of an unknown civilization on the planet of Mandala.

The catch? Miss Farrell is far more deceptive than she seems...