Jim's birthday is coming up, and Emmett is determined to make it a good one. Scratch that. A perfect one. Sure, that means spending money he doesn't have. Sure, that means trying to keep secrets, which Jim is irritatingly good at ferreting out. It even means playing nice when his parents attempt a reconciliation, no matter how much he wants to tell them to screw off. But he can do that—all of it—for Jim.

When Emmett's parents ask him to befriend a girl who survived a terrible car crash, Emmett can connect the dots: his father's political aspirations; the daughter of a freshman senator; and Emmett, the boy with scars. To keep the peace, he agrees. But when he and Jim arrive at the remote cabin, everything goes wrong. An attack by the Solar Court ends with the senator's wife and daughter being kidnapped—and with Jim and Emmett on the run.

As someone tries to draw a net tight around Jim and Emmett, the two men must race to save the kidnapped girl and her mother. Their search takes them into the path of private security forces, the unnatural creatures known as wanderers, and—most dangerous of all—monsters from their past. And if they're too late, they'll watch the whole world burn.