It continues the adventures of protagonist Locke Lamora and his friend Jean Tannen as they arrive on the exotic shores of Tal Verrar, where they must face the dangers of their past, as well as new rivals that wish to stop them at all costs while they try to pull their most ambitious con yet.

Two years after Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen fled Camorr, they have created new secret identities for themselves in the island city of Tal Verrar as professional gamblers at an opulent casino called the Sinspire.

Locke and Jean have been constantly cheating at the games despite this, primarily by manipulating the subtle weaknesses of their gambling opponents, and have gone through many procedures across Tal Verrar and nearby regions to find a way to break into Requin's heavily fortified vault.

But they begin to fear for the success of their scheme when the Bondsmagi of Karthain, speaking through the possessed bodies of night market vendors, threaten revenge against the duo for torturing and mutilating the Falconer.

Soon after Requin's interrogation, Locke and Jean are captured by the Eyes of the Archon, elite soldiers who work directly for the leader of Tal Verrar - who are under the command of a highly capable woman named Merrain Merrai - and brought to the Mon Magisteria, the capital building of the city.

As Locke and Jean go through heavy cramming on naval matters with sailing master Caldris bal Comar, they suddenly become the target of several assassination attempts by some unknown party unconnected to either Requin or Stragos.

Nonetheless, after a month of training they are given charge of a ship called the Red Messenger and ordered to free imprisoned sailors in the Windward Rock dungeon to comprise their crew.

Following the Messengers’ induction into the Poison Orchid’s crew, Locke takes Jean's advice, telling Zamira the truth about how Stragos has been using him and begging her to help him find a way to subvert the archon's scheme.

Although the council votes to let her go against Stragos, they secretly fear that the archon will attack them in retaliation and decide to later send Jaffrim Rodanov to keep Zamira from dragging the rest of them into any potential conflict.

They and the Orchids deliberately aggravate the archon by only partly adhering to his orders, staging a half-hearted raid on a small merchant vessel but mounting a massive assault on a town to the northwest where peasants let themselves be put through cruel and humiliating games by nobles for money.

Locke and Jean hope to get close enough to the archon's alchemist during one of their subsequent meetings to somehow take the antidote, but Stragos eventually refuses to see them again unless they have mounted a proper raid on a ship.

As the battle turns into a stalemate, one of the Orchids who had actually been working for Rodanov brings up an alchemical sphere capable of quickly burning through the ship's hull and threatens to ignite it unless Zamira surrenders.

He accidentally lights it prematurely when one of the Orchids shoots him with an arrow, but Ezri sacrifices her life to throw the burning sphere onto the enemy ship instead, killing the rest of Rodanov's crew.