[1] Richard St Vier, a swordsman-for-hire based in the seedy neighborhood of Riverside, kills two men at a party thrown by Lord Horn.

At a party, he humiliates Horn and flirts with Duchess Tremontaine, but she rejects him for Chancellor Ferris.

Richard meets with Katherine, an old friend, to obtain the name of his target: Crescent Chancellor Basil Halliday.

Halliday has consolidated executive power for himself and is fighting to remove term limits on the Chancellorship; Ferris wants to become Crescent Chancellor himself.

Alec confronts Ferris at the council, revealing that Tremontaine was not involved in the plot to kill Halliday.

Ferris is forced to take credit for Horn's death in order to keep the plot against Halliday secret; he is sentenced to become the ambassador to a backwater nation.

[5] The New York Times praised the novel for its lack of magic and for challenging the moral assumptions of traditional fantasy literature.