Grey Serrado, a member of the city Vigil, investigates reports that street urchins are dying from insomnia.

On the Night of Bells, a celebration of the death of Kaius Rex, members of the Liganti elite and the Vraszenian elders are poisoned with ash.

Ren discovers that the woman behind the plague of insomnia is Ondrakja, who is using the dreams of street children to produce ash for Indestor.

With Vargo’s help, Serrado learns that Indestor plans to destroy the Wellspring and blame it on a radical Vraszenian group.

Reality and dreams begin to collapse as Ren, the Rook, Vargo, and Sedge fight to save the Wellspring.

Writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Matthew Iung believes that the novel explores the conflict between the elite and the disadvantaged, as well as issues including white supremacy and police brutality.

Despite the fact that fantasy novels are often based on classical, medieval, and Rennaisance settings, policing is a modern phenomenon.

Iung writes that Carrick portrays the Vigil police force as a system which upholds "racial hierarchy and class hegemony in an imperial society".

One month before the publication of the novel, Wall Street began trading water futures as a commodity for the first time, which Iung likens to "disaster capitalism".

Writing for Tor.com, Liz Bourke praised the detailed worldbuilding and layered magic system, calling the novel "engaging and entertaining".

[3] Publishers Weekly criticized the worldbuilding as "sometimes tediously complex" but praised the "tightly laced plot dripping with political intrigue".