Bobby is almost killed but is rescued by Pelle a Zinj, the kind prince, and recovers quickly in a Batu hospital.

Finally, at the end of the 3 weeks, they all celebrate his successful training but are interrupted by an attack by a group of Rokador, who shoots Bokka with several arrows and flees.

As Bokka dies, he gives Bobby and Loor a map to the underground city Kidik, and tell them that Saint Dane is there.

Loor and Bobby decide to attend the Batu Festival of Azhra first, because Pelle a Zinj has invited them personally.

Bobby and Loor later escape and learn that after an epidemic virus had killed most of the Rokador, Saint Dane was able to convince the survivors to attack the Batu.

However, Saint Dane disappears and reappears at the entrance to the flume, proving the suggestion given in earlier books that he cannot be killed.

His own desire that she lives rather than dies appears to resurrect or revive her, in that her wound closes of its own accord while she resumes full faculty, memory, and mobility.

Eventually she decides to go to summer school for six weeks in order to recover, so that Mark is left to read Bobby's journals alone.

Throughout the summer, Mark collects Bobby's journals and reads them, and begins to have conversations with Andy Mitchell, the former school bully.

At her summer school, Courtney meets a boy named Whitney Wilcox, whom she befriends and of whom she begins to entertain romantic thoughts.

In the last scene of the book, Courtney's heart rate suddenly begins to slow, whereupon Andy Mitchell, unseen, brings it to normal by a means, implied, to be the same kind of "thing" used by Bobby to revive Loor.

Discussing the novel's overarching messaging, Kelley highlighted the book showcases "the importance of moving on and learning from mistakes and not backing down from a challenge".