Cade Elegy’s mind is tearing itself apart, crowded using the phantoms of the inactive, and he must carry the burdens they cannot.This bond lends him their experience and allows him to bend the laws from the physical world – a power he desperately needs if he is to discover the truth of what happened to his missing family.The trail has gone cold, but he is given one last chance when he’s recruited by a princess to solve a murder. They shortly uncover evidence that their battle with the Wraiths, a hostile alien competition dominating their world, never really ended.Alongside the princess, an overzealous archaeologist, and a historical computer intelligence, Cade must stop the Wraiths before they annihilate the last remaining metropolitan areas of Chalice and prior to the phantoms he bears destroy what’s still left of his brain.