Yoelin Thibbony performs Rescues of children, people, and articles, sometimes for a fee, sometimes for free. But she has begun to doubt her own identity; her childhood memories of abuse and slavery are starting to make less sense to her. Now, events tumble around her. A former lover who betrayed her has been killed, and the authorities are looking for her. His three-year-old son has been brought to Yoelin by a mysterious woman with an even more serious agenda; their spaceship is blown up at the Spaceport. Yoelin, unwilling to abandon a child in need of a Rescue, must follow a line of investigation that leads her into her own dubious past, and to a vast and secret conspiracy-a long game-that threatens the lives of the people she cares about most. This time, the confrontation is one that almost certainly she cannot win.But when did that ever stop her?