In the year 2056, in the city of “Scion London,” 19-year-old Paige Mahoney works with a criminal gang of other clairvoyants who use their powers to survive government persecution. They are shunned by society which forces them to the fringes. Paige is a “mollisher,” an apprentice to the “mime-lord” Jaxon Hall—a “gang leader in the clairvoyant syndicate” (465). Clairvoyance for profit (“mime crime”) is punishable by death, so Paige keeps her work secret from her father, who believes she has a legitimate job. Her ability to “sense the nuances of dreamscapes and rogue spirits” (3) makes her valuable as a mind reader of other “voyants,” and it is her responsibility to keep tabs on them.

One day, while patrolling her part of the otherworldly clairvoyant landscape known as the “aether,” Paige tries to pierce the mental defenses of a rogue presence but cannot break through. As the presence moves farther away, she follows, but it drifts out of her range of safety (she relies on life support to sustain her during these forays into the aether). She is shaken out of her trance by the “resident genius,” Danica, who chides Paige for not identifying the rogue.