Iron Gold

Lyria has settled down into a routine at the Luna Citadel of the Telemanus House. She serves Kavax, who has been teaching her. She also takes care of his pet fox Sophocles, who has been acting unusually violently toward the Citadel’s renowned pachelbel birds. Dr. Liago, Kavax’s doctor, wants to figure out why.

Lyria has developed a friendship with Liago, an elderly Yellow, who shows her a deadly flower he created. She tries not to think about her family or her life on Mars and resents the fact that most people treat her with pity. However, she is grateful for the safety she and Liam now have.

Ephraim, Cyra, and Volga visit Kobachi’s Tech Emporium, a store where they can find supplies for their upcoming heist. Ephraim is a long-time customer of Kobachi, who tends to sell second-hand and scam technology. However, when Ephraim shows him his black rose, a symbol of the Syndicate, Kobachi displays his more expensive merchandise, hidden in the back of his store. Ephraim orders some custom drones.

Diomedes’s ship lands in a remote fortress, where Romulus au Raa is waiting. He greets Pandora and his children warmly. Seraphina is bitter that he sent Pandora after her when he learned that she was endangering the peace by crossing the Rim border. Seraphina went to seek information about the Ganymede Docks, which were allegedly destroyed on orders from Octavia au Lune, Lysander’s grandmother.

Lysander knows this is not true and realizes that Romulus is hiding something. When Seraphina admits that her mission was unsuccessful, Romulus proclaims her a traitor. He sentences her to remain hidden and sets out to kill Lysander and Cassius, the only witnesses. However, he is interrupted by the arrival of Dido au Raa, his wife.

Dido is the one who sent Seraphina on a mission to seek the truth about the Ganymede Docks. She arrives with an armed contingent, furious that her husband is trying to hide from her and sequestering their daughter. She and Romulus argue, with their sons Diomedes and Marius on Romulus’s side and their nephew Bellerephon on Dido’s.

Dido claims that Romulus has forgotten that he is meant to serve the Moon Lords and orders him arrested. A fight ensues, and Diomedes kills many of Dido’s soldiers. Eventually, Romulus surrenders and Dido has him arrested. Seraphina then tells her mother that she did actually find the information she wanted, and Dido greets Lysander and Cassius as her guests.

Despite his own doubts and Sevro’s warnings, Darrow and the Howlers prepare to free a prisoner from Deepgrave, the Republic’s most secure prison. Deepgrave is a moving base that travels at the bottom of the Earth’s ocean. To access it, they commandeer a submersible crabbers’ ship, pretending to be Venusian outlaws.

They dive to the bottom of the ocean and, after hacking into the prison’s security to avoid being detected, eventually find Deepgrave. They head straight to the cell where they know their prisoner is kept. The man they want to free is Apollonius au Valii-Rath, a psychopathic warmonger and longtime enemy of Darrow’s, but they need his help to fight the Ash Lord. However, when Darrow and his team get to Apollonius’s cell, they find it occupied by an unknown Obsidian instead. The Obsidian, whose tongue has been cut off, appears to be a former prison guard and indicates that he knows where to find Apollonius.

The Obsidian leads Darrow and the Howlers to the warden’s quarters, where they overpower the warden and start questioning him. The warden reveals that he made a deal with Apollonius, who wanted out of solitary confinement. Darrow finds Apollonius now living in a luxurious cell block and, still pretending to be Venusian, tells him that they are here to free him on his brother’s behalf.

Apollonius is doubtful but agrees to follow the Howlers. However, before he leaves, he lunges at the warden and puts his eyes out. He attacks Darrow next, and uncovers Darrow’s face, recognizing him, before Sevro shoots him with tranquilizers. Darrow and the Howlers take the unconscious Apollonius and the Obsidian, now named Tongueless, with them.

On her day off, Lyria visits the city of Hyperion. She is quickly overwhelmed by the city’s fast pace, crowds, and unfamiliar sights and accidentally bumps into a Gold lady who takes her for a thief and alerts nearby watchmen. Despite Lyria’s protests, the watchmen arrest her.

Lyria is taken to an old wagon, but a stranger intercedes, pretending to be an old friend of hers. Although he introduces himself as Philippe, he is actually Ephraim. After convincing the watchmen to let Lyria go, Philippe refuses payment and instead offers to show her the city’s sights. Lyria and Philippe enjoy the rest of the day together and begin a friendship.

Darrow and the Howlers free additional prisoners to hide Apollonius’s escape. The Howlers are visibly uncomfortable with freeing such criminals, but Darrow tries to project confidence to inspire them. Their ship joins Nessus, operated by Darrow’s brother, Kieran. Darrow orders Kieran and his daughter Rhonna, who is a Howler, to stay behind, while he, Sevro, and the rest of the Howlers board Nessus. Later, when Darrow finds himself alone in his quarters, he lets his doubts creep in and wonders about his duty to his family.

As Kobachi works on Ephraim’s custom orders for the Syndicate, Ephraim works on another part of his plan. He has been cultivating a friendship with Lyria to use her in his schemes but is full of self-loathing for abusing her trust and naïvety. One day, Ephraim dons his Philippe disguise and meets Lyria at a park. Lyria opens up about her loneliness, and Ephraim uses the opportunity to give her his pendant. He pretends it is a symbol of friendship, but it is actually a hidden drone created by Kobachi.

Lysander and Cassius are taken to Sungrave, the main city on Io, where they are treated like guests. After a massage, Lysander refuses to have sex with enslaved sex workers, which leads to a disagreement with Cassius, who believes they should keep a low profile and accept their hosts’ offer. Lysander feels like he and Cassius are growing apart.

Later, when he is alone in his room, Lysander is unexpectedly visited by Seraphina. She banters with him, teasing him about refusing the Pinks earlier. He realizes that she is more powerful and aggressive than he was taught to be, despite their similar upbringings as Sovereign heirs. Seraphina is unsure about Lysander’s motivations but warns him to give Dido whatever she wants.

Back on Nessus, the Howlers realize that they have a stowaway. Darrow and his men search the ship and find Darrow’s daughter Rhonna, who snuck on board against his orders. Since it is too late to go back, Sevro orders her to clean the latrines. Later, Darrow and Sevro speak with Apollonius about their plan. He is exuberant and calculating, and Darrow resents having to make a deal with him. The Howlers need his help to land on Venus, where the Ash Lord is hiding, because Apollonius’s brother Tharsus controls the planet.

Darrow plans to appeal to Tharsus’s greed by posing as a trading ship full of luxury goods to bypass the planet’s defenses. He also lets Apollonius believe that he will be able to reclaim his birthright and rule Venus once the war is over. However, he knows that the Venusians will not accept Apollonius’s return and will instead devolve into a civil war, which Darrow can use to his advantage. He has also had a bomb implanted in Apollonius’s head, which he can detonate at any time and use as leverage to control him.

Lyria accompanies Kavax to his friend’s Quicksilver’s birthday party, which is attended by many important people, including the Sovereign Victra and other Republic officials. Lyria is called to the party so she can take Sophocles outside. While she tries to get Sophocles to come to her, Lyria overhears the party’s conversation about the Vox Populi’s rise. Their representative Dancer’s demands are slowing down the senate’s work, leading Virginia to admit that Darrow may have been right about the Ash Lord’s interference.

When Lyria takes Sophocles to the garden, she runs into Pax. He introduces himself and asks Lyria about her past. She angrily retorts that he is too naïve and privileged to understand most people’s reality. After the party, when she finds herself in a shuttle with Kavax, Pax, and other servants, Lyria starts feeling guilty about her behavior and wonders if it will get her fired. She takes comfort in Philippe’s necklace, but the pendant suddenly opens and lets out paralyzing gas. The ship drops to the ground, and someone starts sawing through the door from the outside.

Lysander and Cassius are invited to have dinner with the Raas, including Dido, Diomedes, Seraphina, Bellerophon, and more cousins and relatives. Dido introduces them as Regulus and Castor. The conversation flows, and Lysander carefully observes the Raa family’s interactions. The family asks questions about his and Cassius’s lives as traders and question their loyalty to the Republic.

Cassius pretends to have served in the army that fought the Reaper to try and ingratiate himself to the Raas. He asks about the situation on Io, and Dido explains that everyone respects the law regardless of their social position. Lysander is surprised that the old hierarchies still hold but respects the Rim’s order and austerity.

The conversation turns to the evidence that Seraphina brought back from the Republic. She tells them that she hid the datacube in Lysander’s razor. Lysander and Cassius play innocent as they hid it, along with evidence of their true identities, in a safe on Archimedes. Dido’s people find the safe and bring it into the room.

The safe will implode if opened without the right combination. Cassius tries to bargain his and Lysander’s lives for the code, but Dido refuses. The Raas know who Cassius truly is because Seraphina recognized his razor when she stole it from Lysander. Cassius is a known enemy of theirs, and they assume that Lysander is one of his young brothers who survived the war.

A servant brings in a gruesli, a small creature that eats masks, and uses it to restore Cassius’s face to its original form. Cassius defiantly refuses to open the safe; he wants to prevent the war that Dido is trying to start with the datacube’s evidence. Lysander sides with him, so Dido orders Bellerephon to duel Cassius to the death.

Ephraim, Volga, and Dano get inside the crashed shuttle and search through the unconscious bodies. They find and retrieve Pax and Electra, their targets. Ephraim leaves fake clues that the heist was the work of Red insurgents. When he tries to shoot Lyria, the only person who can identify him, he can’t kill her and instead decides to take her along.

Kavax tries to fight them despite being partially paralyzed. He kills Dano, and Volga injures him in return, before the crew escapes. They meet Cyra at their rendezvous location, where a medical team removes the trackers embedded in Pax and Electra’s skin. Ephraim warns Lyria to keep a low profile until they are safe, and the crew escapes in a new car with their hostages.