Thursday and her pet dodo, Pickwick, have taken up temporary residency in a run-of-the-mill unpublished crime novel called Caversham Heights through the book world's Character Exchange Program—at least for the duration of her pregnancy. While the pages of an obscure, unpublished novel seem like a safe harbor, Thursday's enemy stalks her in her sleep. Aornis uses her skills as a mnemonomorph to alter and destroy Thursday's memories, which are all she has left of her eradicated husband. Granny Next, apparently an ex-Jurisfiction operative herself, unexpectedly appears on Thursday's doorstep to try to help her battle the mindworm, but Thursday must face off with Aornis, and her darkest nightmares, alone.

It seems that no one in the book world is safe anymore. Thursday reports for duty with her Jurisfiction colleagues at their headquarters in the Dashwoods' ballroom in Sense and Sensibility to discuss UltraWord™, the Book Operating System upgrade that has the entire fiction world buzzing with anticipation. But when the squad heads out to chase down the escaped Minotaur, Agent Perkins's body is found mangled at the Minotaur's vault, and Agent Snell dies from contact with the deadly "mispeling vyrus." While Snell's and Perkins's deaths in the line of duty at first seem legitimate, a missing vault key, a damaged Eject-o-Hat, and Snell's horribly misspelled final words point to sabotage. But at the 923rd annual BookWorld Awards, Thursday alone can stop a conversion of power that will shake the world of fiction to its very core.