Book 1: Wander
Chapter 1: Pre-Ramble
Molly and Griffen find themselves between jobs, and wonder what to do for money. Their tentative plan requires Molly to renew her citizenship, which means a trip to the city of Peorth. Griffen runs into someone she once knew: Burt Conroy, a former underling, as she admits to Molly.
Chapter 2: Fair Weather
Molly and Griffen job their way to the planet of Auster, only to find the contract they’d hoped to fill has been canceled due to political unrest. An old friend, Mare Rafferty, offers them passage out in the next day or two. They decide to enjoy an impromptu vacation, but a fight with a couple of mysterious operatives gets them kicked out of their hostel, and they’re caught in a terrorist bombing, and decide to take their leave of Auster sooner than expected. They find passage on a cargo ship, but the captain’s taken on two additional crew for this voyage: the couple of mysterious operatives, Donny Grae and Rand Yong.
Chapter 3: Forest for the Trees
The cargo ship has crashed on a habitable but uninhabited planet, and the captain’s dead. Griffen, Molly, Donny, and Rand are alive, but injured, to varying degrees. They must locate an emergency beacon to send an SOS, and as they search, they get to know each other better by getting on each other’s nerves.
Chapter 4: Make No Bones
Back on their current homeworld, Korsevei, Molly and Griffen are broker than ever. Molly gets a job, and an injury she hides from Griffen. Griffen gets a courier assignment from a local businessman, Nikolas. Griffen runs into Burt again, which makes Molly nervous, and she politely, but firmly, tells him to leave.
Chapter 5: Blood From a Stone
Griffen’s courier assignment takes them by train to Veddsbend, the city on Korsevei where Molly grew up. The wound Molly’d hoped to hide from Griffen opens up, and they’re sidetracked to a hospital.
Chapter 6: Every Dog
Released from hospital, Molly and Griffen find their way to a compound known simply as the Yard, owned and overseen by Baka, an old friend of Molly’s. There, Griffen finds Theus—a belligerent drunk by night, who by day runs soberly amorous.
Chapter 7: Pot and Pans
Busking on a street corner, Griffen is suddenly confronted by Rhys, the son she left behind four years before. The ensuing argument leaves her morose for days. A new job might serve as a distraction, with the clan of their friend, Mere Rafferty, but Griffen is summoned to what turns out to be an interview with Donny Grae, in the uniform of the Corps–Griffen’s old bureaucratic nemesis.
Chapter 8: Birds of a Feather
Donny Grae continues to hector and harry Griffen, and reveals that it was Burt Conroy who helped Rhys find his way to Korsevei. Griffen “borrows” access to a database from Nikolas to confirm a few things before confronting Burt. Sometime later, Rhys finds Griffen at the Raffertys’ camp for an awkward attempt at reconciliation—but when he passes out drunk, she arranges for his passage home with the Rafferty clan.
Chapter 9: Out of a Molehill
After some troubles induced by Griffen, Burt finds Molly, and forms with her a tentative alliance to save Griffen from her troubles—some due to the dogged investigations of Donny Grae, but most to Griffen’s own self-destructive streak. But Burt insists that any aid he renders must be on his terms, and Molly must help Griffen—however reluctantly—to agree.
