In the Sunken City that was once Paris the guillotine rules again, while Sophia Bellamy from the Commonwealth across the Channel Sea tries to rescue as many of the revolution's victims as she can smuggle out, and some prisoners disappear from their cells, with a red-tipped rook feather left in their place--but who is the mysterious Red Rook and where does Sophia's wealthy fiance,́ René Hasard, fit in?

Jo Linden lives in a world where there are no atomic weapons, and the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is played out in the Pax Games, fought with powerful robotic mecha war machines operated by young pilots; Jo needs the prize money to save her father's mecha repair shop, and keep what is left of her family together, but when competing pilots start dying from poisoning, Jo finds herself caught up in Cold War politics and political...