People learn from their mistakes, and I can’t, because I don’t make any mistakes. Cloudhead is the ideal ruler of a perfect world, but he has no power over the form of scythes. A year had passed since Rowan had gone rogue and disappeared from view. He had become a popular legend, taking it upon himself to take the law into his own hands, eliminating corrupt scythes by burning them, and his story had spread in whispers across the continent. Citra becomes Anastasia, a sympathetic picker who challenges the ideas of the New Direction, but her approach to picking is met with opposition, her life is threatened, and it becomes clear that not everyone welcomes the change. Old enemies and new foes collide, and as corruption spreads in the form of scythes, Ruan and Citra's hopes fade. Will the cloud head intervene? Or will he just watch this perfect world crumble?