It has been ten years since Thomas Argyle, Charlie Cooper and Livia Naylor set off a revolution by releasing Smoke upon the world. But the consequences were far greater than they had imagined, and the world has fractured. Erasmus Renfrew, the avowed enemy of Smoke, is now Lord Protector of Engand. Thomas Argyle is in India, on a mission to find out the origins of Smoke. Mowgli, whose body was used to trigger the tempest that unleashed the Smoke, now calls himself Nils and is a chameleon-like thief living in New York. Elizabeth Renfrew, Erasmus' niece is in hiding. Her uncles experiments endured has given her a strange power over Smoke. Believing her uncle's agents have found her, so she flees to New York with a theater troupe led by Balthazar Black, an impresario with secrets of his own. There they encounter Nils, and a Machiavellian Company man named Smith. All these people seek to discover the true nature of Smoke, and thereby control its power. As their destinies entwine, a cataclysmic confrontation looms, and the Smoke will either bind them together or rend the world.