In the City of Saint Ghost, life revolves around an imposing statue, the Colossus, a god cast in bronze. Here is the creator of an alchemical world of priests and soothsayers. But if even the lowliest who live in His shadow are sacred, why is the Titan unable to stem the onslaught of horrors that seep through stone, tunnel in the earth, and bubble in the veins?

Why do withered homunculi chew catacombs beneath His streets? Why do golems rise from His clay? Why do devils in copper outthink even the most learned of His priests? And why does a blood-boiling plague spare not even the most prosperous of His children?

In this tumult, Calpurnia, Mistress of the Temple of Bastet, slits the caul of her existence, finding the origin of this cataclysmic scourge. She'll learn one thing above all: this is how the world ends.