John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to the Emperor Justinian, is skilled at keeping his footing on the treacherous slopes of court intrigue, but even he may slip when presented with a new and byzantine problem: why would a holy man high atop his pillar spontaneously combust and soon, other stylites burn to their deaths?

John, still fresh from working a tricky murder case two years earlier in One for Sorrow, finds that his investigations are hampered by a pagan philosphy tutor from his youth and a heretical Christian prophet whose ultimatums threaten to topple the Empire.

Then murder strikes close to home and John has only days to find a solution before he, his friends, his Emperor, Justinian, and the city itself are destroyed.