Victor Roland is dead. A world at war is ending. Old friends are estranged and nations collapse in crisis. Charles Garner, an aging hipster, wanders the land alone in pursuit of meaning and hope when he learns of a way to resurrect the Far Messiah-in a shadowed temple beneath the kingdom with a bloodstained history. Perplexed by this riddle, Charles strives to reunite his companions in a desperate attempt to halt the End of All Things.

Meanwhile, Empress Johanna d'Gothica leads a campaign against the Kingdom of Lumiere to coalesce forces domestic and foreign against an existential threat-the fiend, Amadeus. He commands the Mannequin Legion and the daemonic hosts of the Inferno, leaving scorched earth in his wake. He seeks the power of the Machine, a legendary device laying dormant beneath the foundations of Holy Gothica, to usher the apocalypse and remake the earth in his own nihilistic image. And yet, Victor nominally exists through this monstrosity, his inner self and repressed emotions given flesh and form. Amadeus fears this humanity-something that Charles must exploit in order to bring his dear friend back from a liminal purgatory....

This is the fifth book of the Geist series. Join the remnants of Victor's fellowship as the Hundred Years' War rages on, as they search for a future in a world of ruin.