Alice is amused with the whole Unmaker thing, as she is one. She doesn't know of any others. She isn't part of the new Unmaker threat. She's interested in this world and the fear that everyone has. She wants some of it to actually stick around. Jericho never noticed before, but she has no shadow and has galaxies in her eyes. He has a sinking feeling that he's not going to remember these facts, so he tries to write it down. "Oh, that won't help. It won't be there later." She asks if he wants to remember, and he replies in the affirmative. He agrees to the painful process. Suddenly he remembers being really freaked out by her time and again, by how she looks and what happens around her. He remembers the history of her people. She offers a strange piece of advice about keeping the Unmakers: if the existing worlds are bigger, the corresponding nothing must be bigger as well. Therefore, it would take them longer to travel through the nothing and something to get here. After all, if you go to them then they would be here, so that isn't an option to stop them.
Isabelle is at Serendipity working on her plant repeaters to keep everyone sentient.
Brand talks to Clarissa to get advice about how to get reintroduced to the family. Clarissa calls Caine, who is developing a video game. He's planning to catch up with Merlin some time soon. Brand uses one of Clarissa's trumps to get to Caine's apartment in San Diego. He walks by a coffee shop and the barista offers him the regular. (The what? Has he been there before? Apparently he's a regular…) He declines the triple mocha cappuccino and heads over to the software company where Caine works.
Did I misunderstand who works at the software company? Is it Caine or Rinaldo?
Lowen is off duty with no orders to kill anyone at the moment, so he trumps Jericho. They head to the stairs to meet with Silas and Brigid, who are dodging Ascendancy minions. JERICHO: WE MIGHT NEED TO KILL ALICE EVENTUALLY.
Silas goes to see Shileen and the others break off and do other things. He asks her about the Unmaking. Shileen did not take part in taking down the Ancient, which is why she's like the original Dwimmerlaik. The Unmakers will come for the Dwimmerlaik long before the Amberites. They can fight the shadows of the Unmakers out in the Void, as the shadows precede them and can be killed. She wants nothing to do with any of this stuff.
The Winter Queen sends an owl to Lowen, directing him to kill someone in the market. Lowen elbows Jericho and asks how hard a target the guy is. Jericho says the guy is unusually prepared and competent. Interesting. Lowen riles up a goblin and throws it into the shop. The shopkeep turns and stabs the goblin. This does not, however, prevent the goblin from exploding. The Queen's order included declarations of the accused crimes against children. The goblins find 5 children caged in the back of the shop and Lowen commands them to return the children to the Winter Queen. Silas returns to see a blown up shop and caged children. Wth??
Silas tries to trump the back of the card to reach the Unicorn. at the same time, he gets a trump contact (and of course he answers) and out of the darkness in the card comes a dart that whizzes past Silas, nicking him on the way. He gets dizzy. Isabelle sensed the trouble and joined the trump. She is able to identify Rinaldo and shares this info as she's about to push Jericho and Lowen into the trump contact. Because the other side is dark, Silas shoots a flare gun through the trump.
At the same time, Brand is going to find Luke (Rinaldo) at the software company. The guard calls up to Luke to tell him he has a guest. As Luke answers, Brand and the guard hear, "Oh shit! What did I do? " and stumbling and tripping as he tries to run away from Jericho and Lowen as they trump in. Rinaldo dives away and pulls out a trump. Isabelle blocks his mind from completing the contact as Jericho and Lowen tackle him. Jericho takes the trump from his hand and doesn't recognize the tower with elemental flames in it. Isabelle trumps Jericho and asks if they need anything. He says they all need out NOW. As she's pulling them through, Bree opens the door and asks Jericho what's going on?? Isabelle is troubled by this development but finish pulling them through. She'll sneak off later and talk to Bree.
The guard rushes in and is horrified by the mayhem: a burning flare and overturned furniture. Bree asks him to go back to his desk. She investigates the room and finds a drawer with tranquilizer solution. Jericho is tight with Isabelle, so that's probably where he went. Bree calls Isabelle and they talk about how to proceed. Oh what a precarious situation! They agree to try and get Bree to Shadowfell. Aaaand that did not go well. Isabelle is pissed.
Rinaldo is from The Keep of Four Worlds, which is where he was trying to trump. Silas goes through Rinaldo's bag and finds a personal laptop.
Commandeer under Caine's Special Ops division.
In a closet in Rinaldo's apartment, a board slides over and exposes his hiding place where he keeps his trump cards and other things. Jericho goes to the apartment to get the card and investigate further.
Silas goes to Las Vegas to a suite in the MGM Grand where technology works. He's going to hack the laptop and see what he can find.
Gerhardt and Natasha prepare to go to the Grove of the Unicorn. Gerhardt works on reassembling the cloning machines.
Bree goes to her shadow and makes a trump to San Diego near Rinaldo's apartment. She goes there as she's pretty sure it will be empty now.
Jericho finds that the apartment is pretty ordinary, like any dude's place. There is money of all different denominations and origins, alternate IDs, and the trump of Caine's commander. Jericho trumps him and has Lowen at the ready so they can kidnap him. An owl appears and informs Lowen that the Winter Queen wants the guy dead as well.
Jericho initiates the trump contact with his victim, Commander Gallas. The man insists that he must maintain his surveillance by order of the King through Caine. He is uncooperative, so Jericho knocks him out an takes him back to Shadowfell.
Bree goes into Rinaldo's apartment. It looks like someone has rifled through the place. There is a stack of trumps in his bedside table in a secret compartment. The deck includes Brand's mother, Merlin, and some other royals. They were all created by the same person, clearly influenced by Brand. Is Rinaldo a trump artist? (Yes, but Clarissa didn't mention it.) Merlin is at the center of some diagram of people and places and events. There's a list of dates of attempted murders, all on April 30 and staged as an accident. (That's the day Rinaldo learned that Brand was dead.) Rinaldo is considering the same with Caine. Brand finds one more hidden trump to a completely unfamiliar woman in addition to the one of Jasra.
Brand trumps Isabelle, who shares the trump call with Rinaldo. Jericho is in another room interrogating Commander Gallas. Bree and Gallas discuss everything. Isabelle monitors for pesky lies. Bree finds that Rinaldo has no malice against Silas — that was just orders. Otherwise he hasn't done anything against Amber.
Commander Gallas knows absolutely nothing. There's a small profile on Rinaldo, but nothing interesting. Rinaldo's card does not look like the cards that Brand made for the Special Ops team. Jericho gets a trump from Caine, who is pissed about him messing up the mission. Caine thinks about it and wonders if someone is setting up Rinaldo to get found out.
Bree, hears the conversation and decides to clear out the apartment. At that moment, Jasra and 10 guards come in, responding to the emergency beacon. Jasra probes Bree, suspecting she's a one-night stand. She loses interest in Bree and tells her she should get out while they clean out the place. Bree goes back to the coffee house and talks to the barista again. It seems very odd that Luke would take a mission from Caine, who he hates.
Caine collects his spy from Jericho and puts him back on his mission.
Gerhardt and Natasha go to the Grove of the Unicorn. It's a warm night with a clear, starry sky. The Unicorn appears, but doesn't come near. Gerhardt approaches the unicorn and ask for assistance in recovering his true name. She asks why and Gerdhardt says to find out why he hid it. She agrees to help and explains that knowing his true name will help. Gerdhardt shows her a ritual that will find out his true name. She helps perform it, and he is in shock now. The Unicorn looks quizzical, noting this is not what she expected. He feels connected to his true name, and yet it doesn't feel like it's his.
He shows Natasha a stable on Kolvir where he is breeding Morganstern horses for the family. They make it back to Erewhon so he can rest.
Caine's people figure out that it is an imposter Caine setting up Luke/Rinaldo. The culprit and motive have not yet be determined. Rinaldo says a lot of work on his game development are missing, and that would be worth millions. Perhaps that's why his apartment was ransacked? Maybe… They'll keep an eye on him.