The pawnshop owner calls the palace guards because the royal family has reported Kell missing. They visit a pawnshop where they hope to find a particular token, a white rook from a chess set. Kell and Lila use the black stone to make themselves invisible and flee. Holland appears and tells them he also killed Barron. They find that Holland has burned down Red London's tavern where Kell kept his tokens. They return to Red London to find a token that will allow them into White London. Kell and Lila formulate a plan to return the stone to Black London, but they need to move through each dimension in turn. Kell is badly hurt, but Lila knocks Holland unconscious and they flee. Kell reappears, and the two Antaris fight. After he leaves, Holland shows up and demands to know where Kell is, because he wants the black stone.

Kell uses magic to find Lila at the Stone's Throw and reclaim the stone. Back in Red London, the dead assassin awakens, reanimated by proximity to the stone, which leaves a zombie-like plague in its wake. Kell kills the assassin and flees to Grey London where he collides with Lila Bard, who steals the black stone from his pocket. When he gets home, Kell realizes that the payment is actually a stone, a forbidden relic from the ill-fated Black London. A woman stops Kell on his way home and asks him to take a letter to her brother in Red London, passing him the letter and payment for his trouble. The twins are bitter because long ago the people of Black London lost control of their magic and the city erupted into chaos before White London (with no help from Red London) stepped in to quell the uprising and shut the doors between dimensions. White London is a cold and inhospitable place where the people are starving.

Kell brings a message to the Dane twins, Athos and Astrid, who have cast a spell over Holland to keep him under their control. She shows up at the local tavern, the Stone's Throw, where she is taken in by the owner, a man named Barron.

Meanwhile, in magic-free Grey London, an intrepid thief and would-be pirate named Lila Bard kills her landlord when he tries to assault her. Holland brings Rhy a necklace as a birthday gift. While Kell is in another dimension on a diplomacy mission, his brother Prince Rhy is visited by Kell's arch nemesis, another Antari named Holland, who comes from White London. There are four Londons, existing in alternate dimensions: Grey, Red, White, and Black London, and Kell is one of the few with the magical capacity to pass between them. Kell is an Antari, a blood magician, living in the kingdom he has dubbed “Red London” with his adopted family, the Mareshes, who rule the city. NOTE: The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Schwab, V.E.

A darker magic