Melle wants justice for her family, and she will not stop until someone in the Shorpin Corporation meets her demands. The Moth Plateau is beginning to heal from the collapse of the swarms, and some of the people are allowed to return. But fifteen-year-old Melle finds her family home destroyed and the beetles that had been their dream of fortune stolen. Accompanied by the former cattle agent Druskan, in his over-the-top cowboy gear and with three moth hawks to clear a path, she heads for the Upper Plateau. She finds bike-riding messengers and a priestess, soldiers and miners and beetles, but answers? Answers are broken, just like everything else on the Moth Plateau. She fears it will break her long before she gets the recompense she demands.