Sirens, sprites, and gentleman astrologers are everyday things in the Woven City. So when the Crusader, a 7-foot-high suit of armor with no one inside, begins hassling people outside Mme. Rumella's Tea Shop, her main concern is that he might disturb her customers. His search for an ancient artifact will come to preoccupy not only the two of them, but Mme. Rumella's young nephew, archaeologist Leila Lanstrom, Mary, Queen of Scots (but don't call her that to her face) and a whole cast of City characters, few of them reputable. Meanwhile, a man from Spain runs for mayor, the infamous Hunter Blue returns from the Forests after an absence of a few centuries, carrying a big gun and looking for revenge, and a very boring linguist disappears from the Mulhoy Institute of Extinct and Imaginary languages. It's all very distracting, but the Crusader is single minded of purpose, never resting as he searches from the walls of Jericho to the British Museum, to the Pyramid of the Sun, which in the Woven City is mainly used by people looking for a good place to go jogging.