Aristides gets together with Martin and Wakenda, who work at getting him up to speed on the state of things in amber, particularly concerning Aristides' position because of his being a son of Random. They discuss the state of the Royal succession of Amber, considering that Martin really doesn't want to be considered. Aristides discovers he also has a half sister, Lise, but that she is not being thought of as a step in the succession. The conversation turns to the historically accepted norms for the women of Amber's royal family, and their perceived prowess in battle etc. This attitude is slowly changing, (much to the bewilderment of the elders) because of the actions of the new women in the royal family, and the fact that many of them have leadership experience, are actively good with a sword, and enjoy an occasional fight.

Martin and Wakenda warn Aristides about the manipulative skill of the elder Amberites and the malleability of the 'newbies' under the 'guidance' of their aunts and uncles. Survival tactics and the shifting of targets onto Random are discussed. The conversation swings around to the bloodlines within the family, Random's ascent to the throne with the blessing of the Unicorn, the Unicorn's status as Penultimate Grandmother of the House of Amber, and Corwin's ability to appear completely inept and yet achieve his goals. Wakenda comments, "Corwin has managed to reduce everybody's expectations of him to the point where he no longer feels an obligation to live up to them." Aristides expresses a desire to at least meet Corwin and speak to him about how he has achieved this form of anonymity, since it may give him a way out of the succession.

Martin and Wakenda work to impress a sense of urgency to Aristides by encouraging him to hurry up and find some influential friends, through telling him the history of the start of the last war with Chaos.

Lucian has a spiffy plan for the party which will officially introduce Aristides and asks Llewella to go to it with him.

Lucian, Arndis, and Sybella, join up with Wakenda and Aristides to have a bit of fun. We travel to the Roaring 2020's, a favorite shadow of Wakenda's to give Aristides a better feel for how the whole shadow thing works and also how to use trump. Wakenda explains some of the mechanics of the place, and tells the group that the shadow's awareness is now the 'boss of all bosses'. Reservations are made for dinner and in the time leading up to that we all go out to see the sights. It's during this that Wakenda is attacked by sniper fire. After a few quick shifts of shadow, by Lucian, Arndis pattern teleports the entire group to Fusil, exhausting herself in the process, and confounding the attacks. Arndis collapses and is whisked below decks by the crew of the ship she teleported to. Wakenda decides to  remain behind, because Arndis hurt herself badly with the teleport.  Aristides, Lucian and Sybella all trump back to Amber. Arndis revives and comes back on deck, where Wakenda has noticed a large black cloud of ravenous insects massing on the horizon. Arndis is very tired, so Wakenda tries to enlist the help of Fusil's awareness to destroy the pests, and determine where they came from. Fusil is single-mindedly uncooperative, reasoning that this is the way of things and that after the insects have eaten their fill they will move on. Of course this means the depopulation of Arndis' home shadow. Not liking that option, Arndis rallies and causes the sea of sand to smell like food for the insects, which causes them to drown themselves. Arndis then retires to recover her strength.