The SEQUEL to Winter squad. The Light Half of the Year has come to Arbouron, our nearest neighbour in the multidimensional Cosmos. Nevamarsya, faces a new challenge, life in the Roots of the Existentialist Apple Tree that is alive and sentient in many different realities. Her family, friends and colleagues on the Winter Squad have returned to base. Gone is the silence of the Crown in Winter. Its population has returned from their Winter homes and it is once more the busy industrial complex. Coming to terms with the aftermath of the Virus Invasion. Tree-people grow up quickly, going through adolecence in just sixeen weeks. But have the youngsters attached to the Winter Squad for training only grow up too quickly during the horrors of the viral invasion. Ghosts from the past have an influence on the present. When a dead body turns out to be that of Drwgdynant, a long missing Loan Shark, Tabbernant is accused of his murder. The people who were with him the night Drwgdynant vanished cannot help him. General Myghcomant is in a coma after catching a bullet aimed at the Tree Marshall, the most senior officer in the Tree and the evasive Gaemlovant vanished into thin air. Nevamarsya and her friends set out to find him.