In a world where modern technology coexists with supernatural forces, Fetter is the son of a zealot known as Mother-of-Glory and an absent, godlike figure called the Perfect and Kind. The Perfect and Kind is a
messianic figure and
cult leader who abandoned Fetter before birth. Fetter, uniquely able to see invisible creatures called “devils,” is raised in the village of Acusdab and is trained by his mother in magic and assassination. During his childhood, Mother-of-Glory cuts away Fetter's shadow in order to give him the power of flight and make him a better killer. Her goal is for Fetter to one day kill his father and dismantle the Paths, which are his father's organized religious followers. As an adult, Fetter rejects his upbringing and flees to the city of Luriat, a metropolis filled with inexplicable, vividly painted doors that only exist on one side and cannot be opened. He joins a support group for survivors of religious cults led by the fierce and pragmatic Koel. He also begins dating a man named Hej and works as a guide for newly arrived refugees. He meets Caduv, a man whose voice carries magical power, and brings him to Koel's support group. Koel recruits Fetter and Caduv into her anti-government activist group. Fetter is given the false identity of Peroe, a middle-caste student. Fetter infiltrates the bureaucracies that guard the bright doors. He begins working with Pipra, a government scientist studying how new bright doors appear. Meanwhile, Fetter’s dying mother reaches out to him. She recounts her childhood on an island where magic flowed freely and devils lived openly among humans. That life was erased when a charismatic pirate, who would become the Perfect and Kind, learned her people’s magic. The Perfect and Kind used his newly learned magic to reshape the past. This “cataclysm” caused the island to vanish from memory, devils to become invisible, and the city of Luriat to come into being. Fetter witnesses a devil emerge from one of the bright doors and realizes they are not truly sealed. Devils can travel through the bright doors to enter the physical world. As his investigation deepens, he uncovers the existence of an object called Relic a. This relic could be used to kill the Perfect and Kind if it enters close proximity to him. Fetter steals the relic from Pipra and heads south to Acusdab. He hopes to intercept his father as the Perfect and Kind journeys to Luriat for religious purposes. Fetter visits Mother-of-Glory, who is dying of cancer. He believes that he has gotten close enough to kill the Perfect and Kind. Before she dies, Mother-of-Glory reveals that the Perfect and Kind has altered reality to ensure his own survival. With his plan foiled, Fetter returns to Luriat. He is placed in a prison camp, where he becomes trapped in its layers of bureaucracy. Eventually, he reinvents himself as a prison witch-doctor and exorcises a devil from another inmate. Fetter is brought back to Luriat by the Perfect and Kind. His father offers him the title “Saint of Bright Doors” and a role in the Paths. The Perfect and Kind reveals some of the secrets of the bright doors. When the Perfect and Kind overwrites the past to change reality, the people from those overwritten realities become devils and can re-enter reality through the bright doors. Fetter declines his father's offer. Meanwhile, Luriat descends into chaos: pogroms break out, a plague spreads, and many citizens die. Fetter reunites with Koel and Caduv; he kills one of his father's Saints. Fetter also meets Ordinary, the Acusdabi ambassador and his mother’s former lover. When the Perfect and Kind’s agent arrives to arrest Fetter, Ordinary slams shut the Embassy door, creating a new bright door. A past version of Mother-of-Glory emerges, kills the agent, and escapes with Ordinary through the door. At last, the Perfect and Kind confronts Fetter directly. He brings him to a park and claims the burned corpses of Hej, Pipra, Caduv, and Koel lie before them. (They are not truly dead.) The narrative shifts to Fetter’s shadow, the Unfettered, who has served as a hidden first-person narrator throughout the story. The Perfect and Kind brings Fetter outside of time, unintentionally severing the connection between Fetter and his shadow. The Unfettered secretly possesses one of the Perfect and Kind’s followers, then transfers into the Perfect and Kind himself, killing him. In the aftermath, the Unfettered watches as Fetter, Koel, and Caduv continue their revolution before quietly leaving them behind. == Themes ==