It is right after Midwinter, and snow lies thick upon the ground, not yet darkened with dirt and soot. The balefires have been rekindled by the high king's messengers, and the land awaits the moment when winter will begin to ebb.
Miles has a dream. He sees a bell in a tower, with people walking around the tower about their business who he vaguely recognizes. The bell begins to ring, but no one notices except some small birds who are perched on the tower... they fly down amoung the people trying to warn them, but none take heed. Miles awakens.
Meanwhile, Magda has already seen the kids off to school when she has a visit from Sinuous Fuzzlupper, who brings a message from the Countess, flowery but in the end asking for Magda to bring her less than reputable relatives to help find something that has gone missing. She calls Miles and collects Soraya through serendipity as usual and arrives at court.
The are shown into the Countess's waiting room and after a short while she enters. The Focus of Ialm has gone missing: the Countess presumes Doolie Damnjaw has it, and they are to get it back. As they leave, Miles finds himself turning and delivering a pronouncement in a deep voice:
"The first player to the board sets the game.
You had best learn the rules or lose the name."
The Countess seems somewhat affronted by this and Miles makes a quick exit.
The climb the seer's tower, which is extremely cold due to having open windows and look out over the snowcovered fields and forests of the near dreaming, where herds of elk struggle through deep, perfect snow. He won't let them in at first, but Magda won't go away. Finally inside, they ask him about the Focus, he says he hung it in front of the mirror in the great hall so it would have been easy to take. Soraya climbs up to the tower platform and looks out one window into a shining city of skyscrapers. She looks out another window and sees a very familiar man lounging on a beach, and startled falls backwards off the ledge. Magda catches her. In parting, the seer says to Soraya "never open a door unless you know what's on the other side!" and cackles.
They interrogate the staff a bit and determine that Doolie left early in the morning some time and the Focus was gone more or less the same time so it was probably him. Sir Shane and Johnny come in to the hall with an enormous elk that Johnny shot and Shane killed. Our heroes head to the pit.
In the pit, Soraya seduces a grunge guy who says that Doolie was meeting some friends at a door. Seducing the poor fool is like shooting fish in a barrel, so Soraya reloads and gets his goth chick girlfriend as well.
They go back to court and interrogate the little boggan woman who
let Doolie in for the night trying to determine if she was in on it.
Soraya even goes so far as to tail her back to the kitchen, where she
bastes the elk, whose severed head sits on the table and occaisionally
bawls. When Fuzzlupper comes through and takes the head, Soraya gets
bored and leaves.
Seems like a dead end.
Back in the great hall there's some debate about what to do. Fuzzlupper scares a lady in waiting with the elk head and she goes screaming across the hall. Later she comes screaming back, having found a spider card in her bed. Magda gives it to Sir Shane who says he found one in his armor polish a month or so ago. Did Doolie leave them? Probably not. Magda goes home for dinner and the other two retire to a restaurant where the waiter spills chowder on Soraya. There's also a goblin in the restaurant which only those two can see. It seems to be a leg goblin - it chews on women's legs, chair legs, table legs, and chicken legs.
When Magda returns from nuzzling her children and cooking a simple yet wholesome meal they head back to the pit where they meet a redcap named Bolt (he's got a big bolt through his head). Soraya seduces him and finds out that Doolie is out at Inman square, leading them to conclude that the door he's meeting friends at is at Mallory's. Bolt has to be dismissed forcefully by Magda, having taken quite a shine to Soraya.
When they arrive at Mallory's it is full of goblins and Mallory is chasing them around with an iron bar. With help they manage to get the Door shut and start interrogating and beating the hapless and stupid golbins. It turns out the Doolie was exchanging "the shiny thing" for a Goblin Death Legion, which arrives about then outside the door and tries to be let in, claiming variously to be a Goblin Friend Legion, a flower delivery, a landshark, and no one at all. The Legion has spears and there are lots of them, so the heroes don't let them in.
Doolie arrives and gets pounced on and eventually the Focus is
extracted from under his tongue. Some of the Death Legion gets in,
but not enough to be real trouble, and the goblins offer the Legion to
Magda for the Focus, but no deal. They get shooed off and Doolie is
dragged back to court where he is put in the dungeon. They return the
Focus to the Darkling Willoby, who doesn't seem properly grateful,
saying "That's the last time I'll ever thank you." Everyone returns
home, Miles discovering on his return that Mallory has kept one of the
Goblin Death Legionaires, christened "Gurk" as a garbage disposal.