Content Warning: This section includes brief discussions of sexual violence. 

Fifty-six-year-old Enae Athtur lives in the Saeniss Polity. The novel opens on the day of Enae’s Grandmaman’s funeral. Enae has spent most of hir life taking care of hir controlling, overbearing Grandmaman. After the funeral, Enae and hir extended family learn that none of them have inherited Grandmaman’s estate. Instead, years ago, Grandmaman sold it to a woman named Zemil Igoeto to get out of debt. She made Zemil her daughter and only heir, on the condition that Zemil provide for Enae. Zemil tells Enae that sie can stay in the house for a month to complete hir mourning period, after which sie will begin a job as a Special Investigator for the Radch Office of Diplomacy. Hir first mission entails tracking down a fugitive of the Radchaai Translator Office who went missing 200 years ago. The Radch is a large, space-faring empire far from Enae’s home world. Enae’s new job is really just busy work: Nobody expects hir to find anything, but sie is “being paid to travel, and maybe look into an old puzzle” (23).