In the autumn of 1935, jazz pianist Lauchlan Huntly has a generally peaceful, albeit grief-ridden, life in Warrich with his wife and anchor, Kreszenz Noll. He suffers from a permanent freeze, depending on his wife's unnatural heat to keep him warm and tethered to the physical world.
His cosmic ties drag him out of his quiet existence when his estranged friend Bastet crashes back into his life after a decade of silence. Bastet brings with her to his doorstep three powerful ancient monsters she's dubbed the crones, who eat the hearts of humans and have their sights set on Bastet. With Lauchlan as Bastet's only hope of ridding the crones, he finds himself unmoored without his anchor and facing a terrible cost that he'd sworn he'd never pay again.