Can anxiety be weaponized? Asking for a friend. After saving the Alliance's butt at the ball turned massacre, Sally's excited to be home and sitting pretty with her presidential pardon. The only rain on her parade? She's overshot her time by three years, and everyone seems more wired and irritable than she left them - is anxiety suddenly airborne? When the Alliance begs the Siblings to find the source of this so-called Dread, her worst fears are confirmed: Earth is one of many worlds suffering intense agitation and escalating panic threatening the collapse of society. But the search forces Zander and Blayde to confront their past, uncovering secrets much more dangerous than flamethrower cats and talking sand traps. Between them and accidentally space-napped James Felling, saving the universe and finding answers shouldn't be this hard. Someone is clearly pulling the strings, and if Sally can't find out who, the entire universe could implode. But hey, it's all in an end-of-days work.