Convergence recap

Fugitive wizard Kazimir Wolfe survives an attempted capture and joins forces with Duke, a talking dog who hosts the ancient spirit Marduk. Time-displaced knights Macarius and Giselle arrive to help prevent the Convergence, while FBI agent Michelle Singer becomes a covert source and Team Draco tracks the organization hunting him. Evidence connects Kazimir's lifelong persecution to stolen magical artifacts and the deaths of his parents, Sarah, and his former girlfriend Alicia. The party recovers Marduk's amulet, releasing the djinn Aziberahatahumundi, whose knowledge leads them to an Ohio mound where the Order is opening a Nether portal. The Order overturns their RV, but Team Draco intervenes. Kazimir reaches the displaced breach, kills one creature, and collapses the portal against a larger one. The breach is not the Convergence, winged creatures may already have escaped, and the surviving group ends the book injured, exposed, and without its RV.

Kazimir Wolfe, a lightly trained wizard wanted in connection with several deaths, survives an Indiana road ambush in which one armed group tries to seize him and another intervenes. While fleeing west, he meets Duke, a dog compelled to find him after the death of his owner. Duke can speak to Kazimir and also hosts Marduk, the spirit of an ancient Babylonian wizard who says he was drawn forward to guide him. Kazimir accepts responsibility for Duke and replaces his damaged truck with an RV. Meanwhile, FBI Special Agent Michelle Singer follows forensic evidence from the ambush, recognizing that Kazimir was the intended captive rather than the sole aggressor. A covert unit called Team Draco also investigates because its colleagues in Team Cobra died while protecting him. Other men posing as agents use a magical detection device while searching for him. By the end of chapter 5, Kazimir has a mobile refuge and two uncertain companions, but no destination. Multiple organizations are closing in, and Marduk agrees that the growing return of magic could end the existing world without yet explaining how to stop it.

A rural detour brings Kazimir to Macarius, a Medjay knight sent from Egypt in 321 to protect a wizard. Soon afterward Giselle, a knight and former wizard's apprentice from Gaul in 497, arrives by the same unexplained time displacement. She identifies their mission as resistance to the Convergence, a collision between Earth and the Nether. Both knights accept Kazimir as their wizard and begin the difficult process of adapting to modern clothes, technology, and concealment. Their arrival supports Kazimir's fear that magic is rapidly strengthening. His own abilities expand enough for him to create a protective shield and apply kinetic force, although heavy use chills and damages nearby life. Macarius and Giselle warn that some human wizards historically served powers from the Nether and may have sent agents into the present as well. Kazimir also recounts how Sarah prepared him to flee before armed attackers killed her and burned their home. By chapter 10, the four travelers have committed to discovering why the knights were sent, while Kazimir suspects that portals, hostile wizards, and the people hunting him are parts of the same threat.

Kazimir takes the party toward Shreveport to obtain false identities, but his counterfeiting contact refuses to help after hearing that dangerous people are asking about him. While fleeing police attention, Kazimir and Giselle are attacked by three armed muggers. Giselle kills two and spares Joshua Ellington Fordham, who sees their RV and remembers its plate. The violence convinces Kazimir to treat the Convergence as a real mission rather than an impossible story. A referral to Memphis proves to be another trap. Michelle Singer follows Kazimir to the meeting and witnesses him stop rifle fire with a magical shield, then helps him escape after he brings part of the structure down on the attackers. Kazimir explains that his magic draws on energy associated with the Nether and that the Convergence would reunite the realms. Michelle does not immediately arrest him, but she has not fully chosen to assist him either. At chapter 15, Kazimir is injured and exhausted, his route to new documents has failed, and the FBI agent who pursued him has become the first modern outsider to see direct proof of his abilities.

Michelle meets Duke, Macarius, and Giselle and quietly decides not to report or arrest Kazimir while she investigates. Her evidence shows the Indiana attackers intended to capture him and clears him of killing the covert pair who tried to help. More disturbingly, records establish that Sarah was not his biological aunt: she took him from the hospital after his parents died and raised him under false identities. The group also attracts a new criminal enemy when Macarius confronts Slicky Boy for abusing a woman. Macarius and Giselle defeat his bodyguards, prompting Slicky Boy's father to begin searching for them. After Kazimir challenges Macarius's reckless intervention, the knight reveals the past failure that drives his protectiveness and agrees to put their mission first. Michelle later shows Kazimir that his parents' fatal crash was engineered and may have been arranged to deliver him to Sarah. Kazimir connects this pattern to Alicia Roberts, a former girlfriend murdered after he fled Colorado. By chapter 21, he believes a single campaign has isolated him since infancy. Michelle and Kazimir maintain a cautious covert channel, while her artifact-theft investigation offers a possible route to the people behind it.

Marduk recognizes a photographed bronze amulet once associated with King Nebuchadnezzar and insists it is both dangerous and central to his arrival. Michelle identifies its current holder as R. Philip Fleming, an Asheville artifact broker suspected of illicit dealing. Macarius explains that ordinary separation between Earth and the Nether permits only limited magic, while hostile wizards seek a lasting merger that would greatly increase their power. At the same time, Joshua Ellington Fordham learns that a reward is being offered for the party's location and recognizes the RV. Kazimir plans an indirect approach to Fleming through a dog-agility park where the broker trains his spaniel. He cuts and darkens Giselle's conspicuous red hair, scouts Fleming's routine, and steals a temporary vehicle. Marduk grows increasingly agitated and faint within Duke, making delay dangerous. The party uses Duke to gain Fleming's confidence, disarms him and his bodyguard, and forces access to a hidden vault. They recover the amulet and also take a broken Adena or Hopewell spear point linked to the broker's mysterious client. Fleming and his guard are left restrained as the group departs with the two artifacts.

Joshua is killed before he can sell the party's location, but hostile pursuers continue reconstructing the RV's movements through motel records and witnesses. Team Draco also receives the Asheville lead and moves closer to Kazimir. When Kazimir applies magic to Marduk's amulet, he releases Aziberahatahumundi, a djinn from the Nether whom he calls Azib. Azib is alarmed to learn how much time has passed and retreats into the amulet when he hears Marduk's name. Duke senses that Marduk is deliberately hiding from him, exposing an unexplained history between the two ancient beings. Summoned again, Azib detects a residue in the stolen spear point from a much more powerful object and concludes that someone is actively trying to open a portal to the Nether. Macarius initially treats the djinn as an enemy, but Giselle helps secure a provisional alliance. Azib wants the breach stopped because dangerous enemies may await him on the other side. By chapter 28, the group must find the original portal-linked object before it is activated, while hostile trackers have explicit orders to kill Kazimir and are following the RV's trail.

Research and Aziberahatahumundi's sensing lead the party from the spear point to a museum pottery shard and then to a small Ohio mound. Azib detects deliberate magical power building there and expects a portal to open that night. The Order blocks the approaches and ambushes Kazimir's RV, intending to take him alive. Kazimir's shield limits the gunfire, but the vehicle overturns, injuring Giselle and Macarius. Duke attacks a gunman holding him, and Kazimir uses energy supplied through Azib to survive. Mikeare Henderson and Zoraida Martinez force their jeep through the Order's position and reach the wreck, openly confirming Team Draco as an ally. They are hurt but survive. Kazimir destroys a glowing clay vessel, only to learn that the portal's endpoint has shifted. He, Duke, and Azib race to the actual breach, where Kazimir kills a smaller Nether creature and destabilizes the portal as a much larger one pushes through, severing its arm as the opening collapses. The breach was not the Convergence, and winged creatures appear to have crossed beforehand. The Order remains active and is tied to the deaths of Kazimir's parents, Sarah, and Alicia. The survivors destroy the RV and leave injured, exposed, and dependent on Team Draco's jeep.

At the Ohio mound, the Order ambushes Kazimir's party and overturns the RV, injuring Giselle and Macarius. Mikeare Henderson and Zoraida Martinez force their way through the attackers and help the group escape, although Mikeare is badly bruised by stopped bullets and Zoraida is shot in the thigh. Kazimir destroys the Order's clay vessel, then learns the portal has opened at a displaced endpoint. He, Duke, and Aziberahatahumundi reach the breach, kill a smaller Nether creature, and collapse the opening as a much larger creature tries to cross. The portal is closed, but it was not the Convergence, and one or more winged creatures appear to have entered Earth first. The Order remains active and is now linked to the deaths of Kazimir's parents, Sarah, and Alicia. The RV and its incriminating contents are destroyed, leaving the surviving party injured, exposed, and reliant on Team Draco's jeep. Michelle Singer remains a covert contact, while Sarah's motives, the true Convergence, and the concealed history between Marduk and Aziberahatahumundi remain unresolved.