Leo Anderson has spent his whole life getting into the deadliest and most obscure corners of the globe. Along the way, he's lost good people. He often questions whether such academic pursuits have been worth the lives lost. His most recent expedition, an ill-fated voyage to Nan Madol to recover Olosopha's Almanac, ended in complete disaster. Mitch was the only one of his people to survive, or at the very least, to remain human. Leo is sick of burying people who trusted him. But now he knows these expeditions aren't purely academic in nature - and he won't quit until the job is done.