In which we encounter a formidable new authority and find ourselves awkwardly introduced into a rather peculiar and shadowed community, where whispers and peculiar amusements of the night provoke both awe and unease. Suspended between timid rebellion and the ignoble rites of boyhood, our young narrator begins to navigate the curious alliances and terrors of his novel environment under the watchful eyes of those whose characters are as tangled as the moonlit shadows they converse within.