The ninth volume of the multiple Eisner, Harvey, Hugo, and British Fantasy Award-winning series. Can loyalty and love transcend a history of betrayal and blood?Maika, Kippa, and Ren return to their own world to discover a full year has passed in their absence--and Zinn is back in the clutches of Maika's father, the megalomaniacal Lord Doctor. From the relative safety of the pirate-controlled Spice Islands, Maika and her friends must regroup, recover, and find a way stop the Lord Doctor's murderous rampage before he destroys the Known World.