Returning to the fray, Ruth, Laura and Shavi rescued Church from the casket in the Far Lands and returned to Earth for a final confrontation with Veitch. In the battle, Veitch was killed, his body taken away by the Brothers and Sisters of Spiders.

But now the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons faced their biggest test: to destroy the Void before it could reshape the world in its image for all time. From the depths of the Blue Fire, Hal told them what they would need: the missing Extinction Shears; and the Two Keys, two humans, one with the power to create life, the other with the power to destroy, hidden by Existence somewhere amongst the world's billions.

Church knew that they could not complete this quest alone, and so he set out to locate Mallory, Sophie, Caitlin and Hunter, still living the fake lives the Void had given them. With Tom once again joining them, they split up into two teams. Mallory, Sophie and Caitlin travelled to the Far Lands in search of the Extinction Shears, under the guidance of a returned Jerzy.

With the Libertarian hounding them at every turn, Church and the others raced to Norway in search of the First Key. But there they discovered why they had encountered only the Celtic gods during the Age of Misrule: each pantheon of gods from Earth's mythologies had their own Great Dominion over which they ruled. For centuries, they had slept, but every time the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons trespassed in a new Great Dominion, they woke the old gods.

In Norway, Church and his team were confronted by gods from the cold northern climes, including Tyr and Freyja. To save the lives of his friends, Tom agreed to an undisclosed but clearly tragic deal with Freyja, who gave him the cursed ring Andvarinaut to help them locate their hearts' desire – in this instance, the Two Keys.