Mrs Nakajima introduces her to bookjumping, the method by which one enters the fictional world without the Prose Portal: those with an inherent talent for it can literally read themselves into the world of fiction and Thursday does so. It turns out that there is a police force within literature (both fiction and non-fiction), Jurisfiction, which employs both fictional characters and real people ranging from the Cheshire cat and the Red Queen to Ambrose Bierce and Voltaire, and ensures that literature continues in an orderly fashion. Next herself is apprenticed as a rookie Jurisfiction agent to Miss Havisham, the abandoned bride from Dickens' novel "Great Expectations". Thursday is, however, in some legal trouble in the literary world for having changed the ending of Jane Eyre, in "The Eyre Affair". After a preliminary hearing in the Byzantine world of Kafka's "The Trial" and saving Abel Magwitch from drowning before the beginning of "Great Expectations", Havisham and Thursday part ways and the latter character enters "The Raven" and retrieves Jack Schitt. But Goliath have no intention of keeping their word, and they trap Thursday in a Corporation warehouse without any reading material with which she can read herself out. Miss Havisham finds her there when it's discovered that the copy of "Cardenio" which Thursday found in the real world was stolen from the Great Library (a building where copies of every book ever written or conceived of are kept) by another literary character. Miss Havisham uses one of Thursday's clothing labels to read the pair (eventually and with great effort) back to the Great Library. Guided through her dreams and memories by Landen, Thursday finds the event that caused the world-ending accident—or rather, the person: Aornis Hades, Acheron Hades' sister who wants revenge on Thursday for Acheron's death in "The Eyre Affair". Aornis can edit people's memories so they don't remember her presence, which is why Thursday needed help from Landen to find Aornis in her own memory. "Cardenio" is retrieved but Aornis escapes and now Goliath, the ChronoGuard, and SpecOps all seek to apprehend Thursday on Goliath's contrived charge of stealing corporate secrets. At the book's end, Aornis pressures Thursday to kill herself so that Aornis will prevent the world from turning into Dream Topping. Thursday's father takes her place in the nick of time and sacrifices himself as Mycroft's Dream Topping (see dream whip) making machine breaks down and begins producing the goo continuously; he takes all the Dream Topping to the dawn of Earth, where it—and he—will supply the organic nutrients needed to create life.