in this book, aaron is kidnapped by the pirates from the island of fire. the pirates think that aaron is alex. after weeks in a small fishing boat tied to the back of the pirate's ship, they untie the rope and send him in the direction of the island of shipwrecks. fortunately, he arrives in the hour of calm but has fainted from the near-death experience. he is then rescued by ishibashi-san, ito-san and sato-san. ishibashi thinks he is alex because alex and aaron are identical twins. he saves aaron's life by giving him a piece of seaweed to eat that gives him his eternal life. aaron slowly matures and becomes less evil and greedy over the course of his predicament. while aaron is kidnapped, gondoleery takes charge of quill and sends general liam and alex's twin sisters to their deaths in the ancient sector. but liam escapes and brings the twins to artime. lani then has the idea to rally up the necessaries against the new high priest, as she has started to kill necessaries and unwanteds that went to quill in the last book. but the only way that they can carry out the plan is to bring back aaron the only clue to where the pirates have gone is that matilda had seen their boat go towards the east. as alex and sky use the claire to go to each of the islands that aaron could be in, they meet the queen of the ocean, a water dragon named pan who asks them for wings but does not tell why. she says that there is no human on her island. they then reach the island that alex had seen the help sign and the saber-toothed gorilla eat the pig, only now the sign has changed to "come back" so they wait for the night and they hear a girl singing, telling them her story. but alex does not have time to save her on the way but promises to save her on their way back. they find aaron, rescue the girl and go back home. after rescuing her, they find gondoleery rattrap to be more tyrannical and cruel than they thought. the artimeans prepare for war with the quillens who fight for gondoleery.