The Last Murder at the End of the World

Seth rows Clara and Emory to the lighthouse. The waves suddenly crash against the boat, and the boat capsizes.

Emory, Clara, and Seth wake up on the shore. They walk along the coastline until they reach the lighthouse. Emory sees that a field of flowers surrounds the lighthouse. They realize that some of the flowers are toxic, but Clara notices that the pink flowers are not harmful. She finds a path of pink flowers, and they use it to walk up to the door.

Inside the lighthouse is Niema’s laboratory, and Thea and Hephaestus are already inside. Emory explains that Adil saw Thea destroying the thumbnail that she found lodged in Niema’s cheek. Thea denies it, but Emory points out that the security system of the flowers proves that Niema feared the elders more than the villagers. Emory points out the inequity in how Thea treats the villagers versus the elders, and Thea admits that this is because villagers are disposable.

Emory and Clara search for evidence of Niema’s experiment while Hephaestus and Thea search for the key to Blackheath, which Thea describes as a red glass ball. Clara finds a chair with restraints on it and the box that Hui was carrying from the cauldron garden with a sedative plant inside.

Niema’s blood contained a high dose of conidia, which is a fungus that connects Abi to people’s minds. Large portions of conidia are toxic to humans, but Niema required that every Blackheath employee have an injection of conidia so that Abi could monitor their thoughts. This is why Thea and Hephaestus can hear Abi. Once, Thea told Niema that she would rather die than allow Abi to be able to take control of her movements. Niema always feared that she would not have the same authority over humans as she did over the simulacrums because she could not bring humans fully under Abi’s control.

Emory tells Hephaestus that she found the other Blackheath corpses in the infirmary and that she overheard his conversation with Niema about the experiments. She tells him that she knows that he threw the body off the cliff to dispose of the evidence so that Thea would not discover his involvement in the experiments. Emory will give Hephaestus the key to Blackheath and not tell Thea about his lies if he brings Jack home safely.

Emory goes through Niema’s room and finds a picture of Seth in front of a lake. She rushes to show Seth the picture, but he does not remember it. Emory explains that there are no lakes on the island, which means that someone took a picture of Seth before he came to the island.

As they walk back to the village, Emory shows Thea and Hephaestus the photograph. Thea asks who took the picture, and Seth says that Judith must have taken it since they went on expeditions together when they were apprentices. Niema must have wiped Seth and Judith’s memories, but Judith did not survive the memory wiping. Emory thinks Adil told Matis the truth of how Judith died, but Matis did not tell Seth, which is why Niema took his memory gem.

Emory says that Adil may have told Seth himself, and Thea suggests that they use the memory extractor on Seth. Thea says that she designed three hazard suits to protect their wearers from the fog, and these suits are still in Blackheath. They only have until Hephaestus repairs the memory extractor to prove Seth’s innocence. If Seth’s memory is clean, then they will put the extractor on Emory.

Emory walks into the cauldron garden after curfew. She thinks about how Niema murdered 13 humans to control the future. Emory knows that she only has two hours before Hephaestus expects the key to Blackheath, and she knows that Adil has the key.

Emory waits in the village for Adil, but he does not arrive. She sees someone carrying a lantern through the rain and chases after them.

Emory follows the lantern and sees that the entrance to Blackheath is open. Inside, she marvels at the construction of the lab. Emory sees Adil and Thea talk together then go down different hallways. Emory follows Adil and finds a room where five villagers are digging through the earth.

One of the men is Jack. Emory rushes over and hugs him, but Jack does not come out of his stupor. Emory begs Abi to release Jack, but Abi says that Niema never ordered her to release them.

Emory tells Jack that she will find a way to help him. Emory sees pollen on Jack’s shirt, and she wonders if Hui saw Jack in the garden. This would explain why Hui acted strangely toward Clara.

Suddenly, Adil stumbles into the room, holding his stomach as blood gushes from a wound. Emory rushes to help him, and Adil tells her to look in his pocket. Emory pulls out the key and a diagram, as Adil struggles to say that Emory needs to find Thea before she kills someone. Then he dies.

Emory finds fragments of a memory gem in his boot, which points to him crushing Niema’s gem. Emory realizes that the diagram is a map, and she follows it to a medical bay, where she finds Hui hooked up to a machine. Emory hears Thea coming down the hallway, so she picks Hui up and hides her in another room. Thea bursts into the medical bay, looking for Hui. Emory realizes that since Niema sedated Hui, the memory wipe did not affect her, which means that Hui is the only witness to the murder.

Thea rows toward the fog with her resonance suit. Abi asks Thea to turn around, but Thea refuses to listen because she believes that she killed Niema. Thea says that Ellie will be safe in Blackheath.

Once Hephaestus flees to the cauldron garden, Thea will be able to move around with her resonance suit. The suit flashes warning signs, and Abi tells Thea to turn back. Thea stumbles back from the fog and hits her head on the boat.

Emory returns Hui to the medical bay and walks back to the village. When she gets there, Emory sees that the infirmary is on fire. Hephaestus stands in front of it with Jack’s knife and tells her that he cannot let Thea put the extractor on her because then she will know about Hephaestus’s involvement with Niema’s experiments. The fog does not scare Hephaestus, but he fears how the fog changed humanity. Hephaestus understood Niema’s desire to rid the world of the evil within humans that causes them to hurt each other. Emory hides from him.

Hephaestus is threatening to kill Clara when suddenly Emory leaps from a balcony and stabs a syringe full of sedatives into his neck. Hephaestus tries to stab her, but Emory jumps back, and the knife only makes a small wound. Hephaestus passes out as the sedation hits him.