In this final part of the trilogy, we follow Titus, now almost twenty, as he escapes from the Castle, fleeing its oppressive Ritual, and becomes lost in a sandstorm. Helped by the owner of a travelling zoo, Muzzlehatch, and his ex-lover Juno, Titus ends up stranded in a big, bustling city. No one there has heard of Gormenghast, and the general consensus is that the boy is deranged. With no papers, he's soon arrested for vagrancy.

But there are a few people who believe in his story, or at least are intrigued by it, and they try to help him. Now Titus, the deserter, the traitor, longs for his home and looks for it all the time to prove, if only to himself, that Gormenghast is truly real.