This is for everyone who wants a refresher on Book 1 without having to read it from the beginning.
In Larva:
Lost, Percy tries to get directions from a helpful hag, but she only wants to sell him a suspicious good luck talisman. Percy turns her down, but as he is walking away a young woman knocks into him, and his expensive pastries get ruined.
Percy goes back to the hag and decides to buy the talisman. When the coppers arrive, chasing after the young woman from earlier, the hag runs, leaving him with the good luck talisman.
While trying to take a back alley shortcut, Percy runs into the young woman from earlier. Through bumbling, stumbling, and his usual bad luck, Percy ends up stuck between the criminal and the coppers as they fight. Percy and one of the coppers fall into the canal.
Down at the copper station, Copper Alma and Lieutenant Robards care for Percy’s minor injuries and wet clothes, and question him about his interference with the attempted arrest.
Lieutenant Robards believes Percy when he explains that it was all a coincidence, but they’re worried about the signs of frequent and long-running injuries that the boy laughs off as bad luck.
On his way home, Percy stops by Schubert’s Photo Emporium to gaze upon the Vista 500, the camera obscura artifact that he covets and is saving coin for.
Percy finds the talisman from earlier in his pocket and activates it. When a cloud of moths explode from it, Percy runs, slips, and knocks himself out. When Percy finally wakes up and drags himself home, his mom is waiting for him. As she scolds him, they discover a tattoo on Percy’s wrist that he doesn’t remember getting.
Percy’s little sister Lysander is judgmental, younger sister Aethelwulf wants a cheek tattoo of her own, and tiny little Gideon wakes up from all the commotion.
Percy escapes to the bathroom, where he finds the talisman in his pocket, strangely aged and tattered. Percy secretly tells his dad what happened, and in the morning they both go to the local Healer Clements for a consultation.
Clements feels they are both paranoid whack-jobs, charges them extra for the inconvenience, and kicks them out.
Percy’s dad is worried, and decides to continue looking into the mystery.
Percy loses his job at the pastry shop, but on his way home somehow saves a platter of expensive beer from a drunk waiter in a feat of coordination that leaves him astonished at his own prowess.
Viv berates the waiter, hires Percy on the spot, and strips off the other man’s uniform. That’s how Percy starts a new job while wearing another man’s clothes.
His normal bad luck seems to have stopped hounding him, and Percy is hired permanently as the Kaiseki Ryori, a high-class restaurant. As Percy’s normalcy continues, he begins to have hope for his future.
Early one morning, Percy stops by Schubert’s Photo Emporium to drool over the Vista 500, but finds a “new employee” having trouble opening the door.
It’s only after they’re both inside the building that Percy realizes the new employee is actually a thief, and that Percy is now an accidental accomplice!
As the thief tries to escape, Percy chases after them. Though his bad luck seems to return, leaving wounded by an attack chicken, missing the skin on one foot, and generally battered, Percy refuses to give up, and finally runs the sobbing thief into the ground.
Unfortunately, the thief has led him to a minor Morrow gang hideout, complete with backup gang members intent on keeping Percy silent with violence.
Percy flails and flounders, trying to save himself. Through a large helping of coincidence, bad luck for the gang members, and Percy’s desperate struggles, all three of the gang members end up beaten—just in time for a familiar pair of coppers to arrive.
The gang members testify that Percy is a sadist who toyed with them and beat them with glee, and while Percy gives a totally different rendition of events, some of the coppers begin to suspect that Percy has a craving for glory and is trying to become a vigilante.
Mr. Schubert gives Percy the Vista 500 as thanks for running down the stolen goods, and Percy’s life returns to its new normal for a while.
However, during a noble’s party at the Kaiseki Ryori, the waitstaff is pressured to give extra “service” to the drunken nobles. Percy, there to take photographs, narrowly escapes this duty but must escort a drunk Viv home when some nobles try to take her. Unable to discern Viv’s address when she passes out, Percy brings her to Healer Clements, who reluctantly administers a sobering potion that leaves Viv impulsively erratic. She drags Percy for a night of dancing and street food, but things take a dangerous turn when a thief snatches her purse, leading them into the middle of a gang battle between the Morrows and Verdant Stags.
Percy hides Viv in an abandoned warehouse, but they’re discovered. Desperate, Percy fights off the Morrow lookout with a mix of bravado and accidental ingenuity, scaring the man off. Percy manages to get Viv to safety, but they agree not to tell his parents the real story to avoid worrying them.
A few days later, Percy develops photos from the party and accidentally captures an image of the notorious Raven Queen performing powerful magic. Fearing involvement with her, Percy tears up the photograph. Gossip about the Raven Queen spreads, unsettling him. Lieutenant Robards, suspecting civilian involvement in the warehouse fight, investigates and finds clues leading him to Percy. He visits Percy to discuss the evidence, and Percy reveals his extraordinary bad luck and reluctance to involve authorities due to the danger it brings.
Robards believes in Percy and suggests undergoing expert tests, suspecting a magical cause for his bad luck. Despite Percy’s fears for his family’s safety, the two form a tentative bond. Percy continues to hide his tattoo’s changes, pondering the Raven Queen’s possible connection. Intrigued yet wary, Percy remains vigilant, aware of the chaos and danger surrounding his life.