On his 15th birthday, Bhuvan overhears his Auntie Neera asking his father to get him trained before he ends up killing himself. During the resultant argument, she hands him a mug full of strange liquid that makes his father so happy that he forgets everything that had transpired. Meanwhile, dark dreams of a beautiful woman start haunting him...a woman, who is dead and yet so alive. A woman named Zoya, who says she can bring his dead mother back, but for that he must embrace his roots. Roots that he is clueless about until Neera hires Amaterasu, a Japanese Andrunain, who can control fireflies.

Bhuvan then visits Umpling, a place in parallel time and space in Shillong, India, to which he Treelevates. He befriends Andrunain teens -- Orville, who can control ice, Samudra, who controls oceans, Jwala, who controls volcanoes, and Kalki, a Music Hypnotist. And he finally finds out about his own Andrunainty, Light, by producing the Borelai Effect in the sky, where he sees Wraiths (souls) of the Five Kings of Panchaprakritpur. But that only adds to the danger.

His new people start fearing him as he may be the 9th Malfaisant. From the Omenwhisky Gardens to the Garden of Eternal Bitter Winter, Bhuvan is on a race against time as he seeks the Mug of Melancholy to bring his mother back, even as Zoya successfully alienates him from his friends old and new.