New York Times bestselling author Lilith Saintcrow continues her dazzling new series set in an alternate Victorian world starring a forensic sorceress, a detective, and a conspiracy that will shake the Empire.

Sorcery. Treason. Madness. And, of course, murder most foul...

Archibald Clare, mentath in the service of Britannia, is about his usual business--solving crimes and restoring public order until a shattering accident places him in the care of Emma Bannon, sorceress Prime, who once served...and now simply remains at home, tending her solarium in reasonably quiet contentment. What Clare needs now is time to recover, and not so incidentally, a measure of calm to repair his faculties of Logic and Reason. Without them, he is not his best. One could even say that without them, he is not even properly a mentath at all.

Unfortunately, calm and rest will not be found. There is a killer hiding in the sorcerous steam-hells of Londinium, stalking the Eastron End and unseaming poor women of a certain reputation. A handful of drabs murdered on cold autumn nights would make no difference...but the killings echo in the highest circles possible, and threaten to bring the entire edifice of Empire down in smoking ruins.

Now Emma Bannon, once more, is pressed into service and Archibald Clare, once more, is determined to aid her. The secrets between these two old friends may give an ambitious sorcerer the means to bring down the Crown. And there is still no way to reliably find a hansom when one needs it most.

Britannia is threatened. Londinium quakes. Sorcery births an unholy monster.

The game is afoot...