From New York Times bestselling author Owen King, who “writes with witty verve” (Entertainment Weekly), comes a “richly imagined” (The New York Times) Dickensian historical fantasy of gothic mystery, revolution, illusion, and dark magic where cats are revered as religious figures, thieves are noble, scholars are revolutionaries, and conjurers are the most wonderful criminals you can imagine.

It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest,” a strange, Victorian-inspired world distinguished by the river fair; the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, but maybe especially so, by its essential unmappability.

Dora, a former domestic servant at the university, has a secret desire: to understand the mystery of her brother’s death. She believes the answer lies within the Museum of Psykical Research, where he worked when Dora was a child. As the city reels from a revolutionary uprising, citizens like Robert Barnes, her lover and a student radical, find themselves suddenly in positions of authority.

Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum, only to find it all but burned to the ground while the neighboring museums remain oddly untouched. Robert offers her one of these instead: the National Museum of the Worker. But neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, is what it first appears to be.

Set against the backdrop of a wondrous alternate city on the verge of collapse, Dora’s search for the truth will uncover a monstrous conspiracy and bring her to the edge of worlds.