How much of his story should he tell? Most importantly of all – can he even trust himself to tell it?

1579. Nico Cusmano, an old man in ill health, sits in a reception room in his brother Edo’s Milanese villa. He will tell the story of his life, and that of Edo. Of their rise from the humblest of peasant childhoods in the Aeolian Islands to their triumph as the most famous puppeteers and showmen of the Palermo court of the Viceroy.

But his story is also one of brutal family tragedy and madness. Of jealousies and betrayals, and the looming presence of the Inquisition.

At its heart is the figure of Hadice, a woman loved by both brothers, sitting just feet away from him as he begins to speak.