In the twenty-fourth century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life (for profit of course). It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company. One of these is Mendoza the botanist, who is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden. Her quest is jeopardized by Nicholas Harpole, who stirs unfamiliar emotions within her about her future...

From idea to flesh to myth, this is the story of Alec Checkerfield: Seventh Earl of Finsbury, pirate, renegade, hero, anomaly, Mendoza's once and future love.

A new member of the Gentlemen's Speculative Society, Edward learns that a secret world flourishes beneath the surface of London's society. He becomes a Victorian super-assassin, fleeing across the Turkish countryside and honing his fighting skills against clockwork opponents.