In Victorian London, magic earns you a noose.

Eighteen-year-old Dorothy St. James can't control her magic. To avoid arrest, she locks herself at home and buries her nose in her experiments. But a kidnapper called the Rook is on the loose, and his victims keep turning up insane. When Dorothy's father is taken, she must exchange her beakers for bravery and find the Rook's trail--the problem is, only one person ever has: a mysterious masked hero.

Some illusions save us. Others want us dead.

Dorothy St. James has three missions: slip inside the Rook’s circle, recover the stolen enchanted bracelets, and rescue her kidnapped father. But when whispers of a hidden map inside Buckingham Palace surface, everything shifts. Enlisting Ashley Gardner—the brilliant, backstabbing puzzle-solver she can never quite outsmart—might be her only chance of destroying him.