From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Turnglass. Perfect for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Stuart Turton.  A dazzling, puzzle-box mystery of secrets, power and hidden truths1804, Isle of Ray, Essex. Lysander Rose has spent his life searching for the truth about his mother, abducted when he was just a baby. When the men who took her return for him, Lysander is forced to flee – leaving behind everything he knows. But in his escape, he uncovers a clue that draws him into the orbit of a secretive organisation known only as the Circle. As Lysander follows the trail from the Essex coast to the shadowed streets of Edinburgh, he finds himself entangled in a world of murder, blackmail and political intrigue. At its centre: an exiled king, and a conspiracy that could shape the fate of nations. And stranger still, every step of his journey seems to have already been written – played out in the pages of a lurid penny-blood chapbook. But if the story has already been told, can Lysander change how it ends?