In the soot-choked heart of industrial London, Alastair Finch is a man of meticulous columns and emotionless data--a clerk whose soul has been bartered for the comfort of a settled life. But the death of an eccentric aunt leaves him with an inheritance that defies the laws of arithmetic: Viator House, a somber estate perched upon the windswept desolation of the West Yorkshire Moors. Yet Viator House is no mere relic of stone and ivy. Behind its mahogany panels lies a labyrinth of brass gears and aetheric valves--a mobile sanctuary capable of plying the very lanes of time. Within its walls dwell five mysterious boarders, each a living repository of a monumental failure, a Quest for Change abandoned to the creeping rot of Apathy. As the world settles into a lethargic peace enforced by the shadow-ops of the Syndicate for Stability, Alastair finds himself the unwilling Keeper of a dying flame. Beneath the house's floorboards, the creative spark of a dragon begins to pulse, and a single youn dragon named Ignis waits for a soul brave enough to risk the status quo. In a universe governed by Malfeasance--the little voice of apathy that tells us to settle for less--Alastair must choose: remain an auditor of the mundane, or become the engine of a revolution that could restore the creative fire of the world.

Innovation is a dangerous dream, and the Keepers of the Way are nearly extinct. But for Alastair Finch, the inventory of his old life is finally complete, and the account of the future is waiting to be written.