Her Majesty's Twelfth Ghost

The year is 1879, and even as the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution subsides, a new kind of revolution has taken Old Europe by storm-a revolution that has brought the power of steam, coal, and electricity to inconceivable heights. The greatest cities in the world-from the narrow, crowded alleys of London, to the mountain strongholds of Greater Christchurch and the seaside steeples of Mastaille-find themselves capsized by the Kinetic Revolution, a movement that will change the course of history forever. But even as technology surges, morale drains with each passing day as the British Archipelago finds itself falling headlong into a full-on civil war, sparked by the Empirical States's unrest against the political figureheads hell-bent on restricting a newly emerging source of power-a dangerously volatile substance of mysterious origin known only as Fairy Dust, the meanest traces of which hold the energy equivalent of a thousand steam-powered engines.
Deep in gloomy east London, Bernadette Tryst, a disgraced Royal Air Force Captain wanted on faulty charges, finds an unusual ally in the chipper Ms. Salvania Pol, a scrappy explosives expert-turned con-woman fresh from Jardin-de-Leon, the known headquarters of the Revolutionist Cause. After a series of misadventures, the unlikely pair sets out across Old Europe to unravel the mystery behind Bernadette's false incrimination, pursued by the Hands of the Law (agents of public peace, commonly called 'hollies') as well as a number of Pol's old acquaintances, some of whom may not have completely forgiven her desertion to the Revolution's Cause. But the deeper they dig, the closer they come to discovering a secret that could mean the difference between single-handedly preventing a war...or causing it.