New Babylon is the capital of the powerful Second Empire. Airships hover over the city, steam locomotives rush along the railways, and factory chimneys never stop smoking. Yet the primacy of science is not unconditional. Magic has not disappeared from the world; it is still dissolved in the blood of those who are called the shining ones. It is not easy for convinced mechanists to accept this, but they are not able to change the established order of things. Everything threatens to change with the death of the Dowager Empress, and Leopold Orso, the illustrious one, senses the changes in the air more clearly than others. He is attracted to distant countries, but his dark past holds him in a deadly trap. And it is impossible to predict in advance whether the whirlpool of future events will drag the restless noble one to the very bottom or throw him into unimaginable heights. And is there any place left to throw it at all...