Kellen has a little magic, a couple of card tricks and an outstanding ability to get into dubious situations. There is not a seventeen-year-old boy in the Seven Sands whose head is worth more than his own. Fortunately, there are friends who are ready at any moment to save him from certain death - Argosy Ferius Perfect and the white cat, the most reliable comrade and business partner. Reichis certainly won’t betray him! Unless... for a hot bath or a plate of butter cookies... Finding themselves in Githabria, the city of great scientific discoveries, Ferius, Kellen and Reichis learn that the Great Exhibition is opening one of these days, at which they will present an outlandish invention - a mechanical bird. But no one knows that the mechanical miracle has a secret and the inventor Janucha keeps it very carefully. The bird was created with the help of border magic and something else... something that makes it alive... But why is it so dangerous? Why does a woman make the same mistake in her drawings over and over again and why is she ready to do anything to continue to keep her secret?