In the gloomy city of Lovecraft, proctors rule, burning heretics for the most innocent dissent, the gears of the great Mover rotate under the thickness of the earth, and terrible monsters roam the abandoned streets at night... Aoife Grayson will soon turn sixteen, which means that she has every chance contract a dangerous necrovirus that has given rise to an inexplicable epidemic of madness. Aoife's mother has been lying in a mental hospital for several years, dreaming of lilies, her brother is considered missing, and she has never seen her father. As her birthday approaches, the girl faces expulsion from the Academy of Arts and Machines, although it is there that she tries to escape from reality - in drawings, engineering textbooks and mathematical tables. But one day she receives a mysterious letter from her brother, in which only one word is written: HELP...