In the Empire, coal furnaces smoke, car boilers emit steam, monitors plow the seas, and huge armored trains rumble along the rails. The Empire needs a lot, and it drives away the barbarian Rooskies from the mineral-rich northern lands, whose borders were connected with the imperial ones by a terrible Cataclysm. For the Empire, steam is good, and magic is evil. Magic is unpredictable and deadly, it will burn a person from the inside and kill those who are nearby. That is why a special Department has been established in the Empire, neutralizing unfortunate magicians before they have time to cause harm to anyone. And what to do if you are only twelve years old, and magic has suddenly awakened and there is no way to salvation? More precisely, there is, but only a captive barbarian boy knows him... What will Mollinaire Evergreen Blackwater, a young well-bred miss, the daughter of a railway doctor, do?