A locked room. A dark threat. A place of poisonous lies. Germany, 1784. Daniel Clode cannot say whether or not he killed the woman. They were found together in a locked room, dressed for the Carnival. But what of the strange madness he feels, and how did she drown on dry land? Harriet Westerman knows Daniel is not a murderer; her sister would not have married such a man. She and the reclusive anatomist Gabriel Crowther must travel to the Duke of Maulberg's Court to save him from the silken, venal plotting of the castle, and from the axeman's steel. But their journey across Europe brings them to an alien and capricious land, full of lies and shadows, where no one can be trusted.