This Strange Engine

Thief. Pauper. Magic addict. Alexander Asherton, Ash to his friends, has reached the low point of his life. A once promising future with the Church of England has given way to a clandestine organization which tracks and collects items of a magical nature. They provide the elixirs that keep Ash alive, and in exchange he uses the power the elixirs grant to 'acquire' what they desire. If he succeeds, he lives. If he fails, he dies. The arrangement is simple enough...until his latest assignment becomes personal: recover an item in the possession of his former wife, Aimee. Thus is Ash drawn into a past he had hoped to leave behind as he unravels Aimee's deadly secrets. But it is her association with Duke Schaever that draws Ash into an even darker - and stranger - world, for the Duke is determined to expand his influence through the merging of magic and science. The Duke will do anything to protect his secret, and its discovery will bring about the end of either Aimee or Ash. Or both.