A mysterious message from a midnight duelist sends fashion reporter Maddie Hatter to New York’s finest parasol dueling academy, where she foils a daring daylight kidnapping.

The grateful rescuee, only daughter of an American Steamlord, offers Maddie a job as her bodyguard. Soon both young ladies are up to their lace gloves in industrial intrigue and irrepressible street urchins.

Maddie’s clockwork bird faces danger too: hungry owls, curious inventors, even a clockwork foe that hides sneaky tricks behind its jewel-green eyes. From the mansions of Park Avenue to the Statue of Liberty, Maddie hunts a fearless spy and confronts an unexpected power from her past.