1758. The Age of Enlightenment. Yet the advance of reason has not brought peace. England is embroiled in a war that stretches from her North American colonies to Europe and beyond. Across the channel the French prepare to invade … Daniel Quare is a journeyman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. He is also a Regulator – member of a secret order within the guild tasked with seeking out horological innovations that could give England the upper hand over her enemies. Now Quare’s superiors have heard tell of a singular device – a pocket watch rumoured to possess properties that have more to do with magic than with any known science. But Quare soon learns that he is not alone in searching for this strange and sinister timepiece. He is pursued by a French spy who will stop at nothing to fetch the prize back to his masters. And a mysterious thief known only as Grimalkin seeks the watch as well, for purposes equally enigmatic. Daniel’s path is full of adventure, intrigue, betrayal and murder – and it will lead him from the world he knows to an other-where of demigods and dragons in which nothing is as it seems …Time least of all