The smell of rust from brass gears mingles with the thick fog, spreading through every street and alley of the steampunk city. A mechanical nightingale, carrying a bloodstained spring in its beak, plunges into a textile worker’s chest, and awakens Lin Xia, unconscious at the mouth of the alley.
A mechanic with a brass prosthetic for her left hand, she wakes with no memory of the crime. All she knows is that her mind contains a “faulty System”: every time she unlocks a clue to a murder, it randomly deletes one of her memories. Even her father’s inherited mechanical manual has become a blank book. Only when the blond detective Kane hands her a gear-shaped cane and she sees that the symbol inside his pocket watch fits her necklace perfectly does she realize the murder is connected to her family’s massacre ten years ago.
One is skilled at taking apart machines, the other at logical deduction. This formidable duo follows the mechanical nightingale’s trail of blood, investigating everything from the gearwork decorations in aristocratic taverns to secret experiments at the Royal Academy of Sciences. The System’s pop-up alerts keep causing trouble at crucial moments, but also expose Kane’s disguise as a “royal spy” and Lin Xia’s identity as a descendant of the “Mechanical God.” The Gear Cult wants to capture her as a sacrifice and resurrect the Mechanical God, who can devour life.
Steam airships circle overhead, and the footsteps of mechanical puppets draw ever closer. Kane grips her prosthetic hand. “Even if you forget everything, I’ll help you find the truth.” The deepest secret of the System lies in the shadows cast by their overlapping figures, waiting for the moment someone turns the blurred gear symbol.
