A Dodge, a Twist, and a Tobacconist

Florizel of Bohemia tries to live a quiet life as a London tobacconist. The mysterious gypsy beauty who invites him to a late-night meeting in the Bronze Cascade Hotel seems desperate for his help, but what can be a life-or-death matter to a socialite singer? An eccentric little inventor, calling himself by the absurd name of Oliver Twist, comes to collect him in a curious old mail coach. It only becomes an airship after it's too late for Florizel to disembark.

How can a former street orphan, a Texas Cowgirl who rode a Giant Catfish across the Atlantic, a world-traveling abolitionist bearing "the Flail of God", a quiet country clergyman, a jungle tracker, and a Chinese merchant, track down a shadowy slave master who trains pickpocket slashers and fills freighter holds with human cargo bound for ports around the Empire? A poison maiden gives Florizel a kiss and an ominous warning: "Some ruler will rise and take the throne of a true Empire where the sun never sets and where the people will never be free."