In the turn-of-the-century city of Black Magic, seventeen-year-old Liesel Juhl sells secrets. She is a fortune-teller, and works in a little cleromancy shop called Illuminate. Illuminate is owned by her two horrible cousins, who spend all their time focusing on their gang and leaving Liesel and her brother to make all the money. Liesel wards off the hopelessness of her reality by daydreaming about taking her brother and striking out on their own. Liesel is content with the better, pretend life inside her head until real life intervenes when Gable, a charming young magician and leader of a gang called The Bells, unexpectedly shows up in her shop one night and informs her that she was the last person to have seen one of his friends alive. Stationed in Bat's Belfry, The Bells' purpose is to uncover gateways for time-traveling ghosts and stir up trouble with crooked patrolmen. As Liesel begins to fall into step with the strange, adventurous orphans and their world, another gang member in Black Magic rolls up dead and a game of city-wide revenge between gangs and patrols is sparked. With opposing loyalties fracturing her family and an irresistible pull toward the boy in the bell tower, Liesel's fortune has never been foggier.