1882, Boston.

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Silas, a young, absent-minded Latin professor who sometimes even forgets he’s married.

Faye, a wild-haired writer, floundering to conform to the high-class society she married into.

George, a flamboyant gentleman with excellent taste and abysmal money problems.

Skander, a second-generation Turkish immigrant and struggling inventor.

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Silas’ habit of collecting oddities (which he intends to sell, but never does) is well-known by all of his friends, and most of the community. So it does not strike him as odd when a stranger gives him a book at the symphony. In fact, it would have been like any other book – destined to sit on his over-full bookshelf, likely on top of a rare book of Yiddish poetry or an ancient German epic, until it disintegrated to dust at the end of time – if it weren’t for the words. Specifically, the fact that they do not stay the same. Propelled by curiosity, he begins to investigate, only to find that not only is there no author credited, but neither the publisher nor the holding library even exist.

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When he disappears without warning, his wife Faye, George, and Skander go looking for him. It isn’t long before all four of them become entangled in the center of a war between two secret societies, one of which hides in the shadows, all but ghosts, and the other of which, apparently, controls the world. Whether or not they believe in fate, fate makes it impossible for them to remain neutral, and if they're not careful, fate will be the death of them all.