Nicolette's awful stepsisters call her "Mechanica" to demean her, but the nickname fits: she learned to be an inventor at her mother's knee. Her mom is gone now, though, and the Steps have turned her into a servant in her own home. But on her sixteenth birthday, Nicolette discovers a secret workshop in the cellar and begins to dare to imagine a new life for herself. Could the mysterious books and tools hidden there -- and the mechanical menagerie,...

An indomitable inventor and her loyal (and royal) friends cross the ocean to the lush world of Faerie, where they join a rising rebellion.