The Clockwork Heir

She was hired to fix a clock. She found a king made of clockwork.

In the smog-choked empire of Brassmoor, the boy-king Aurelian is the nation's beloved orphan, a face on every tea tin and biscuit tin from the gleaming Crown to the soot-black Undergear. In two months he comes of age, and the whole city is waiting to see what kind of king he'll be.

Wren Tallow knows something nobody else does. When the young king freezes mid-speech in front of fifty thousand people, she is the only one who hears the sound underneath his voice: the tick of a mainspring running down.

The real prince died of fever six years ago. What sits on the throne is a masterpiece of brass and silk, built in secret by Wren's own father, the finest clockmaker in the empire, who died in a fire nobody can explain. And the only way to wind the king is a wordless song her father taught her as a child.

Trapped in the palace by the ruthless Lord Chancellor, Wren must keep his puppet ticking until coronation day. But the puppet is asking questions. About pigeons and breakfast. About the children working under the looms. About whose face he's wearing, and whether there's anybody inside it at all.

As a murder comes to light and a flawless replacement king waits under a sheet in a locked foundry, Wren has seven days, one unfinished blueprint and a song with no name to save the boy who was never supposed to be someone.

Funny, heartfelt and full of turning gears, The Clockwork Heir is a steampunk fantasy about freedom, friendship and what it really means to be alive.