The year of our Lord, 1560: Lord Robert Dudley and Dr John Dee tarry in a paltry town on the edge of a lawless land veined with superstition. Lord Robert, lover to Queen Elizabeth, stands accused of the vile murder of his wife and is banished. John Dee, Astrologer Royal, necromancer, thinks to court the pleasure of his young Queen by harboring Dudley in his father’s house in the borderlands.

Nearby, in the assize town of Presteigne, a notorious Welshman awaits trial for his life. The English church requires a death. But the old religion dies hard at Albion’s outer reaches and it is said the low magic of the cunning folk quickens to defend its own. When a body is discovered, mutilated, the townsfolk know to bar their doors to the darkness outside. But perhaps the darkness only wants the two outsiders.