Before Eve is born, her mother goes to the circus where she sees a lion, billed as a monster from the savage heart of Africa.When Eve is born, the story goes, she didn't cry – she meowed and licked her paws. When Abel is pulled from the stinking Thames, the mudlarks are sure he is long dead. As they search his pockets, his eyes crack open and he coughs up a stream of black water. Cast out by Victorian society, Eve and Abel find succour as The Lion Faced Girl and The Flayed Man in Professor Josiah Arroner's Palace of Curiosities. And there begins a journey that will entwine their fates forever.