When Rye Hackett publishes his first political broadside in 1703, he finds out the hard way why there are so many writers in London's Grub Street: the monsters won't let them leave. After watching his hero Daniel Defoe stand in the pillory, a young lawyer named Rye Hackett gets the courage to publish a political essay. The moment he does, a woman made of mercury spirits him away to a maze of alleys and gin shops. Rye can't hide from the politicians who suspect his loyalties or from the mercury-women and printer's devils who guard Grub Street at the behest of their mysterious master. If Rye can't convince the scattered witches of London to help him, he'll end up in the pillory himself, or dead―and England could fall back into civil war.
