In a Steampunk Oxford, Ignatius and Indigo are both agents for the Union Jacks, a secret organisation. The role of the Union is to protect the British Empire, which is at the height of its powers, and help in its technological advances.

They have discovered the existence of the mystical Book of Consciousness written by the creator of the cosmos, the genderless Omnisoul. The book is the history of everything that is, that has been and that will be.

The agents are aided by Skye, who accidentally calls forth seven merciless immortals called the Charon. Known as the Beautiful and the Damned, the Charon are the Infernal Dukes of Hell, created to carry out the will of the Omisoul.

But they are tired of their immortality and want to end their existence. Elsewhere, the sorcerer Ragnar of Roc has conjured a hole in spacetime, allowing the draconic Elder God Calabi Ya to re-enter the cosmos from the Ghost Worlds.

He is as old as the Omnisoul and wants the book to learn his destiny. The two Union Jacks leave Oxford and are taken on a journey across the cosmos in the great ship Taraka, which sails through space and time.

Ignatius and Indigo are mere pawns in the cosmic ocean of fate, carried to fabled places, witness to bloody massacres, and half-willing conspirators in the Charon's plot to thwart the Omnisoul's plan and defeat the protectors of the Well at the Centre of Time. .