On a rooftop in Elizabethan London two worlds collide. Shay is a messenger-girl and trainer of hawks who sees the future in the patterns of birds. Nonesuch is the dark star of the city's fabled child theatre scene; as famous as royalty yet lowly as a beggar. Together they create The Ghost Theatre: a troupe staging magical plays in London's hidden corners. As their hallucinatory performances incite rebellion among the city's outcasts; the pair's relationship sparks and burns against a backdrop of the plague and a London in flames. Their growing fame sweeps them up into the black web of the Elizabethan court; where Shay and Nonesuch discover that if they fly too high; a fall is sure to come.