The Canister for Tube Nought

About this book

In the hill-mill town of Thimbleby, every house is joined by brass pipes, and the one law everyone obeys is that a sealed canister stays sealed. Seventeen-year-old Tamsin Rook, the sharpest night sorter at the Blower House, broke that law once and watched a family leave town for it. Now she wants only to save her fare for the Tuesday airship and keep her head down. Then, at 3:12 one February morning, a canister arrives addressed to Tube Nought, a line sealed in concrete forty-three years ago. An hour later Ezra Quill, the old man who built the Exchange and once saved Tamsin's job, lies dead at the foot of the boiler-pit ladder. The constable calls it a fall. Tamsin has the unopened canister in her apron, and a town full of neighbours who all keep something sealed. Opening it could find Ezra's killer. It could also wreck the people she loves.