The year is 1650. After years of brutal civil war, abandoning his family and duty for the Parliamentarian cause, disillusioned spy James Archer returns north. He finds Newcastle shaken after England’s largest witch trial, traumatized by the war. Archer uncovers a darkly oppressive Newcastle filled with lies and hostility from town officials, his uncle, and even his former mentor. Only Elizabeth Thompson offers any measure of truth, promising to connect Archer to Bracewell, a sympathetic court official. But who can Archer truly trust in a landscape of cloak and dagger?