Major Silas Deveraux will never be the same after enduring terrible experiments performed by mad scientists during the Civil War. In the aftermath he joins the newly formed Bureau of Extraordinaires in order to protect men such as himself. After traveling to New Orleans to investigate the mysterious deaths of other extraordinaires he encounters a young woman named Agatha. She is also an extraordinaire but a very different type with origins a thousand times more enigmatic than his own. Together they work to uncover a most diabolic plot that has more secrets than tick marks on an aether meter's clockwork face.