It is July of 1865, and in Saratoga Springs, the wealthy racegoers wish, in the words of General Daniel Sickles, who left a leg at Gettysburg, "to let bygones be bygones" and put the war behind them. But Rose Adair cannot forget Lane Fallon, the Englishman she last saw being dragged off to be hanged as a Confederate spy. Cole Washington III, a former slave and jockey, refuses to forget about the family he lost in the New York City draft riots, and has come to Saratoga to seek justice for them. And Declan Sullivan is an Irish stable hand who hides his mysterious ability with horses in order to escape his past – and his titled, English half-brother, Lane Fallon. When Fallon is pulled from Congress Spring, after apparently having killed a man over a mysterious, smuggled artifact, these unlikely allies must team up to sort through conflicting tales of Fenian rebels and the occult Society of the Horseman's Word, to discover the truth about a very real and very dangerous conspiracy that threatens not just the racing season, but the entire future of the country.