Ray's father had left 8 years earlier because he had a job to do. He gave Ray a lodestone on a string telling him that the lodestone would guide Ray. His father never returned and after his mother died, Ray and his sister Sally survived on their own on the streets of New York. Now they find themselves on an orphan train heading south. The lodestone seems to be giving Ray strange and frightening dreams at night and during the day it pulls southward. Ray decides that his little sister has a better chance of finding a good home without him, so he jumps off the train and follows the lodestone's pull. He finds himself in a world of magic and mystery. Could his father still be alive? Can the lodestone help him find him? This is the first in the series 'The Clockwork Dark.'