In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.

March 3, 1933, the day before Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration. Siblings Lily and Robert Brewster have agreed to help out at a nursing home next door to their own cottage, dubbed Grace & Favor. The convalescent home is full of colorful characters, including a cantankerous old man named Sean Connor. The day the Brewsters arrive, he slips into a coma and dies. No one is surprised at his passing-until it's revealed that he's been murdered. And Mr. Connor...