It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a
vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines,
and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen
before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared,
leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher–a puzzle
laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was
promised a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however,
the puzzle has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern
world is little more than a tourist attraction.
Tess and Theo
Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a Morningstarr
apartment–until a real estate developer announces that the city has
agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings. Their
likely destruction means the end of a dream long held by the people of
New York. And if Tess, Theo, and Jaime want to save their home, they
have to prove that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to
solve it.