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A satisfying conclusion to the fantasy steampunk trilogy which features two teenagers taking a role in trying to head off World War 1 between the machine-loving Clankers and bioengineering Darwinists (aka the Germans and Brits and their allies). Deryn, who poses as a boy (Dylan) to serve as a midshipman, carries out numerous feats of derring do as the British biological airship Leviathan wends its way around the world from Istanbul. Alek, the son of the assassinated Serbian archduke, draws her into his ambitions to support the scientist Tesla in forcing an end to the war through the threat of a powerful death ray weapon. The potential of the powers-that-be to demonstrate the weapon without a Hiroshima-like attack on Berlin or Vienna has Alek tormented over how to intervene.

The travels in this volume take them first to the Siberian site of the mysterious explosion that leveled a whole forest. With Tesla aboard, they travel on to Japan, across the Pacific to California, across Mexico, then to New York City. There are colorful roles for movie stars, reporters, and Pancho Villa in the plot, and periodic thrills of combat with Imperial German forces who intend to keep the Darwinists from exploiting Tesla’s mad genius.

Along the way, Alek finally learns that Dylan is a girl. There is still the barrier of class to the future of any romance between them, as Alek is Hapsburg nobility and Deryn is a commoner. Do you suppose love will find a way?