Paris 1888, Armand and Odilon are apprentice draughtsmen, working side by side in the offices of Gustave Eiffel on what will be the engineer's greatest invention and the city's most famous landmark. The Eiffel Tower is the symbol of a new age: one of scientific marvels and technological achievements. But in the gas-lit streets of Paris, strange beliefs, dark desires, and mysterious forces persist...

Soon Armand and Odilon find themselves involved with a spiritualist society who hold seances in the Paris morgue, a card-reading clairvoyant from 'The Gingerbread Fair', a female ventriloquist with a shady secret and a spirited young actress who delights in the many romantic opportunities that the 'city of lovers' affords. Connecting them all are the scheming machinations of Gordon Hole, an evil American architect who has vowed to destroy the Eiffel Tower before it can even be completed.