Once there was a gypsy queen who wore on her wrist a chain of six lucky charms. The queen gave each of her six children one of the charms as their lucky talisman, but ever since the chain was broken, the gypsies had been dogged with misfortune. Having acquired the first three charms in the quest to secure their family's freedom, Luka and Emilia flee into Sussex with soldiers hot on their heels, in company with a Royalist duke, a Catholic priest, a highwayman and young Tom Whitehorse. Only the Catholic underground can help them all escape - but this is a most dangerous religion in the time of Puritan rule. And Emilia and Luka still must find the elusive gypsy tribe of the cat's eye shell, who, it seems, have turned to smuggling...