Millie is flying. She's spreading her wings and soaring, up and away from the filth of the city, away from the putrid yards and bloodstained alleyways, away from the crazy, crooked labyrinth of the rookeries, those last, teetering remnants of a medieval world, tucked in the shadows of the 19th-century city. Millie is six years old and dreams of skies and seas beyond her brief experience. But sooner or later she must come back down to earth. Back to the Manor, where Vincent will return any minute, to set his girls to work on the twilit streets. Back to this loft, where she's just released his songbird and lost him a precious sale. Millie can hear him, now, roaring and crashing up the stairs. Her flight is at an end, and her life is about to change its course forever. BIRDCAGE traces 25 years of Millie's story, against the backdrop of London's transformation from medieval city to modern metropolis. It's a story of angels and garrotters; of French courtesans and back-street brothels; of ghosts and cats, secrets and mysteries; of the thieves and working girls, fraudsters, tale-tellers and odd-bods who form the strange and compelling family of the Manor-a cut above the rest of the London slums.