Born into an alternative history of our world where birth charts are real and one's life is mapped out in the stars, Zahan Merchant has a unique problem: he is born without a future. This cosmic mistake gives him an unusual power: the ability to change reality with his lies. But there is a catch, of course. How like the Gods to build a catch. Zahan's older brother Sorab becomes the only one to share his secret, and help him keep it, while from afar, the Greatest Astrologer That Ever Lived (the Second), Narayan Tarachand, continues to quietly ponder the mystery of the child whose birth chart he couldn't decipher. But when Zahan's adventures with his best friend Porthos – who has his own secret – brings them to the attention of the hatadaiva, the ill-fated who must bear the brunt of fate's cruelties, his power becomes more dangerous to him and those he loves. From a Parsi colony in early-twentieth-century Bombay to the urban hinterland of Vidroha, forest of outcasts, Tashan Mehta's debut novel transports the reader to an India both familiar and strange, where the consequences of magic on reality can be wondrous yet heartbreaking.