The Song Spinner plot
Emperor Frilo rules with an iron hand in the Shandrilan region and has enacted a law to keep the people calm and quiet. The law prohibits the population from making music or singing and a violent police force has been deployed to ensure compliance with the law. The twelve-year-old girl Aurora lives in Shandrilan and has been busy with all kinds of music in her head for quite some time. One day she meets a gypsy woman who comes from a distant region and tells her about her grandfather, the instrument maker Jessup. The woman carries a song spinner, a mysterious music box, that will send the people of Shandrilan into a musical trance.