This confuses them, because they believe Incarceron is supposed to be a wonderful, joyful place. Later, as she reports this to her beloved teacher Jared, the key lights up and they hear voices which, to their confusion, sound scared and unhappy. Meanwhile, Claudia is pulled into court politics when she is approached by a group known as the Steel Wolves who wish to overthrow the monarchy and move beyond the artificially-maintained seventeenth century. Finn hears a voice coming from the key and speaks to Claudia, asking her to help him break out of Incarceron. After fighting their way away from the gang, they find the doorway and use the key to escape into a mysterious metal forest, accompanied by the gang leader’s slave, Attia.

Gildas says that he knows where the doorway is and they decide to escape, along with a reluctant Keiro. Finn has a vision of Sapphique telling him to “unlock Time” by using the key in a shiny black doorway. In the prison, the very concept of keys does not exist. This confirms his belief that he originally is from outside Incarceron. When Finn’s not-entirely-trustworthy “oathbrother” Keiro asks him what it is, Finn realizes immediately that it is a key. Back in prison, Finn and the gang exchange a captive for an object shaped like an eagle and decorated with crystal that mirrors Finn’s tattoo.

Wishing to access Incarceron, Claudia breaks into her father’s office and makes a hologrammatic copy of an eagle-shaped key decorated with crystal. Claudia believes that the new queen killed him so that her own son, Caspar, would eventually become king. She was previously engaged to the king’s elder son by his first wife, Giles, who died young. She tries to persuade her father, the Warden of Incarceron, to cancel the ceremony. Outside the prison, in a beautiful futuristic world artificially arrested in the seventeenth century, a young woman named Claudia is attempting to escape her arranged marriage to Prince Caspar, the son of the king and queen. During one robbery he saves a woman who sees his tattoo of an eagle and a crystal and claims to know the location of an item that resembles it. To keep himself alive in this harsh prison world, Finn has joined up with a gang of thieves and cutthroats. His friend Gildas believes that these are not true memories but clues sent by a mythical figure called Sapphique who is rumored to have escaped Incarceron many years ago. However, Finn has memories of another time and place, making him believe that he entered the prison from the world outside. Everyone believes that Finn was born in the prison when he awoke in a cell three years ago. The novel opens with Finn, who is a prisoner in a vast, artificially-sentient prison called Incarceron. The first in a duology of science-fiction/fantasy novels, Incarceron explores themes of freedom, imprisonment, love, and hope through the tale of a “living prison” and two young people’s attempts to escape their fates.

Incarceron by catherine fisher