A Templar in disguise. A dangerous scientist. And a killer who turns hearts to iron . . . In 14th-century Italy, Mondino is a university anatomist, a man of science in a land governed by the brutal Inquisition. But the corpse brought to Mondino's laboratory one stormy night defies natural law: The victim is a Templar knight, and his heart has been transformed into a block of iron. Is it alchemy? Or the diabolical work of an ingenious killer?