London, 1880, 13-year-old Clay is a mud lark, scavenging on the banks of the Thames for anything he might sell for money to buy food. One day Clay goes to the camp of the circus that has newly arrived in town and meets Ollie, a girl about his age, who lives with the circus. Ollie brings him to the cage of "the last wolf in England". Mist, as he calls it, is fierce, angry, and indomitable, perhaps due to the cruel treatment of its tamers, which Clay...