Constance is a wild, stubborn young girl growing up poor in a small industrial town. But beneath her threadbare exterior beats the heart of a dreamer and a wordsmith. She feeds her hunger for reading by picking the lock on the local bookstore late at night to enjoy her own private reading room. But at age 12, she's orphaned. With no relatives to take her in, the local authorities scheme to take charge of the bewildered girl's life. Running away to join the circus - like kids do in adventure books - seems like such a brilliant idea...or is it? That was six long years ago. Now, Constance is 18, fed up with the constraints of life under the big-top, and despairing for her future. She's ready to dust off her old dreams, but first she's going to need another cunning escape plan. Can a young, newly-freed woman travel the road to her dreams and a place to call home? Step back in time to 1895 and take a wild, occasionally hilarious ride with Constance and the friends she meets along the way, as she travels the dirt roads and blue skies of a country called Industralia. Her journey winds through towns and cities bursting with creative eccentrics, high-flying airships, dazed automatons, brilliantly cracked inventors and more than a few kindred spirits. With allies like these, what could possibly go wrong?