Grey Howard always tried to stay unnoticed.

At least as unnoticed as a tall, strong girl can in a town of diminutive, underdeveloped citizens could be.

She detests the Chemists, the magicians-come-scientists who rule her small western town. But she obediently takes the potion the Chemists ration out--a concoction that is supposed to help her and the rest of the town's people survive each day.

Then her best friend, Whit, is caught by Chemist enforcers, and Grey feels everything shift inside her. Especially after Whit is severely punished for reasons that go beyond his minor infraction.

Little does Grey know, her growing defiance has a greater meaning. And when her rebellion leads her to the family shop one night, a treaty is accidentally broken. Grey then finds herself transported to a world within an ancient curio cabinet, where the porcelain figures are real, and a strange man known as the Mad Tock beckons to her. To escape, she must find a key--one that could end the Chemist's dark rule forever.