The year is 2417, and the few humans that remain live only to survive. Among these is 12-year-old Violet, who lives with her robotic best friend, Jackdaw, in a vast forest surrounding a space elevator. Travelling through the forest’s many villages, each built around the discarded shell of a gargantuan robot, Violet trades time marbles for tech. These time marbles, when taken, can pause time from seconds to weeks, allowing the user to move through frozen landscapes and travel great distances in an instant.

But not all is right in Violet’s world. The forest, one of the last inhabitable locations left on the planet, is mutating, destroying the villages and killing those who live there. Using the tech she trades for the marbles, Violet hopes to build a machine to harness the time marbles’ power and reverse the mutation.

After Violet discovers a marble that will pause time for a year, a stranger arrives in the village, desperate to possess the marble for himself. To save humanity, Violet must unravel the mysteries of the time marbles and embark on a journey that will take her through the hidden depths of the forest and to the very top of the space elevator.