"In morning light/my heart's delight/is slinking in/and inking skin." Firefly, one of the river people, lives by this ancient song. She yearns to be an inker and tattoo giants, just like her mother. But one morning a rogue giant kidnaps her mother and takes her up to the plateau, a dangerous place for all river people. Firefly attempts to rescue her mother, putting her own life in peril. To add to her problems, the dam that keeps her world safe begins to crumble and the giants must scramble to repair it, putting Firefly in even greater peril. Then she learns her mother harbors a secret that calls into question everything Firefly ever believed about her people, her family, and herself. From stampeding giants to flooding waters and burning mountains, Firefly copes with adventure and danger as her home and everything she knows and loves collapses. She must find the courage to survive in a new world built on the destruction of the old.