Chesirah is a fenox — a creature able to speak like humans, yet cancatch fire and return to its normal form from ash. Forced into slavery by humans, she is caged in the attic of her owner’s home. As she plaits her hair with pins, her owner comes upstairs and presents her with some gifts. Chesirah’s owner is Nazar, a doll maker, though Chesirah's previous owner was a violently abusive banker whom she killed. Living with Nazar is not much easier though, as he often beats her and forces her to sing to him. He also makes dolls that look like her. Chesirah is planning to run away.

Nazar again asks Chesirah to sing for him, and when she refuses, he immediately lashes her with his whip. But as he does so, the pins in her hair poke him in the eye and set him on fire, giving Chesirah time to get out of the cage, using the pins as picks.She steals some of Nazar’s clothes, and runs into the city, but she soon realizes she has no plan from there.

Chesirah goes to the SkyDocks, where ships going to other planets launch. She notices a nearby restaurant, and decides to get food. While there, a wealthy man named Sam starts hitting on her in a very aggressive manner. A younger, also wealthy woman named Esperanza pretends to know Chesirah to get the man away. Esperanza explains that she and a man that she is there with could tell that Chesirah was a fenox, and they know what happened with Nazar. She tells Chesirah that, like her she too is not human, and she believes Chesirah could help her with liberation.

Esperanza introduces her to her partner, Vannish, and they explain that they are part of a group of thieves called Cirque Nocturna, and they want Chesirah to join them. Chesirah is convinced that she has to get off the planet, Atlas, to have a decent life, so she turns them down. She leaves the restaurant, and sets out to lure a crewman for one of the ships to get her aboard.

Once outside the restaurant, Sam tracks her down with a bunch of men, recognizing her as Nazar’s fenox. The other men had paid for dolls of Chesirah, and given that Nazar died before making them, want to kill her in exchange. Sam tells Chesirah that he paid off the men to let him keep her. She says she would never go with him. A crowd with police begins to form, threatening to shoot her, until she bursts into flames.

She wakes in a room, and Esperanza soon comes to show her around the ship that they are on. They are heading to Irth, another planet, where she can choose to go on her own, or stay with the group. Realizing that she doesn’t want to be alone and abandon her people for ever, she decides to try sticking with the group.