In a world where clockwork people get a certain number of "turns" per day which determine the number of things they can do, Zee, a young, energetic marionette, leaves her dad to go to the carnival for a day to find her mother. She meets Vale, who shows her around and tells her she can find her mother at a different carnival (carnival four—this one is carnival nine). When Zee gets home, she's out of turns and her father is disappointed that she doesn't have enough to do her work for the day. She spends her days helping her dad out, and after her grandparents die, she goes with him to the carnival again to sell her grandparents' parts. She meets Vale again, decides to join the carnival, and says goodbye to her dad. At a junction, Zee meets her mother, and she finds out that she abandoned Zee because she wanted to use her turns for herself. Zee vows that she won't be selfish like her mother, and she makes a child, Mattan, with Vale (literally makes—they build him out of carnival parts). They take Mattan to the maker, and he gets a faulty spring, which means he has barely enough turns to function. Zee carries him everywhere and does everything she can to make sure he gets to have adventuress like she longed for as a child. Eventually, Vale gets frustrated because he feels Mattan is holding them back, so Zee goes with Mattan to live with her father, who needs her to take care of him. Zee, although she's always had an unusually high number of turns, is completely burnt out, and one day, she leaves to go to the carnival again. She reunites with Vale, who apologizes for leaving her and Mattan. When she gets home, her father is dead and Mattan is all alone. She feels guilty for leaving right when her help was needed, but Mattan quickly forgives her, and they go back to the carnival with Vale. Zee and Vale work as hard as they can for their son, and at the end of her life, Zee worries about dying before her son and what will happen to him, but decides that she has made the most of the turns she was given.