Elle is a scavenger. Her life consists of dodging into damaged libraries to rescue books that were not destroyed so that the readers in them are not trapped. But Elle has a secret. She is looking for one book. The book of Firstfall. A book so dangerous that it got her parents condemned to a prison.

Damon is the former Controller of Chemmon. Bent and twisted by the book world he was trapped in as a child, he was locked away in the book Firstfall to keep him from destroying everything. Elle finds the one book that could free her, but just as she does, her luck runs out. Trapped in the idyllic world of Firstfall, she must find a way to get herself and everyone else out before the world falls apart around her killing everyone.

Meanwhile, Damon, the most feared criminal in Eraht is loose, and his awesome weapons allow him to bring things and people out of the book worlds, and to bend the laws of physics. But the secrets of Chemmon have begun to awaken, and no one really knows what he is up to. It is up to Elle, trapped in a book, to lead the Readers to safety before the world around them vanishes, and through it all, she has to hold on to the vague memories of the world before Firstfall. The only way out is to make a way, to become one of the most powerful Storytellers to ever exist, or fail and watch thousands die.