It's Carnival time and the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance, and pageantry. Masked Midnight Robbers waylay revelers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. But to you Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favorite costume to weart at the festival -- untiel her power-coprrupted father commits an unforgivable crime.

Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folkklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Here Tan-Tan must redeach into the heart of myth -- and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen's legendary powers can save her life...and set her free.