Eccentricities. Pocket-watches. Rude, rusty roses. A distinct lack of companionship (or high-born manners, for that matter). These are the elements that encapsulate 5513 day-old Alice Alexandria Thicket's simple life, much to the dismay of her fading socialite Mama. Her obsession with counting days and disregard for upper class Anglemire norms only ensures an isolated life, which the girl secretly does not mind; those who stay too near Alice too long suffer her propensity for causing unexplainable blackouts, losing hours or days at a time - a phenomenon she loathes and fears. But upon meeting Dmitry Phineas Kolt, an odd elderly antiquities dealer whose cheshire grin masks impossible knowledge, Alice Alexandria Thicket begins to uncover the true nature of her curse... and the gifts that it may possess. But when figures from Alice's future show up to condemn her actions in their past, the girl's trust in her elderly friend is tested when it appears that his adventurous history is about to spill into Alice's present. Armed with just her trusty pocket-watch, an impulsive tongue, penchant for counting time, and a mysterious bequeathment by name of The Moment Glass, Alice Alexandria Thicket hurdles into the future that has so catastrophically threatened her present, and does so by stepping into the past.