Cinder is a cyborg living in New Beijing after World War IV, with her step-mother, Adri, and her two step sisters, Pearl and Peony. Cinder owns a booth in the market place, where she works as a mechanic with the family's android, Iko. While she is working, she meets Prince Kai, who asks her to fix his android, Nainsi. After Kai leaves, the market is evacuated because a baker, Chang Sacha, has been infected. Prince Kai's father, Emperor Rikan, is currently sick with letumosis, otherwise known as the Blue Fever, a plague that is terrorizing the Commonwealth. There have been no plague survivors.