Life is tough, granted. Life is especially tough when you have a squirrely younger sister with a boatload of sass, but Leonardo Defante's situation takes the cake. His family's poor--oh, who am I kidding, practically the entire state's poor--and is about to lose everything else, his father's just been arrested and will be denied trial by jury, plus his mother just sent him to the now unified state of Carolina with a 12 year old girl via train. Did I mention what's left of America the Brave and Beautiful is crashing and burning? Oh, yes and I forgot to tell you...The aforementioned children? Yeah, they get pulled into a war. Leo's betrayed. He's lost. His friends get killed. Nothing is stable anymore. It kind of sucks. But there's always a silver lining...Until a jewel thief steals it.