Alice has a clear-eyed view of the world and no illusions about romance. Then she is taken against her will to the World of Heart, and clear-eyed realism becomes harder to maintain. The people there are casually dangerous — the proprietor of the local hat shop runs a criminal organization, the theme park employees carry firearms. A drug she is forced to take prevents her from returning to her own world. She is stuck in this place, and she is starting, against her better judgment, to find it interesting.