Henry Toben needs the sky like his ancestors needed the sea. He works as a certified master boilerman aboard a luxury airship, taking wealthy folks from Kansas City to San Francisco, until the day his ship crosses the path of Captain Meriwether Volentine and he is taken aboard as the Captain's personal prisoner. Henry discovers that he needs his new lover as much as he needs the sky, but a maelstrom of plots and alliances threaten to separate them forever.