Teenager Lian Levtsov, suffering from his own name and problems with his parents, receives an interesting offer from a stranger he meets at a bus stop - to become the ruler of another universe. Out of curiosity and despair, he launches a top - a gift from a strange lady in a hat - and is transported to a completely unfamiliar world, consisting of four planes connected by an Axis along which the Wind of Time moves. Having almost died in the Darro desert, Lian immediately finds herself in the thick of things - she provokes an attack by the winged isurkhs on the human city of Sattard, comes into conflict with steph vampires, and most importantly, disrupts the plans of an alien demiurge to capture the Middle World. It turns out that becoming a ruler is not so easy. First, we need to resolve the problems at home, in St. Petersburg, where a mother is unsuccessfully searching for her missing son, the head teacher is threatening expulsion from school, and an alien demiurge is hunting for a mysterious woman in a hat and a top - the key to possessing the Axis worlds...