Pandora is the older of the two Pitstop sisters and heiress to the Pitstop Patented Pistons fortune. Educated abroad and the graduate of a fashionable foreign finishing school, she returns home at 18 to take on the family business. She is besieged by marriage proposals from an old family friend and financial adviser, Sylvester Sneekly. She suspects his motives and refuses. One night, after her third refusal, she disappears suddenly and without warning, without leaving so much as a trace! Her fate is unknown to the family, but she has been secretly committed to the Arkham Asylum by the disgruntled suitor, AKA. The Hooded Claw! Sneekly now sets his sights on Penelope - the younger, more naive of the two sisters - intending to make the fortune his own. But that's another story....

Many, many years later, Pandora makes her escape from the Asylum. She is confused and unaware of her birthright, the family having long since given her up for dead. She stows away on a ship headed for Europe to find a new life.

She finds herself in Potzdorf in the Kingdom of Carpania. In desperate need of shelter and a protector, she allows herself to become established as the mistress of Baron von Stuppe. Attracted by his wealth and fascinated by his scheming wickedness, she learns a great deal about the rewards to be gained from exploiting the cruelties of life. But his vast-walled chateau and controlling nature reminds her too much of her years in the Asylum, and she is unhappy there.

She then uncovers the Baron's plans to take the throne of Carpania and is soon cast aside to make way for his new mistress - ruling power. Once more she finds herself on the road, searching for a life andidentity of her own.

She eventually finds work in a traveling show, Dark's Pandemonium Carnival, rumoured to take in strays and fugitives from justice. Her natural balance and fearless resolve places her in a motorcycle stunt side show, Old Nick's Own Rough Riders. She falls for the handsome Wall-of-Death rider, Max Speedworthy. Max discovers that she has a hidden past, as all who work these traveling shows do, but hers is sinister and has taken its toll. He jilts her for a blonde trapeze artist, The Luscious Lucretia of the Flying Lorenzos.

Broken hearted and vowing revenge, she steals a motorcycle and leaves the carnival. She makes her way across the continent, selling her skills, performing daredevil stunts, racing, and taking commissions to settle private disputes quietly and with no questions asked. She is feisty and independent, driven to win by a bitter, twisted past and a slightly insane jealous rivalry. She must win by any means necessary to prove herself and justify her independence.