Lt. Kathryn Kitaen, a detective of Magic Affairs for the Metamor City Police Department, is not having her best day. An unidentified man in her precinct has been burned to death by unknown magic. A powerful wizard has erased the evidence from the crime scene. The commander of a powerful paramilitary organization wants to pick a fight over jurisdiction. And to top it all off, the Empire's top spymaster wants her to find his missing daughter: a spoiled and decadent heiress who's infamous for sparking scandal and controversy wherever she goes.

Together with her partner, the Elven life-mage David Silverleaf, Kate must expose a conspiracy of silence in the highest ranks of the Empire's nobility: a web of lies that has already claimed one life, and threatens to take more. To get to the truth - to protect the city she loves - Kate will have to unravel a mystery that has baffled the Empire for a generation...a mystery that began in a magic-filled jungle on the other side of the world....