Burnt Aether

In a city where the neon lights bleed into shadowed alleys and the rain never quite washes the streets clean, Agent Krysta Jameson of the Magical Crimes Investigation Bureau walks the line between law and something far stranger. Spells replace bullets. Secrets rot faster than bodies. And every case leaves its mark.

Her job is simple on paper: find justice when crime crosses into the arcane—when curses hit harder than guns, and when hexes leave scorch marks instead of fingerprints. But paper lies. With her partner in the city’s police force, Jax Argos, she tries to bring the law into the shadows of society. Every day drags Krysta deeper into a city that’s coming apart at the seams, where magic is currency, power is addiction, and the wrong name whispered in the dark can be your end.

There are forces older than laws and colder than justice moving in the city’s underbelly, and Krysta’s right in their path. In a world where truth is just a pen stroke away from deceit, the only thing that matters is how long you can keep your integrity intact.

When magic stops making sense, Krysta and Jax are called in—armed with grit, wit, and just enough arcane firepower to stay alive. But in this town, every answer births two more questions, and the truth is never just dangerous…it’s deadly.

Burnt Aether sets the opening balance of The Shadow Ledger, a new modern fantasy series set on an alternate Earth where magic is technology, crime has gone arcane, and nothing clean stays that way for long.