History has holes, extinction looms, and her magic is forbidden. But the cheese bread is delicious.
Leana doesn't have a death wish. Sure, she uses forbidden magic for illusion pranks. But death may be coming for everyone soon, the way the monster crisis keeps accelerating. In the meantime, why not make a few terrified refugee kids smile?
Twice a refugee herself, she has found a new home in a city that's really trying, with free libraries, an elected council, and that glorious cheese bread. And she's found friends she'd do anything for, except the one thing they want her to do: live in fear.
All her life, she's heard the old stories about people like her. Every atrocity is another reason her kind were hunted down, and perhaps deserved to be. But she pieces together another story that was lost, or erased. A discipline of curiosity that once held the monsters back. Maybe it could again, if people would trust it. And if humanity could be trusted with it.
Spell by spell, siege by siege, she and her friends grow strong enough to matter. And to be noticed.
