Chapter One

Fiona Thorne always heard curiosity would be the death of her. It was curiosity that made her poke her nose into her neighbor’s garden when she was young after hearing shouts of anger. This led to her first case: carrot theft. A case she was determined to solve and did moments later, although she let the rabbit get away with it.

Curiosity drove her to meddle in an ongoing investigation over the mysterious disappearance of cacao pods on the farm she and her family had worked. She was promptly accused of the theft and had to clear her name. Catching the real culprit, one she didn’t let off the hook this time, pushed her inquisitiveness even further.

And so, of course, curiosity got her, after many years of listening to the little niggle at the back of her head, to say yes without hesitation to a job she knew little about based on a name alone. And that, she reasoned with herself as brisk wind twisted through the leaves and dark curls of her hair, was why she was clinging to the branches at the top of a tall tree, knowing at any moment she would fall to her death. Curiosity was Fiona’s first love, and she reckoned if the wind got its way, it might be her last.

A soft, chilly rain permeated the canopy of the mossy trees in the forest and landed lightly on her uncovered face. Piercing wind ripped through the branches, whistling and catching Fiona’s many-pocketed scarf. The tug of the wind almost unbalanced her thin body. She grasped the branch tighter, vowing next time to just stay on the ground and hide. You’re an absolute blotter, Fi.

How could she possibly hope to make an impact in the world if she couldn’t even do a proper stakeout? Working her way toward the type of notoriety where she could do more good than not started with the basics. Like being blasted competent. She should’ve said no to notoriety, no to going out of her depth before she was ready, and definitely no to herself when she thought, The bushes are too far away. I know. I’ll climb that spindly tree for a better view.

The air shimmered briefly in the clearing, and Fiona stopped chiding herself and focused her attention. The ground and the trees bent inward to the ripple, creating a small fold in the scenery. As the world folded in on itself, another world, dark as a raven’s wing with flares of crimson, showed on the other side. It looked exactly like the turning of a page in a book where, for a moment, both worlds showed at the same time.

People with more time to mull over these sorts of things (and for whom book printing had just become vogue) called it “turning the page” when the ability to do so first manifested. Traveling from one world to another put you in the exact same spot in each one, and the worlds stacked on one another like pages in a book. From there the metaphor raged on, pushed forward by the fashionable. Give or take two hundred years later, what was the height of fashion had moved on, but the metaphor lingered. Fiona, a lover of books, enjoyed the comparison immensely.

A short human man with pale peach skin stepped out of the reddish page and into the cold, rainy forest. An acrid scent and a tendril of smoke came with him. As if a reader decided to go back to the previous page, the world unfolded on itself. The shimmer disappeared, and the view of the forest solidified behind him. It all took but a moment in time.

Page turners—people gifted with the ability to move themselves and others from one world to another—traveled this way all the time, and as Fiona was one herself, the unfolding scene didn’t faze her. The gift was an ability that manifested the same in all who were given it, but not all page turners were alike. Fiona focused on where he had come from. The darkness with the crimson glow could only mean one thing: the fire page.

The man fanned away the smoke that clung to him. Scraping a hand through his hair, he glanced around. He pulled out a torch, lit it, and searched the area. The small bushes surrounding the clearing cast shadows under its firelight. Apparently confident he was alone, he divested himself of a black cloak and gloves. He wiped a hand across his forehead, then pulled a small round glass and iron jar from within a pocket of the cloak.

A wisp of flame, no bigger than her hand, flitted from one side to the other inside the small cage.

Fiona let out a small gasp but covered her mouth to stifle it. The patter of the rain on leaves and wood would hopefully drown out her lapse in judgment. She hadn’t expected him to kidnap yet another creature. I’ll free you soon, little one.