Burn for Me

The first installment in the Hidden Legacy series is set in an alternate world where, in 1863, European scientists discovered the Osiris serum, a substance that awakened magical talents in human beings. These talents proved hereditary, and over a century and a half, families with strong magic evolved into powerful dynasties called Houses that own corporations, control city territories, employ private armies, and influence politics. Magic users are ranked in five tiers, from Minor to Prime, the most powerful.

In the prologue, Kelly Waller drives to the estate of her cousin Connor "Mad" Rogan, a reclusive, devastatingly powerful telekinetic Prime feared as the Butcher of Merida for his role in the South American Wars. Kelly's sixteen-year-old son, Gavin, participated in an arson at First National Bank alongside Adam Pierce, a Prime pyrokinetic (fire mage) who rejected his wealthy family to start a motorcycle gang. A security guard died in the fire, and his wife and children were severely burned. Kelly, disowned years ago by the Rogan family for refusing an arranged marriage intended to strengthen the family's magical bloodline, begs Rogan to find Gavin and ensure he receives a trial. Rogan agrees.

The narrative shifts to Nevada Baylor, a 25-year-old private investigator who runs Baylor Investigative Agency, a small family firm operating out of a converted warehouse in Houston. Nevada possesses a secret talent: She is a Truthseeker, able to detect lies through an instinctive sensation, but she keeps this ability hidden because revealing it would draw the military or a powerful House to press her into permanent service. Nevada lives with her mother Penelope, a decorated Army veteran and former sniper with a disability; her grandmother Frida, a mech-mage who repairs armored vehicles; her teenage sisters Catalina and Arabella; and her cousins Bern, a 19-year-old computer specialist, and Leon. Nevada's father died of cancer five years earlier, and to fund his treatment, the family mortgaged the agency to Montgomery International Investigations (MII), a firm owned by House Montgomery.

After a routine case turns violent, MII summons Nevada. Augustine Montgomery, the Prime illusionist who heads the firm, orders her to apprehend Adam Pierce alive and before the police capture him. Nevada protests that her agency lacks resources and combat capability, but Augustine is unmoved: Refusing means breach of contract, and MII will seize their business, home, and all assets. Nevada realizes Augustine expects her to fail, using her firm as a disposable shield to satisfy House Pierce without risking his own people. She negotiates an addendum stipulating that if she dies, her family can buy back the agency name for one dollar, and accepts.

Nevada and Bern research Adam and discover that Gavin Waller's mother is Rogan's cousin, linking Rogan to the case. They watch a classified video of a teenage Rogan demolishing an entire city block during a military trial, a display of power that leaves them shaken. Nevada traces Adam's secret funding through a motorcycle shop and leaves her card for him. Adam calls, and they meet at a botanical garden where Nevada buys him a T-shirt to cover his bare chest, establishing herself as unimpressed by his theatrics. She argues that surrendering to his House is his only path to survival. Adam does not commit.

As Nevada leaves, a powerfully built stranger chases her, immobilizes her with enchanted silk, and sedates her. He is Mad Rogan. Nevada wakes chained inside an elaborate spell circle designed to crush her will and extract secrets about Adam Pierce. Despite hours of agonizing pressure, she refuses to betray her client. To survive, she feeds the spell a personal secret instead: her guilt over keeping her father's cancer diagnosis hidden at his request. The spell's power is spent on this confession, and Rogan, stunned, carries her home.

The family learns about the assignment. Nevada's mother orders her to quit, but Nevada refuses, insisting the business and their home are worth fighting for. To defend herself against Primes, she has experimental military devices called shockers implanted in both arms; these deliver a devastating electrical charge on contact, and her shock power far exceeds expectations. Adam visits late at night, trying to charm Nevada into running away with him. Her magic detects he is lying about considering surrender, but she does not yet understand his true agenda.

Rogan pursues an alliance, and he and Nevada meet at a restaurant to discuss combining forces. Nevada initially declines. While they are together, someone attacks the warehouse, chaining the doors and igniting a military-grade accelerant inside that nearly kills Grandma Frida. Rogan arrives, tears down the garage door, and helps rescue her. In a surge of fury, Nevada's magic erupts: She locks Rogan in place and compels him to truthfully answer whether he was responsible. His denials are sincere. Evidence points to Adam as the attacker.

Recognizing she cannot face Adam alone, Nevada formally allies with Rogan under strict conditions: no unnecessary killing, Adam delivered alive, and protection for her family. They enlist Bug, a mentally unstable former military surveillance specialist, to track Adam. When Adam attacks an office tower as a diversion while a team extracts a jeweled artifact from an adjacent building, Nevada and Rogan fight through the extraction team. Nevada kills for the first time. They recover the artifact before a rigged explosion buries them under debris.

Nevada realizes the original bank arson was not political but a theft: Adam used Gavin's teleportation ability to extract a safe-deposit box, and the fire was cover. Adam is executing a multi-stage plan with someone else pulling the strings. Nevada's research traces the artifact to Hindu mythology: It is a piece of Shiva's Third Eye, a legendary amplification device that dramatically multiplies a pyrokinetic's power. A Notable-rank mage used a piece of the artifact to start the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, and if Adam reassembles it, he could incinerate downtown Houston. Events accelerate. An animator Prime steals the recovered fragment from the Harris County District Attorney's office using a massive metal construct. At a shopping mall, Nevada and Rogan interrogate Harper Larvo, a harmonizer mage (a magic user with an aesthetic talent for arrangement) and former associate of Adam's, who reveals Adam is a pawn in something called "the Change," a conspiracy to overthrow the existing order. An assassination team then ambushes them. Adam's forces now hold two of three pieces. At MII, Nevada uses her magic to crack a generational hex on Mark Emmens, the elderly guardian of the artifact's secret, extracting the third piece's location through carefully phrased yes-or-no questions: a green diamond hidden inside a bronze statue in Bridge Park, directly downtown.

Nevada and Rogan race to Bridge Park, but Adam has already assembled the Third Eye. Standing within an impenetrable null-space circle, he activates the artifact and becomes a pillar of flame. Rogan enters a state of magical ascent, levitating off the ground and demolishing surrounding buildings to compact the rubble into an enormous wall that contains Adam's fire. The wall holds, but Rogan cannot stop: His continued pulses threaten to collapse downtown onto tunnels sheltering thousands. Nevada uses the last of her magic to levitate to Rogan and kisses him, pouring every emotion into the act. The kiss reaches him through his trance, and he regains awareness and stops.

Adam's fire exhausts itself. Nevada handcuffs him and drags him before his mother Christina Pierce, formally surrendering him alive as contracted. Adam is imprisoned, Gavin Waller is found alive, and Nevada's fee is applied to her loan balance. When Rogan appears a week later offering to take her anywhere in the world, Nevada rejects him, arguing he lacks genuine empathy and uses people instrumentally. Rogan declares he will prove himself and leaves.

In the epilogue, Rogan opens a video call with Kelly Waller, who reveals she orchestrated the entire conspiracy out of hatred for him and the family that valued him while discarding her. She sacrificed her own son to her revenge, intending both Adam's fire and Rogan's uncontrollable ascent to destroy Houston. She warns that a larger force is coming. Alone afterward, Rogan resolves to crush the conspiracy and to win Nevada, the woman whose kiss pulled him from his destructive trance.