Characters
Meet the faces of urban fantasy
From snarky heroines to grumpy heroes, explore the unforgettable characters who bring these supernatural worlds to life. Each one has their own story, secrets, and reasons to keep reading.
Witches of Kirra Cross
Ongoing6 characters from this series
Darby
Darby is cautious, practical, and quietly fierce. She's a freshly divorced accountant who calculates the cost of her iced coffee against her budget, tours depressing apartments she can barely afford, and is still paying off debt her gambling ex-husband racked up. She's the woman who apologizes too fast, who spent years making herself smaller to keep the peace, who let her marriage suffocate her into invisibility. Frankly, she just wants a decent apartment and a life that doesn't feel like treading water. But underneath all that careful, budget-conscious restraint is someone with a spine made of root and iron. She's the one who stops a speeding car by punching a tree root through solid asphalt. She's the one who spends hours alone breaking witch ball after witch ball until she gets it right — not because she's naturally talented, but because she refuses to quit. She calls Topaz out for setting a man's phone on fire, not with anger but with the steady expectation that they be better than that. When everyone else wants to hide from the Torch Bearers, she's the one who says no more — "I'm sick of making myself smaller and weaker and quieter just to survive." She names the cemetery as their training ground because she's already thinking two steps ahead about how buildings become traps. She's the everywoman who walked into a new city with nothing but a suitcase and a bruised sense of self — and discovered she was done being invisible. Darby doesn't have the flashiest magic or the loudest voice, but when it counts, she's the one who steps forward, makes the hard calls, and refuses to let anyone she loves become a victim. Including herself.
Ivette
Jazmin
Jazmin is eighteen, fearless, and way too smart for her own good. She's a high school senior and aspiring digital artist who was raised by her grandmother after losing her mother to an overdose, and she carries that history with the matter-of-fact ease of someone who processed their grief a long time ago. She's got opinions about everything — music, politics, the best tacos in the city — and she's not shy about sharing them. She's the one who finds the grimoire. She's the one who immediately tries to read a fire spell aloud inside a library. She's the one who suggests they become vigilantes approximately thirty seconds after their first real magical encounter, and when her grandmother shuts that down, she counters with "How about if I promise to stop crime only after I finish my homework and chores." She picks up a Ouija board at a thrift store years before she needs one, brings it to a séance like she's been waiting for this moment her whole life, and then calmly reads safety instructions off her phone while the rest of the coven is losing their minds. Her water magic comes to her like breathing — she holds a perfect sphere of water in her palm the first night, and by the time they're training in the cemetery she's freezing ice into cannonballs and whipping razor-sharp shards at targets. She's the youngest and everyone knows it, but she refuses to be sidelined. When Ivette tries to keep her from the Ouija board, she accepts it. When the conversation turns to offensive spells, she's the one who insists they learn to fight back, staring her grandmother dead in the eye without flinching. She's the kid who makes the adults braver just by being unafraid. Half teenager, half force of nature, all heart.
Kara
Kara is organized, quietly brave, and the person you want in your corner when things go sideways. She's a librarian who color-codes her closet, wears sensible cardigans, and tucks her button-down into her slacks — every inch the stereotype, and she knows it. She has wire-rimmed glasses, a tidy low ponytail, and the kind of calm, practical demeanor that makes you assume nothing rattles her. She's the one who stays up all night with the grimoire while everyone else sleeps, methodically turning pages and taking notes. She's the one who makes ingredient lists in neat handwriting, brings a fire extinguisher to magic practice, and has backup plans for her backup plans. When they need information, she digs — pulling up property records, cross-referencing news articles, building lists of suspicious organizations with a librarian's relentless patience. But underestimate her at your own risk. She lies to a sheriff's face without blinking, spinning a cover story about insurance adjusters so smoothly that Darby just stares. Her air magic is devastating — she creates a binding spell so powerful that even Darby's plant magic can't touch it, pulls oxygen from lungs, and whips up a tornado with her bare hands. When someone grabs her from behind, she headbutts him in the nose and doesn't flinch. She's the quiet engine of the coven. The one who turns chaos into a plan, panic into preparation, fear into research. She worries more than she lets on and feels things deeper than she shows — but when the moment demands it, she's the first to square her shoulders and say they need to act.
Topaz
Topaz is loud, magnetic, and absolutely on fire — sometimes literally. She's a purple-streaked, silver-ringed musician grinding through barista shifts and Uber fares while chasing a record deal, and she carries herself like someone who's already famous and the world just hasn't caught up yet. She's the kind of person who fills more space than her physical body occupies, who links arms with you on the sidewalk five minutes after meeting you and makes you feel like the coolest person alive. She's the one who finds Darby a place to live, a friend group, and a reason to stop shrinking. She's the one who yells "FUCK ROY!" on a public street until a stranger yells it back. She tells a teenager the truth about her friend's creepy older boyfriend with the kind of calm, unflinching honesty that makes you realize she's been looking out for people her whole life. She remembers Darby's coffee order after one visit — almond milk, one sugar — and shrugs it off like it's nothing. Her fire magic suits her perfectly. The flame leaps into her palm the first time they light a candle and she holds it there, unburned, wonderstruck. She shapes fire into claws and curved blades. She also sets a stranger's phone ablaze because he called Darby a bitch, and when Darby calls her on it, she's genuinely shaken — not by what she did, but by the realization she could have hurt someone. Her temper runs hot and her impulses run hotter, but her conviction burns brightest of all. She's the spark that lights the coven. Bold where Darby is cautious, reckless where Ivette is measured, fearless where Kara is careful. She's the friend who makes you braver just by believing you already are.
Sage
Sage Thorne has run The Serpent's Garden for fifteen years, turning a narrow storefront into a sanctuary for practitioners of every level. With long black hair, rings on every finger, and a serpent pendant at her throat, she looks exactly like the kind of woman who'd own an occult shop — and she'd be the first to appreciate the irony. Behind the jewel-toned layers and the warm, husky voice is a sharp mind backed by thirty years of magical practice. She sees more than she lets on, says less than she knows, and moves through her shop with the unsettling silence of someone who's very comfortable with the unknown. When the Medeon Coven walks through her door, Sage recognizes what they are before they're ready to admit it themselves.
Auras & Embers Series
Ongoing13 characters from this series
Dacey Menet
Dacey Menet is a bennu shifter and fixer for the Conclave — the woman you call when supernatural problems need solving and you don't mind a little fire along the way. With tanned skin, thick wavy dark hair, and an elfin, heart-shaped face, she's striking even before you notice the ring of flame that flickers in her dark eyes when her emotions run hot. Bold, mischievous, and fearless to the point of reckless, Dacey throws herself into danger with a grin and drags everyone around her along for the ride. She's the kind of woman who bursts out of a crematorium oven with wings of blazing fire and her first words are a complaint about her favorite dress. Sparks crackle through her hair when she's agitated, she skips across rooms when she's excited, and her idea of testing a theory is unleashing her fire wings over pancakes. Dacey doesn't do cautious. She doesn't do subtle. And when someone she cares about is in danger, she becomes an avenging angel of phoenix fire — fearless, furious, and utterly unstoppable.
Gideon Bean
Gideon is earnest, quietly kind, and deeply reluctant. He's a working-class guy with two jobs and a crappy hatchback who keeps trying to bow out of the supernatural world — he's not qualified, he's going to end up in a cardboard box like the bodies he deals with at the crematorium. Frankly, he needs to get back to work. But when it actually matters, he's incredibly brave. He rolls himself into a fire to save Dacey. He grabs a ghost with his bare hands. He has a quiet moral backbone — he calls Dacey out on her lying and refuses to keep working with her unless she's honest. He's the everyman who steps up despite every instinct telling him to run.
Astrid
Astrid is a Völva — a Norse seer, one of those rare and powerful women who can walk the threads of time. The problem is, the threads walked her right off a cliff. Too many branching timelines, too many possible futures — Astrid has lost her grip on the present entirely. She's a fixture in Millhaven's homeless community, showing up at the Metro Diner each morning like clockwork, shouting prophecies about Valhalla that sound like gibberish to everyone around her. She refuses to go near any mental health facility, convinced the government will kidnap her and use her for her visions. She's gaunt and sun-weathered, with blonde hair hanging in tangled knots around her face and bony fingers with chipped nail polish. Her skin is covered in crude, self-made tattoos — jagged runes and chaotic symbols that seem to shift and writhe in the light. Dominating them all is a large spiral-shaped seashell above her sternum. Despite the Florida summer heat, she bundles herself in multiple ragged jackets, rocking back and forth as she screams at passersby with dark, crazed eyes. Her magic radiates in chaotic waves that scrape against Gideon's senses — oracle magic gone wrong, a maelstrom of time flowing backward and forward at once, sharp and discordant and fragile. But beneath the madness, there are moments of eerie clarity. When she locks eyes with Gideon and tells him he's "in for quite the surprise, mama's boy," it's hard to dismiss her as entirely lost.
Leonard
Leonhard is a mystery to Gideon. They've talked on the phone and exchanged emails, but he's never met the man face-to-face. For all Gideon knows, Leonhard could be a seven-foot-tall bodybuilder or a ninety-year-old grandfather. His voice doesn't give much away either. What Gideon does know is that the Numerai has a knack for sniffing out patterns that no one else can see, connecting dots across mountains of data like he's reading a children's picture book.
MacGuire
MacGuire is a gargoyle shifter — not the carved cathedral statues, but the real thing they were modeled after. As a species known as fierce protectors, MacGuire serves as the muscle on Conclave missions, the backup called in when suspects might give trouble. He's thin and bespectacled with narrow features, sharp blue eyes, and a pale complexion that makes him look more like a mild-mannered accountant than a mythical guardian of stone. But his magic tells a different story: to Gideon's auramancer senses, shaking MacGuire's hand feels like grasping a weathered boulder, all surprising firmness and underlying grit, as if his palm had just grazed a brick wall. There's a creature of legendary strength hidden beneath that unassuming exterior — it's just a shame MacGuire seems to know it. He carries himself with a slightly pompous air, his reserved expression transforming into something smarmy whenever he gets an audience. He delights in making people guess what he is, and when he announces "gargoyle," he says it like he expects applause. Dacey has flat-out refused to have him assigned as her handler — "he gets on my nerves" — and Gideon suspects they'll never be friends. But respect? That's harder to shake. Beneath the smugness is a symbol of protection, whether MacGuire acts like it or not.
Quinn
Quinn is a truth seeker — the Conclave's answer to a lie detector, except she doesn't just sense deception, she unravels it. With a short bob framing her face and a reserved, professional demeanor, Quinn doesn't waste time on pleasantries; when Gideon met her, she didn't offer her hand to shake, just a quick, fleeting smile. Her power requires eye contact, and once she has it, her voice drops to something soothing and low, almost hypnotic. To Gideon's auramancer senses, her magic is unlike anyone else's — quiet, subtle, creeping. Where other Mythicals announce themselves with obvious magical signatures, Quinn's power works like tendrils of persuasion gently wrapping around her target, washing over the mind in waves of ease and trust. It feels like a comforting hand guiding you to spill your deepest secrets — and Gideon found himself nearly answering questions meant for someone else before he caught himself and dug his fingernails into his palm to stay grounded. She's the one called in when the team needs answers, whether from a clueless coworker or a murder suspect in pajamas. Quinn conducts her interrogations with calm control, though Gideon caught her physically swallowing her anger when Mr. Peterson admitted he'd looked the other way on suspicious bodies for cash. She takes her work seriously — and when she looked over at Gideon before questioning Linus, she smiled like she was excited to show off. Secrets don't stay buried long when Quinn's in the room.
Santos
Santos is a Fae and the FBI liaison to the Savannah Conclave — the man who flashes his badge to make local cops step aside and smooths over cross-agency territorial disputes. He's built like a bear, with a muscular frame that fills doorways, yet he moves with a grace that belies his size. His Fae ability is telekinesis — the power to move objects with just a thought — and his magic registers to Gideon's auramancer senses as a subtle buzzing vibration in the air around him, like standing next to a live wire. But it's not his powers that define him; it's his warmth. Santos is the teammate who wraps you in a bear hug the moment he sees you, who loads his plate with enough food to rival a bennu shifter's appetite, and whose easy, infectious grin makes everyone around him feel at ease. He's encouraging when investigations hit dead ends ("Sometimes confirming what we already know is valuable, too") and fiercely supportive of the people he cares about. When Gideon was recovering in the hospital after his first case, Santos visited multiple times — and it was Santos who mentored him through negotiating his Conclave contract, making sure he didn't sell himself short. He's been working with the reclusive Leonhard for over ten years and has never once met him face-to-face, which says everything about his patience and good humor. Santos is the steady, solid heart of the team — the one who makes you feel like you belong.
Silas
Silas is a satyr shifter and Gideon's coworker at Tranquil Haven, the Conclave-owned funeral home where they work the night shift together. He's also Gideon's training partner at the Conclave facility in Tallahassee, where they spend weekends on weapons training, physical conditioning, and hand-to-hand combat — sessions that have quietly transformed Gideon from a civilian into someone who can keep pace on a chase through the Florida woods.Silas is all bright eyes and easy grins — the kind of guy who quizzes Gideon on obscure Mythical species with the delight of someone playing a trivia game he knows he'll win. He's good-natured and supportive, but he's also the friend who will point at a girl's back and give an enthusiastic thumbs up while she isn't looking. Subtlety isn't exactly his strong suit — but loyalty is.
Stella Bean
Stella Bean is Gideon's mother — a warm, hardworking woman who holds their small family together through long hours and quiet faith. She works as the cashier at the local hardware store, though in truth she practically runs the place: organizing schedules, managing inventory, and serving as the person everyone turns to when there's a problem. She'd never dream of asking for the manager title she's earned, insisting she's "just the cashier" even as the owner relies on her to keep everything running. Stella is the kind of mother who pulls out her special holidays-only tablecloth and best plates when her son brings home a friend, who swipes flowers from the apartment complex oleanders to make a centerpiece, and who can't quite hide the hopeful gleam in her eyes at the thought that Gideon might finally have someone in his life. She's religious without being pushy, gently inviting Gideon to church while respecting when he declines. She worries about him — about his mental health, about his long hours, about the life he's building — but she shows her love through home-cooked breakfasts and quiet support rather than pressure. Gideon gets his complexion from her, and they're both world-champion blushers. She puts salsa on her eggs and thinks tomato-haters who love ketchup make no sense.
Vena
Vena is an auramancer — one of a rare few who can sense and identify magic — and Gideon's mentor. She lives in South Carolina and flies in for his training sessions, but most of her guidance comes through phone calls and a steady stream of strange magical artifacts shipped to him for study. She's the reason his notebook has over thirty documented magical signatures. With her wispy silver hair and warm, worried voice, Vena feels like the grandmother Gideon never had. She frets over his safety and warns him about the dangers of being what he is — auramancers have been stolen before, including two of her own cousins, taken as children and never found. But beneath that protective concern is someone who genuinely lights up at a good magical mystery. When the investigation uncovers void magic that stumps everyone, Vena's response radiates excitement through a text message. No one knows magical history like she does, and if something has ever existed before, she'll find it.
Victor Voss
Victor Voss is a basilisk shifter serving as a detective in the Millhaven Police Department and the team's local law enforcement liaison. Beneath his human glamour, he hides vertical pupils like a viper's that examine everyone with unblinking intensity — a detail visible only to Gideon's auramancer sight. He's tall, with blonde hair neatly combed back from his forehead, a navy suit, and precise, deliberate movements that carry just a hint of the reptilian. His voice has a slight rasp to it, and he has a way of taking up position near a window and watching the room in perfect stillness, his gaze fluid and unblinking. Gideon's skin crawls every time they shake hands — partly because of his lifelong discomfort around snakes, and partly because Voss makes no effort to hide his interest in Dacey. He carries himself with the quiet authority of a man who knows his territory — "This is Millhaven, for God's sake. Things like this don't happen here." He's cooperative, helpful, and seems genuinely invested in the investigation. But his lingering presence around Dacey and a growing list of suspicious absences raise more than a few eyebrows as the case deepens.
Winnifred "Winnie" Thorne
Winnifred Thorne is a mountain witch — a direct descendant of the Appalachian Granny Women who drew their magic straight from the mountains themselves. Old magic. Wild magic. She serves as the mayor of Millhaven, Florida, where she's spearheaded the town's historic revival and has her sights set on the governor's office. She presents as polished professionalism wrapped in Southern charm — brown bob perfectly in place, charcoal suit impeccably tailored, a silver locket at her throat that her fingers drift to whenever grief or stress surfaces. Her voice is precise and warm, softened by a hint of Southern twang. She reminds Gideon of his own mother: that same combination of maternal caring and iron will, though Winnie's version comes wrapped in political sophistication rather than hardware store practicality. But to Gideon's auramancer senses, shaking her hand is almost overwhelming. Her magic pulses with raw, untamed power — like gnarled pine roots gripping weathered granite, crackling with autumn frost. It's ancient and primal, with a magnetic pull that draws him in even as his instincts warn of its dangerous potential. Years of occupancy have turned her office into a magical sponge, humming with stored power. The dichotomy is striking: this wild, free energy contained within such a polished exterior, like lightning bottled in a crystal decanter.
Wiz
Wiz is a wizard and member of the Conclave's investigative team — and one of the most powerful magic users Gideon has ever encountered, capable of leveling a city block if she wanted. You'd never guess it from looking at her. With wild curls framing a perpetually grinning face and a wardrobe of floral dresses that make her look like she just stepped away from a PTA meeting, Wiz radiates warmth and enthusiasm rather than raw magical power. Her magic feels like champagne bubbles to Gideon's auramancer senses — sparkling and effervescent, perfectly matching her bubbly personality. She's the team member who calls out "There's my favorite duo!" from a car window, who squeezes everyone in hugs, and who giggles her way through hotel lobbies while casually making check-in happen hours early with a wave of her hand. Wiz handles the team's magical heavy lifting — containment spells, knockout incantations, fast-tracked search warrants — all while maintaining an exuberance that contrasts sharply with her more reserved teammates. When Gideon makes a good call on an investigation, she's the first to welcome him officially: "Good job today, Agent." It's good to be the Wiz, and she knows it.
Sophie Feegle Series
Complete12 characters from this series
Mac Volpes
Detective Malcolm "Mac" Volpes is a fox shifter in his early thirties who works homicide cases tied to San Francisco's hidden Mythical community. Standing about five-ten with a lean, muscular build that carries the coiled grace of a dancer and the swagger of a cocky boxer, Mac cuts an effortlessly sharp figure — even when he looks like he hasn't slept in days. His light brown, wavy hair is perpetually tousled and in need of a cut, and a few days' worth of scruff usually shadows a jawline sharp enough to cause problems when he finally bothers to shave. Beneath dark, heavy brows, his deep ocean-blue eyes can shift from glacial intimidation to unexpected warmth in the span of a heartbeat. Typically found in rumpled charcoal suits with a notebook in hand, Mac is blunt, growly, and naturally distrustful — traits that come with the fox territory. He leads with authority and a snarl, the kind of man who barks orders and walks away fully expecting everyone to follow. But beneath the gruff, "Detective Dickhead" exterior lives a sharp-witted, quietly bookish man who drives a sensible gray sedan, quotes the history of City Lights Booksellers, grew up as a small-town police chief's son, and grins like trouble when he's enjoying himself. His protectiveness reveals itself not in soft words but in growled commands, borrowed jackets, and the stubborn refusal to let the people around him face danger alone.
Sophie Feegle
Sophie Feegle is a scrappy, sharp-tongued young woman in her mid-twenties living on the edge of broke in San Francisco. Small and pixie-faced with black hair, tattoos peeking from her sleeves, and a wardrobe built from dark jeans, band tees, second-hand leather boots, and a worn black peacoat, she carries herself with enough edge that her landlord compares her to a "goth Tinkerbell." Beneath the tough exterior and foul mouth lies a fierce tenderness — she's the kind of person who will give her last apple to a cornered opossum and check on her elderly neighbor before collapsing into bed. Street-smart and quick with her fists, Sophie relies on sharp instincts and a wicked sense of humor to navigate a life that hasn't given her many breaks. When she lands a job as an autopsy assistant on the graveyard shift at the city morgue, she discovers she has an unexpected supernatural gift: visions of the dead's final moments that could help solve the cases crossing her table. Equal parts grit and heart, Sophie is the kind of woman who stares down a snarling dog in a dark alley, knees a stalker in the face, and then asks her boss if he needs anything else before the shift ends.
Ace
Azeban — Ace to everyone who knows him — is a raccoon shifter and the graveyard shift's resident toxicologist and pathologist, named by a father with a strange sense of humor after the Abenaki raccoon trickster god. Compact and roughly Sophie's height at about five-four, Ace is the kind of man who doesn't look like much at first glance but who you'd immediately regret underestimating in a fight — scrappy, tenacious, and all wiry, coiled energy. His hair is cropped short on the sides and longer on top, the thick, almost wiry strands sticking straight out as if permanently electrified, comprised of every shade of brown in existence from slate to dark chocolate, giving it a deep sable hue that reminds Sophie of a German Shepherd's layered coat. His eyes glint with sharp intelligence wrapped in an ever-present air of annoyance, as if the entire universe has personally offended him. He meticulously scrubs every piece of food before eating it, vigorously washes his lunch at the sink as a matter of ritual, and glares at reports on his desk like the words have insulted his mother. Beneath the gruff, dismissive exterior — the growls, the eye rolls, the refusal to be mothered — burns a fierce pride and a deep loyalty. Ace will bare his teeth at anyone who calls him a "trash panda," snarl at a homicide detective for hassling his teammates, and demand that the lesser kingdom shifters stick together and watch each other's backs rather than accept the prejudice of the apex predators. He shares an apartment with Amira because San Francisco rent is obscene, and the two of them bicker constantly with the comfortable, relentless hostility of siblings who would kill for each other but would never admit it. When Sophie makes him laugh on her first day with a deadpan joke about turning floaters into sinkers, he announces to the room with a smirk: "I like her" — and from Ace, that's practically a declaration of undying devotion.
Amira
Amira is a cat shifter who works the graveyard shift as the Pathology Transcriptionist at San Francisco's morgue — and moonlights as the neighbor's pampered pet cat in her off hours. Effortlessly sophisticated and glamorous, she has flawless olive skin touched with a hint of terra cotta, large dark eyes, prim features, and a jet-black braid she coils around her head like a crown or lets fall in dramatic, silky swishes when she's making a point. Her lips are perpetually painted in shades of dark red and burgundy, and she moves like a ballerina — graceful, sure, and deliberate, with an economy of movement that makes everything she does look intentional. She is every inch a cat in human form: aloof and imperious one moment, delicately shuddering at bad smells the next, eating fish for lunch every single day, and casually pushing things off Ace's desk with one finger while maintaining intense, irate eye contact. Beneath the queen-of-the-castle attitude and the eye rolls lies a woman of surprising steel. When Sophie is falling apart after experiencing a violent death through her visions, it's Amira who drags her aside and tells her to activate her "bitch face" — because being a bitch, she declares, is the one true strength of womanhood. She's the kind of friend who will hand you a glass of wine and let you cry, but only after making sure you hold your shit together when it counts. She wears a thin pink collar with her name on it, and she is absolutely not embarrassed about it.
Arawn
Arawn is terrifying, deeply tender, and operatically dramatic. He's the literal King of the Otherworld — a figure so fearsome that ancient people invented Halloween costumes just to avoid being noticed by him — and he rides through the night in a stag skull mask leading an army of ghosts and pony-sized hellhounds with glowing red eyes. His eyes are like staring into the cosmos, his voice has one volume (foghorn), and when he gets angry, the sky goes black and the ground shakes like reality itself might snap. He burns Queen Maeve alive from the inside out and then incinerates her soul for good measure. But underneath all that apocalyptic grandeur, he's essentially a big softie who was robbed of his family. He drops to his knees weeping when he's reunited with Róisín after four hundred years, touching her face over and over to make sure she's real. When he meets the daughters he never got to raise, he cups their faces in his enormous hands and pulls them into a hug that feels "like being hugged by a titan." He takes Mac on a protective-dad walk that has Sophie ready to leap between them, then sends him back with a friendly slap on the back. In the epilogue, he bursts into a pub bellowing "Where's my grandbaby?", spoils Bria absolutely rotten with an absurdly oversized dollhouse, and is pestering Ruby for more grandchildren. He's the kind of dad who shares his favorite secret glen with his daughters and coaches their magic like a guided meditation instructor, then looks at them with so much pride it makes Sophie want to blush. He has a dry wit — he's delighted that Sophie inherited his sense of humor and her mother's bloodthirsty nature — and he's genuinely charmed and bewildered when Laura fangirls over him. He's the mythological boogeyman who just wants his family back, and once he has them, he's equal parts doting patriarch and cosmic force of vengeance.
Birdie Gafferty
Miss Alberta "Birdie" Gafferty is Sophie's elderly neighbor across the hall at Brown Betty — a sweet, dirty-minded former burlesque dancer with a will of iron and absolutely zero shame. Small and thin-armed with carefully curled hair, aged fingers laced with pale veins, and milky blue, rheumy eyes that peer suspiciously through the crack of her door before she opens it, Birdie looks every bit the fragile old woman she categorically refuses to be. She putters around her dimly lit apartment in a pink flowered housecoat, brewing tea on an avocado-green stove and serving it in chipped porcelain cups — one of which reads "Hot Pussy" on the bottom, reserved specifically for unsuspecting guests. Her apartment smells of old textbooks and stale lavender, the sagging orange-flowered sofa groans under the slightest weight, and her cat Ginsberg escapes every chance he gets. Birdie danced burlesque in the early '60s and will happily cup her bosom and give you a shimmy to prove it, informing you that "these old girls" are what first lured in her dear old Darren. She flirts shamelessly with every man Sophie brings within range — fluttering her eyelashes at Mac and asking about his handcuffs, cackling at her own innuendo, and calling him "sweet boy" until Sophie wants to throttle them both. But beneath the saucy winks and the cackles lives the fiercest kind of tenderness. She grips Sophie's hand with those thin, aged fingers and sends her off to rest. She demands tea visits with imperious authority because loneliness hides behind the laughter. She positions guests on the loveseat so she can properly interrogate them from her wingback chair. And she is the one person in Sophie's life who represents something purely, stubbornly human — no magic, no Mythicals, just a naughty old lady with a brandy habit, a tortoiseshell cat, and enough warmth to make a run-down apartment building feel like home.
Burg
Burg is an ogre who owns and operates The Little Thumb, the century-old pub next door to Sophie's apartment building Brown Betty. In his human glamor, he looks like he stepped off a turn-of-the-century circus poster advertising old-timey strongmen — a giant of a man with a melon-sized bald head that catches the morning sun like a beacon, a thick dark mustache, gray eyes that spark with good humor, and a nose with a large lump in the middle as if it's been broken more than once. He keeps a white bar towel perpetually thrown over one shoulder and does everything with the practiced flourish of a born performer — flipping coasters, depositing drinks, swishing his towel with dramatic flair, giving Italian chef's kisses when joking that humans taste delicious. His thick arms cross over a barrel chest when he's issuing warnings, and when his anger rises, it pulses off him in almost visible waves that make him look even more massive than usual, his name alone enough to make vampires stutter and gang members flee. In his true ogre form — which Sophie describes as "completely terrifying" — Burg's enormous trapezoid muscles skip his neck entirely and connect directly to the base of his skull. His skin is thick and rubbery with bristles like a wild boar (a detail Sophie vows to take to her grave), his hands can grip flat concrete and scale the vertical face of Coit Tower without breaking a breath, and his fists swing like hammers, leveling enemies like a machete through weeds. He lives above the bar, doesn't need much sleep, and spends his mornings hosing piss off the brick wall left by Mythicals who insist on marking their territory. The pub itself is his kingdom and museum — every square inch covered in tchotchkes his family has collected over a hundred years, including a Pablo Fanque circus poster, a glossy violin, and the original Jules Rimet World Cup trophy his father stole in 1984. The bar is named for an ogre fairy tale about Little Thumb — who, Burg confides, was actually an ogre himself, and a distant relation. But for all the menace he can summon, Burg is Sophie's protector, friend, and bartender-confessor rolled into one. He quietly upgrades her cheap whiskey when she's broke and pretends otherwise. He steps between her and a vampire gang without hesitation, declaring his block and everyone on it under his protection. He shudders at the sound of a rib cutter and lets a tiny human woman gross him out over drinks just because it makes her laugh. He warns her about the Fae with the quiet urgency of someone who knows exactly how dangerous the world is and wants desperately to keep her safe from it.
Corporate Bitch
Alexis Agrona, nicknamed "Corporate Bitch" by Sophie and Ruby long before they ever learned her real name, is a shard of the same unknown Fae as Sophie, and Ruby. Alexis is coldly power-hungry, driven by an unshakable belief that she deserves any power she is willing to seize. As Director of Acquisitions at Dolus Investments in Boston, Alexis earned her unflattering moniker through the shared dreams the sisters experienced — dreams that revealed a ruthless, ambitious woman who took visible pleasure in cruelty, most notably when she had employee Gabriel Cortez humiliated and dragged out by security during his termination for all his coworkers to witness. Alexis is cunning, calculating, and patient — traits that allowed her to orchestrate an elaborate deception.
Fitz
Fitz is a snow goose shifter who works the graveyard shift as the Transporter and Intake Specialist at San Francisco's morgue — the man responsible for receiving, weighing, and x-raying the dead before they reach Reggie's scalpel. By far the tallest person in the room, Fitz is very thin, almost gangly, with bony elbows poking from his shirt sleeves and a long neck capped by a prominent Adam's apple. He has pale, milk-white skin, corn-silk blonde hair, and light, almost silvery eyes, giving him a Nordic look — though without the Viking brawn you'd expect from someone with that heritage. Despite his lanky frame, Fitz moves with a surprising, almost avian elegance, gliding rather than walking, his long fingers with their pronounced knuckles handling everything from forks to flashlights with an understated grace. He is relentlessly, hilariously territorial. Every can of sparkling water in the breakroom fridge is labeled with an individual post-it note bearing his name. His desk, his computer, and his equipment are not to be touched, and god help the day-shift worker who steals one of his drinks — Fitz will vow to find the culprit with the righteous fury of a goose defending its nest. His great passion is bread. He plows through mixing bowls of plain lettuce and entire baguettes, huffs a bag of sourdough like a junkie, delivers animated monologues about the importance of a good starter, and once proposed marriage to Sophie on the spot after she brought him a loaf from Boudin. Beneath the imperious long-nosed stares and the territorial fussiness, Fitz is quietly thoughtful — reserved by nature but gentle with the vulnerable, the first to suggest the group rest after a crisis, and the one who proposes they make a list of movies to force Sophie to watch because he wants her to feel included. His family runs a crematorium, a detail that proves disturbingly convenient when the team needs to dispose of a body and no one else wants to ask how.
Larry Turner
Detective Larry Turner — self-proclaimed "Warlock Extraordinaire" — is a charming chatterbox who looks less like a practitioner of the arcane arts and more like he should be fronting a ska funk band. He works for the Mythical division of the police force alongside Mac and under the Conclave's authority, combining detective work with genuine magical talent. Larry favors an old-timey gentleman aesthetic, complete with a fedora he tips like someone out of a black-and-white film and whips off with theatrical flourishes, paired with loafers and suit jackets. His personality runs to playful flirtation — he waggles his eyebrows like a wannabe gigolo, calls women "sweetheart," and never misses a chance to tease Sophie about dumping Mac so she can "have him all to herself." Beneath the showmanship, though, Larry is genuinely skilled: he can cast perimeter wards using nothing but a person's aura and chalk symbols, perform tracing spells, and conduct research through both traditional and magical methods. He's the kind of guy who shows up to a crime scene with coffee and donuts because he figured everyone might be hungry, and who tells Sophie and Ruby to get out of San Francisco before they cause more damage than an earthquake. By the end of the story, he's developed real feelings for Ruby — answering her early-morning calls with a sleepy, warm "Hey, sweetheart" — and proves himself loyal enough to come to Murias when the sisters need him most, holding Ruby in his lap like a small child after her ordeal.
Reggie Didel
Dr. Reginald "Reggie" Didel is the Chief Medical Examiner in charge of the graveyard shift at San Francisco's morgue — and secretly, an opossum shifter. Soft-spoken and a little pudgy beneath his knee-length gray trench coat, Reggie has thinning blonde hair, wide-set dark brown eyes, and the kind of round, pale baby face that makes pinning down his age impossible — he could pass for anywhere between his thirties and fifties. Everything about him radiates kindness and quiet competence, from his soft, dry handshake to the way he excitedly explains the science behind vampire blood cells or exclaims with scientific glee over a headless, handless corpse. He slips easily into mentor mode, patiently guiding Sophie through the grim mechanics of autopsies while sharing green apples from his paper-bag lunch. Beneath the gentle, unflappable exterior — the man who says "ah, dang" and wrings his hands when he's worried — lives a fierce loyalty that surprises people. He'll almost snarl at a homicide detective to defend the truth of Sophie's visions, stand his ground against Mac's bluster to protect his team, and bet his own money on a stranger's courage when everyone else wagers she'll fail. As a lesser-kingdom shifter, Reggie knows what it's like to be underestimated and dismissed by the powerful, which is precisely why he offered a broke, tattooed woman a job in a bar — because she needed a break, and because the same instincts that told him she could be trusted also told him she'd once saved his life with a piece of rusty fence and her last apple.
Ruby Rivers
Ruby Rivers is Sophie Feegle's identical twin sister — black-haired and an exact physical copy of Sophie, though the resemblance ends at the surface. A self-described vigilante with a rap sheet that got her thrown in jail before the Conclave's leader Marcella broke her out, Ruby possesses a supernatural gift that allows her to see whether someone has committed murder simply by touching them. What makes Ruby truly unnerving is the jarring contradiction at her core: she's a "weird mix of Disney-PG and psychopathic murderer," a woman who can vault onto a wolf shifter's back and plunge a knife into his neck, then collapse into giggles about it moments later. Her personality is pure psycho cheerleader — relentlessly bubbly, emoji-texting, stranger-hugging, candy-shop-squealing energy that bowls over everyone she meets, from Sophie's elderly neighbor Birdie to the warlock detective Larry Turner, whom she flirts with shamelessly. Despite Sophie's best efforts to maintain radio silence, Ruby moved into the building directly across the street from her sister's apartment and texts her daily with a persistence that borders on stalkerish. She's fiercely loyal, physically fearless, and completely unbothered by social cues, the kind of person who corrects someone calling her a murderer with a cheerful "I prefer vigilante" without a shred of irony.
Kingdom of Erishum Trilogy
Complete2 characters from this series
Nyssa
Nyssa is a slim, agile young woman with dark hair who works as an experienced mudlark in the kingdom of Erishum, scavenging the banks of the River Assur at low tide for items of value. Her slight build allows her to move across the treacherous mudflats with dancer-like grace, distributing her weight to avoid breaking through the riverbed's precarious surface. She prefers working near the south gate where the river flows in from the Dying Wilds, believing treasures from long-vanished lands might wash in from beyond the kingdom's walls. She carries herself like someone wise beyond her years—her innocence of youth replaced by the hard-earned wisdom of survival. She's caring and fiercely protective of those she loves, willing to speak hard truths even when it causes friction, and willing to risk her own safety for those she cares about. Despite her difficult circumstances—living in a modest dwelling with a straw pallet and scraping by day after day—she harbors dreams of leaving mudlarking behind to become a baker's apprentice, saving coin to pay the entry fee and buy her yellow apron. She's resilient, street-smart, and deeply loyal, someone shaped by hardship but not hardened by it.
Vallen
Vallen is a solidly built man with broad hands and a watchful gaze, a former shrike who clawed his way up from the slums of Erishum to join the kingdom's ranks of enforcers. His sturdy frame and sharp instincts made him well-suited for the work, though his lowborn origins marked him as an outsider among his peers—men like Mardan who sneered at him as "the Gutter Shrike," never missing an opportunity to remind him where he came from. He carries himself with the quiet tension of someone used to being underestimated and scrutinized, always aware of the eyes on his back. Despite the corruption around him, he held onto his own moral compass, ultimately choosing Nyssa's freedom over his own when forced to decide between duty and conscience. He's fiercely protective, sometimes to a fault—prone to shouldering burdens alone rather than letting those he loves share the weight. Guilt gnaws at him for those still suffering under King Jorek's rule, driving him to take secretive risks like mapping the Dying Wilds and collecting its magical wellspring water, even when he can't fully articulate why. He's not one for grand speeches or easy charm, but his loyalty runs bone-deep, and once he's committed to someone, he'll walk into death itself before abandoning them. Shaped by poverty and betrayal but not broken by either, the Gutter Shrike is a man still learning that strength doesn't mean standing alone.
Discover Their Stories
Follow these unforgettable characters through their adventures in Gwen DeMarco's paranormal romance novels