"You rattle the darkness where you walk, Jax." Enter Shadowbridge, a world of linked spiraling spans of bridges on which all impossibilities can happen. Ghosts parade, inscrutable gods cast riddles, and dangerous magic is unleashed. Monstrous creatures drain the lives of children and for a price, you can sample their fleeting quintessence—provided the creatures don't sample you instead. Traveling these spans is a brilliant, secretive shadow-puppeteer called Jax, who knows all the stories of love, of war, of the gods, and even of Death and his lover. But Jax has more than a few secrets, too—not the least of which is his true identity: that of Leodora, daughter of the greatest storyteller who ever played the spans, and the woman known as the Red Witch.

Daughter of the legendary shadow-puppeteer Bardsham, Leodora has inherited her father’s skills . . . and his enemies. Together with her manager–Soter, keeper of her father’s darkest secrets, and a gifted young musician named Diverus, Leodora has traveled from span to span, her masked performances given under the stage name Jax, winning fame and fortune. But Jax’s success may be Leodora’s undoing. Years ago, following a performance by Bardsham, the vengeful god known as Lord Tophet visited a horrific punishment upon the span of Colemaigne and its citizens, a reprisal inflicted without warning or explanation. And as the genius of Jax gives rise to rumors that Bardsham has returned, Lord Tophet takes notice and dispatches a quintet of deadly killers to learn the truth behind the mask. Now, upon the cursed span of Colemaigne, where her father achieved his greatest triumph and suffered his bitterest tragedy, Leodora is about to perform the most shocking story of all.