Taryn Cornick believes she has put her sister's violent death and her own complicity in an act of retribution behind her. But her successful book about the perils that threaten libraries mentions an ancient scroll box—called the Firestarter—that has inexplicably survived numerous fires, including one at her own grandparents' estate, and now powers in both this world and beyond are looking for her. DI Jacob Berger has questions about Taryn's past and his dogged interest means they both suddenly find themselves in a mysterious land of peace and plenty, carried there by a shadowy young man named Shift. The land, home to a beautiful people who long ago bargained a terrible price for their idyllic existence, is now threatened from the precincts of Hell itself, and Taryn is of great interest to the rebels. But Shift is key to both the unimaginably precious scroll inside the Firestarter and to the outcome of the threatened war, and he has an ambitious plan of his own.