Synopsis

The Saffron Falcon is the second volume in the Transition Magic series.

Transition. When all children have the power to perform magic for one month as they enter puberty. But with a monstrous catch. The magic must be the child’s sincere desire and something never done before. Or they die.

The year is 2015. An archeologist working for the US Department of Transition Security unearths a second-century codex that eliminates Transition’s uniqueness requirement. Any child using the ancient verse would have unlimited power. The artifact is stolen, the theft concealed by a brutal bombing. DTS agent John Benoit is ordered to follow the meager clues and take any action necessary to protect the US from unrestrained magic.

Woven into The Saffron Falcon are the stories of three children in Transition:

• Marie, the daughter of a Parisian baker during the height of the Black Death;
• Dylan, a loving child who carries within him a devouring anger; and
• Lún, a boy of the Han dynasty who confronts castration and magic to protect his family.

John and his partner, Stony Hill—a fierce, pierced, purple-haired agent half his age–plunge into the case. Their quest is personal; a friend and leader was killed in the bomb blast.

Also ensnared in the ancient book’s web is the son of a Kalash tribal elder, in Transition and abandoned in Islamabad, who stumbles onto the secret of the codex. He flees the ISI, seeking to return to his mountain home. Afraid, bedeviled at every step, he finds hope in the fleeting glimpse of falcons, burnished by the setting sun and ranging far from the high cliffs over his valley.

John and Stony’s investigation leads them from the shattered quiet of Georgetown streets to the rugged foothills of the Himalayas, where evil and magic collide, the future of civilization at stake.