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Sprung from a timeless dream, Shadowbridge is a world of linked spans arching high above glittering seas. It is a world of parading ghosts, inscrutable gods, and dangerous magic. Most of all, it is a world of stories.

No one knows those stories better than Leodora, a young shadow-puppeteer who travels Shadowbridge collecting the intertwining tales and myths of each place she passes through, then retells them in performances whose genius has begun to attract fame... and less welcome attention.

For Leodora is fleeing a violent past, as are her two companions: her manager, Soter, an elderly drunkard who also served Ledora's father, the legendary puppeteer Bardsham; and Diverus, her musical accompanist, a young man who has been blessed, and perhaps cursed, by the touch of a nameless god.

Now, as the strands of a destiny she did not choose begin to tighten around her, Leodora is about to cross the most perilous bridge of all-the one leading from the past to the future.

Shadowbridge is the first novel in a two-book adventure.

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.