Combustion - Lisa Llamrei

Twenty years ago, Detective Bridget Campbell saw something no one believed.
As a rookie on the Toronto police force, her partner was killed in a gang war powered by magic. When she told the truth, she was labeled unstable and forced into psychiatric care. She learned to stay silent. To play it safe. To forget.

Now, a body has turned up-charred from the inside out, in a house full of addicts with no drugs and no answers. And at the scene is a man who shouldn't be there: Moric Ashwood, a stranger with strange eyes, no ID, and a story that sounds all too familiar.

Moric claims he's a detective from a parallel realm, tracking a magical cartel smuggling arcane tech into our world. Bridget wants him gone. But when another body surfaces-this one unmistakably magical-she knows she's in deeper than she can handle alone.

As Bridget is pulled into a web of cross-dimensional crime, old wounds reopen, new truths emerge, and her uneasy alliance with Moric begins to blur the lines between professional and personal. The past is no longer buried.

And this time, if she tells the truth, it might just save them both.