A girl called Butter

Fifteen years after the cataclysmic Sin War, the world is a wounded place. In its shadows, few are more coveted, or hunted, than Butter. To demons, she is the perfect vessel. To the transhumanist Syndicate of the Magpies, she is the ultimate test subject. Her unique magic and her lineage make her a prize that could reshape reality itself.

Her story, however, begins with a death.

Brad’s life was a spreadsheet of survival until a rainy night in a death-trap alley introduced him to Butter. She was albino, wore a sad grey beanie, offered him sour gummy worms, and had just dismantled three armed organ harvesters with three precise touches. She was a vortex of impossible power and equally impossible fragility. With his analytical mind, Brad was the first to understand the terrifying equation of her existence, becoming her sole protector in a hidden war.

He failed.

Now, the formidable Storm Assassin Sū Língzhào stands over Butter. She sees the impurity in Butter's life force, a creature not quite human, an abomination of immense power. To comprehend the threat, Sū Língzhào does not interrogate; she invades. She plunges into Butter's shattered psyche, and to her surprise, the path to understanding does not start with cosmic power or Syndicate labs.

It starts with Brad.

Re-living his memories, Sū Língzhào sees the world through the eyes of a dead boy: the first meeting, the hidden war, the desperate alliance, and the tragic bond that ended in his death. She sought a weapon's blueprint. She is finding a story of heartbreaking humanity. And the deeper she goes, the more she realizes that Butter's past may hold the key to everyone's future.