Asher Valentine’s life had always been divided into two parts: before Juliana went missing, and after. Before, he was just a regular kid in a small town, trailing after his older sister like her shadow, mimicking her every move, learning everything he could from her. Then Juliana vanished, and everything changed.

Asher was only seven when it happened. He remembered the day in vivid detail—the last time he saw Juliana, heading out the door with a promise to be back by dinner. She never returned, and the police search that followed was nothing short of disastrous. Mistakes were made, evidence overlooked, and witnesses ignored. Within weeks, the case went cold, and the world moved on. But Asher didn’t.

By the time Asher entered high school, he had built a reputation for himself as the go-to guy for solving problems. Missing pets, lost items, petty thefts—if there was a mystery to be solved, students knew to go to Asher. Even if the cases were small, they mattered to him- sometimes to the degree of willingly throwing himself in danger's way.

Asher Valentine leaned against the back wall of the school library, half-hidden in the shadows cast by tall shelves of dusty books.