Welcome to The Agency
Ash & Blue is a world of found family and fairy memes, of technology and magic playing together without contradiction, and fancy people in suits doing their best to protect the masquerade.
An ongoing series of novels and shorter works, the first three books are available now, and can be read on the site or in ebook form.
The fourth is currently being serialised and can be accessed below.
Mirrorfall
Suits. Cookies. Magic.
Stef Mimosa doesn't remember dying as a child, it's always just been a strange dream of drowning and darkness. What she does remember is the angel who saved her.
Agent Ryan never thought Stef would remember him. Agents are designed to fade into the background, to do their duty and move on without making too many ripples.
Stef's a messy little ripple he never expected. A recruit who can't keep her shoes clean for half an hour, but attentive to every detail and fact about magic that he can impart.
In a world where magic and tech play in harmony, an angel and a loner might be the family each other needed.
Continue the Series
A week ago, Ryan didn't have an adopted daughter. A week ago, he had routine, and a life of distanced relationships with everyone in his Agency.
Stef changed everything - and now she's somewhere between life and death, and it's so hard to hold onto hope.
In a strange empty world, Stef starts to collect her own memories, each piece filling in details of what had been a sad, lonely life - but maybe one that didn't stay lonely.
Ressurection isn't easy, and change is harder.
Stef has a chunk of dead planet where her heart should be. A piece of mirror able to grant wishes, powerful enough to end the world.
Naturally, the Agency is wary of such a resource and likes it tightly controlled.
In Stef's case, that means becoming an agent - a dream come true for her, becoming something that's equal parts magic and technology. Becoming someone who can play video games in their head - if Ryan doesn't lock down the parental controls.
It's not one simple button though, and on top of the endless tests, the accidental tweaks of code that leave her unable to see or move, there's a stack of paperwork as tall as she is.
For Stef, it's time for her first proper steps as an agent - and her first assignment brings her face to face with the undead mermaids that inhabit the river...and the long-ignored reality that they represent.
For Curt, he's juggling Stef as well as Brisbane's newest newbie, an international transfer that Ryan has taken in as a favour to be called in later.
And for Vincent, it's time to figure out how many of Australia's animals can kill you, and what happens when you get swooped by a magpie.
Explore the World
A Few Months Before Mirrorfall
To most people, Merlin is Agent Jones' adopted son, a child with a generally bright and sunny disposition, despite the horrors of his childhood.
A few with the right security access know that one of his parents was a demon.
Three people know of the pieces of mirror embedded up and down the boy's spine, and the strange, effortless magic that he's capable of performing with barely a thought.
And all of this is something Jones has to manage, while also running a department in one of the worst-performing Agencies in the world.
Novella: XXk words
1 Year Before Mirrorfall
Michael Hu Luk - known better to himself and the world as Raz - struggles to make it from day to day.
On a bad day, when colours hurt, and the walls are screaming, he receives a kindness that changes his life - a pair of headphones that never tangle, and that repair themselves.
On investigation, they lead him straight to the Agency, and a chance at a different life.
Novella: 20k words
Six Months Before Mirrorfall
An auction is being held, where angels fear to tread.
Curt and Magnolia are sent into a lawless part of Faerie to bid on, and rescue, a kidnapped agent.
And for the daughter of the Magpie queen and an ex-Solstice, things are never easy.
Novella: 38k words
14 Months Before Mirrorfall
Curt's first days as a recruit aren't easy.
All he can hope is that the transfer to Brisbane is a real second chance, and not going from the frying pan to the fire.
Short Story: 18k words
7 Years Before Mirrorfall
Long before she finds Ryan again, Stef is given a choice by her father: straighten up and fly right...or lose everything.
Short Story: 20k words
5 Years Before Mirrorfall
After a boring day preparing a new network, Screen returns to her workplace, and walks into a hostage situation.
Hiding in the storage area, she contacts the Agency, and Jones rushes to organise a rescue before all of her coworkers are killed or taken into Faerie.
Short Story: 12k words
Same Year as Mirrorfall
Magnolia collects some old photos from the Agency where she grew up.
Short Story: 3k words
Same Year As Mirrorfall
A short insight into Doctors Parker.
In the Agency, twins are highly valued for their ability to be so much more efficient than a solo agent, but their uniqueness makes them lonely - each set of twins only able to truly understand themselves.
Short Story: 3k words
Before the Agency...
The duskers aren't suitable anymore, it's time for a new kind of herald.
A short bridging story for Stef, set between Mirrorshades and Ebb and Flow.
Short Story: 5k words
35 Years Before Mirrorfall
Sometimes, it's the smallest things that can make an agent decide to fall. Sometimes, perfection is too much to bear.
Short Story: 4500 words
15 years ago, Meon the Lord of Fire, a dragon from a beloved series of B-movies, stepped out of fiction and burned half of San Francisco to the ground.
Meon was the first and for better and worse, far from the last.
Parker works in Satellite Office 19 for the Acclimation Team, processing paperwork for Fictionals who didn't arrive on Earth with a dedicated wiki page.
And her favourite villain has just arrived.