Literature / Hidden Legacy

Cover for Burn for Me

Hidden Legacy is a Paranormal Romance Series written by husband and wife team Ilona Andrews. Books #1-3 in the series focuses around Nevada Baylor. Novella 3.5 and books #4-6 (#6 not yet released) focus on Catalina Baylor, Nevada's younger sister. While there's no official word, it's generally believed books #7-9 will focus on Arabella, the third Baylor sister.

In 1863 the Osiris serum was discovered, a serum that granted people extraordinary magical abilities. The serum changed the course of human history. People that have previously married for status, money, and power now married for magic; strong magic would grant them this and more. Magic users were separated into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant, and Prime. A century and a half later families with strong hereditary magic have formed Houses. Houses often feud with each other, and sometimes turn deadly.

Nevada Baylor is the head of and major field operative for a family Private Investigation Agency. She possesses a rare magic that allows her to tell when someone is lying, an ability she keeps secret from anyone who isn't her family. When her parent company forces her to take on a high-risk case in which she must track down and return to his family a highly dangerous, highly impulsive Prime who has every cop in Houston burning to shoot him and can burn someone to death with the snap of his fingers, she must rely on unlikely allies, (the fatal, irresistible, good looking kind) to keep her and her family safe. This eventually becomes the first step in not only her romance with the infamous Connor 'Mad' Rogan, but in defeating a conspiracy to overturn the government of Texas and possibly ignite a second American Civil War.

Several years later, Catalina Baylor, now head of not only House Baylor but the family investigation agency, finds herself dealing with a new arms race involving deliberately bio-engineered strains of the Osiris serum, which involves repeated involvement/clashing/romancing with her former teenage crush, Alessandro Sagredo, who turns out to be far more mysterious and downright lethal than his reputation as a party boy and social media influencer would suggest.

---

Books in the Series:

1. Burn for Me
2. White Hot
3. Wildfire
4. Sapphire Flames
5. Emerald Blaze
6. Ruby Fever (release date tbd, now delayed until 2022)

Diamond Fire - A Novella that takes place between Wildfire and Sapphire Flames. It's considered 3.5, as it introduces at least two characters who show up in Catalina's trilogy, and was also issued as a physical paperback.

---

Other Associated Works

All the following are available for free at Ilona Andrews' website

• Rogan Burn for Me POV Part 1
• Rogan Burn for Me POV Part 2
• Rogan POV from Wildfire Part 1
• A Misunderstanding - A deleted scene from Sapphire Flames turned into a short story, in Arabella's POV
• Cool Aunt - A short story from Arabella's POV, detailing the birth of Nevada's baby. Given away as (in Gordon and Ilona's words) a bribe for ordering a dead tree copy of Emerald Blaze. Now available on the authors' website.

---

Tropes:

• Action Girl: Nevada Baylor has magic that allows her to shoot with Improbable Aiming Skills and has Magic Shockers implanted in her arms that can kill anyone under Significant Level.
  • However, the Baylor's have a long line of military service; both Grandma Frida and their mother Penelope served. Penelope still has a rampaging case of PTSD... which doesn't stop her from blowing people away who threaten her family.
  • Catalina takes a major upgrade before her own trilogy.
• Ascended Extra: In Burn For Me, Nevada interviews Cornelius Harrison as part of the Alexander Pierce case. In White Hot he becomes her client, and in Wildfire he starts working for her as a part-time operative.
• Alas, Poor Villain: While the Abyss has done a lot of unambiguously bad stuff and has to be destroyed, Catalina is still devastated during the final fight of Emerald Blaze, because it wasn't his fault he was made the way he was, and he ultimately just wanted freedom and love.
• All Asians Know Martial Arts: Snarked about by Stephen Jiang in Emerald Blaze. While he is a hell of a fighter, that's because he's a Prime aquakinetic, not because he knows kung fu.
• All There in the Manual: The authors' blog features many Q&As and non-canon in-character interviews that give more insight into features of the world and character backstories. For instance, we learn that at the start of Burn For Me Augustine is actually very seriously injured and hiding it, and that Arabella has managed to get a Master's at Yale without anyone but Leon and Bern noticing.
• Alternate History: Due to the discovery of the Osiris Serum, many major world events turned out differently. Although things like America and the EU still exist, World War I lasted eight years because everyone had magic super-soldiers, while the Russian Empire never fell.
• Babies Ever After: In Sapphire Flames it's revealed that Nevada is pregnant. She gives birth at the end of Emerald Blaze.
• Battle Couple: Nevada Baylor and Connor Rogan. Later Catalina Baylor and Alessandro Sagredo.
• Blade Enthusiast: Catalina is the sword version. In Emerald Blaze, her new bedroom has an entire wall covered with various types of swords, from floor to ceiling. Her Love Interest who is a professional assassin gently suggests that her bedroom decor might be a bit extreme - though it is very cool.
• Blessed with Suck: Many powers are more trouble than good.
  • Catalina has it especially bad (see Living Aphrodisiac below). Not only does her magic put her at risk and make it very difficult for her to form relationships, it also requires constant effort to not use. Also, overuse could drive her insane or kill her.
  • Empathy is this to some extent as well; Rynda is extremely affected by the emotions of people around her, and she spent years in a terrible marriage fully aware that her husband didn't love her and considered their children genetic failures.
  • Several types of magic are only good for hurting people. If that's not what you wanted to do with your life, tough luck. Even worse, magic wants to be used. A nice person who's, say, a psionic (capable of triggering negative emotions like rage, fear, etc) will constantly be suppressing the urge to unleash their power, and also constantly be dealing with the guilt of knowing that on some level, they want to hurt people.
• Beware the Nice Ones: the entire Baylor family, really. Also their client-turned-employee/family friend Cornelius Harrison. He's a devoted father and husband, and a very nice man. When he finds out the person who murdered his beloved wife, he uses his Beastspeaker magic to have her eaten alive by a swarm of rats.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Cheryl Castellano is soft-spoken, helpful, and one of the leading charitable donors in Houston. She also forcibly pumped some poor telepath full of Osiris serum and put his brain in a construct, then murdered Felix and tried to murder everyone else who knew about it.
• Brainy Brunette: Catalina, who scored 1580 out of 1600 on her SAT's. Also Alessandro; it's one of the reasons Grandma Frida ships them.
  Frida: Most men can't even hold a conversation with you because your brain is too fast. You say two words to him, and he knows what you mean."
• Break His Heart to Save Him: This is the real reason behind Alessandro's mother's behavior. She was trying to keep him safe from their House's abusive head and make sure he actually got away, but she knew that he would stay to protect her if he understood her situation. So she made sure that he wouldn't mind leaving her behind, even if it hurt him deeply to think she didn't love him.
• Break the Haughty: what happened to Alessandro between Sapphire Flames and Emerald Blaze. He eventually tells Catalina the whole story - it's not pretty.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: Nevada Baylor and other Truthseekers and force people to tell the truth, against their will. This is often times very traumatizing for people, see Mind Rape.
• Chekhov's Gunman: there's several people who show up in a minor occurrence in one book who become a major player in another. Cornelius Harrison is a witness in Burn for Me, the client in White Hot and a family friend and employee in the other books.
  • Runa Etterson is a minor character in Diamond Fire, becomes the client in Sapphire Flames, and by the time of Emerald Blaze has not only become Catalina's best friend (to her baffled pleasure) but also Bern's love interest.
  • Xavier Ramirez is an entitled, petty, spoiled brat in Diamond Fire; he shows up at the end of Emerald Blaze after using a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to achieve a Next Level Power Up. Speculation in the fandom pegs him as a major adversary in Catalina's third book.
• Children Are Innocent: Mia Rosa, Rogan's five-year-old cousin, has no idea a) that the Starlight Crown is even special, or b) that taking it seems like an attack on Nevada. She just thinks the aquamarine is pretty and wants to put it on her stuffed horse.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Averted—while Nevada is jealous of Rynda on occasion, she and Rogan talk it out whenever it gets particularly bad, and she truly trusts Rogan to do the right thing, even when she sees Rynda Surprise Kiss him (which he immediately shuts down).
• Dark Action Girl: Victoria Tremaine, a Truthseeker Prime, she doesn't hesitate to kill and finds the idea of "morals" something she doesn't need to adhere too.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • James Baylor, Nevada's deceased father who was abused by his mother as a child; the fact that Victoria genuinely loved her son and truly saw his upbringing as giving him the best education she could to be a head of House says quite a bit.
  • Victoria herself, which explains a lot about why she is the way she is—her entire family was murdered when she was a child, and she built her whole life around a) getting revenge, and b) rebuilding House Tremaine.
  • Connor Rogan, Shell-Shocked Veteran at the age of twenty.
  • Alessandro Sagredo saw his father murdered at the age of ten, spent years afterward being repeatedly lectured by his grandfather about what a colossal idiot his father was for dying defending his best friend, and became an assassin as a teenager to support his family and get revenge on his father's killer.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Leon Baylor
  • Bug
• Deal with the Devil: Catalina makes one with Victoria Tremaine in Sapphire Flames. Catalina needs some very rare information in order to rescue Alessandro from the book's Big Bad, and knows that Victoria can provide it. Victoria does so, on one condition: Catalina will devote her life to House Baylor, which Victoria now sees as her legacy. Catalina will only marry a man willing to leave his House for hers (which excludes Count Alessandro Sagredo of House Sagredo), and give her powerful children.
• Defiant Captive: Connor Rogan captures Nevada Baylor in the first book and tries to pry information out of her with a spell, which she successfully resists.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: "Cool Aunt" reveals that Arabella catches Victoria sneaking in to see Nevada and Rogan's baby along with their grandfather (who remains cryptically unnamed), and after giving them a few minutes, steps in and sweetly demands the baby back in full confidence of being obeyed.
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?: From Victoria, of all people, in Ruby Fever. She might be a terrible person, and the situation might be her fault, but it does still hurt her feelings that none of her grandchildren love or even like her (especially because as she sees it, their grandfather has behaved just as badly as she has, but they love him anyway). Catalina feels so bad she ditches the Evil Grandmother nickname (although she certainly doesn't forgive Victoria her crimes).
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?:
  • Nevada has lunch with Connor Rogan the day after he kidnaps her and he tries to hire her.
  • Nevada has lunch with Victoria Tremaine, were Nevada tries to get Victoria to leave her family alone.
  • In Emerald Blaze, it's revealed that Catalina goes to visit Victoria in prison every two weeks for afternoon tea and education on House politics, and the tactics needed to succeed in House society. Depending on what she learns during these sessions, Catalina always has to pull over on the way home to cope with delayed reactions ranging from deep breathing to work through mild panic attacks to outright vomiting.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In the third book, Arabella Baylor takes down a Sealed Evil in a Can in a matter of seconds by transforming into the Beast of Cologne, a large beast with unimaginable strength.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • In the first book Nevada continuously talks trash about Primes, when she is (unknowingly) a Prime herself
  • Anytime a character talks down to Nevada before finding out that she is a Prime, the usually find out when she kicks their ass or Mind Rapes them.
  • Catalina decides to not tell Arabella that Linus is their grandfather, because it will just make her even sadder if Linus doesn't recover from the Styxine dose. Later, she does tell Arabella, and notes that Arabella adjusts to the knowledge almost immediately. Little does Catalina know that in "Favorite Aunt", Arabella found out on her own, and Catalina is actually the last sister to know.
• The Dreaded: People are so terrified of Victoria Tremaine that merely the sight of a spell she invented—not even used by her—is enough to cow an entire family of Prime summoners. The fact this is only partially because of her little kidnapping-and-mind-rape spree some years back says a lot about Victoria.
  • Arkan, one of major antagonists of Emerald Blaze and Ruby Fever, has been given a black tag by the Warden's threat assessment system. Connor, who can level an entire city when he goes full-bore, has a brown tag.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Nevada and Catalina both do this with their romantic interests, Nevada more than Catalina.
• Elemental Powers: Some mages have the ability to control the elements, most only one. It is not impossible for someone to have the ability to control two, but it is rare and even rarer for them to be above an Average Rank mage.
• Emotion Bomb: Empaths can make everything they feel others feel, called emanation. In the third book Rynda Charles does this twice.
• Entitled to Have You: Prime Christina Almeida believes this about Alessandro. She's not swayed by the fact he wasn't consulted in their engagement or the fact that he's not even part of House Sagredo anymore, so House Sagredo has no grounds to promise House Almeida jack shit, or his already existing real engagement to a woman he actually loves. She views these as childish diversions that he'll give up on and see sense—by force, if necessary. It takes Catalina and Alessandro separately kicking her ass to make her back off.
• Evil Aunt: Gisella, Leon and Bern's biological mother; though so far she's simply The Ghost, in Emerald Blaze Catalina refers to a time when she thought Aunt Gisella was simply misunderstood, then she "showed up and ruined all our lives", and now Catalina hates her as much as Leon (her own son) does. In the very short story 'A Misunderstanding'^note only available on the Ilona Andrews website, Arabella remarks that Penelope adopted Bern and Leon because her aunt is a heinous bitch. A post on the authors' blog reveals that the incident in question was Gisella showing up for "her boys" with a muscly motorcycle-riding boyfriend in tow; Penelope snapped and beat the shit out of them both when the boyfriend moved towards Leon, and Gisella played the victim and pressed charges, nearly getting Penelope jailed. This is also the reason Penelope doesn't have a PI license anymore.
  • Kelly Waller is most definitely an Evil Cousin to Rogan.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: Catalina is caught alone by Benedict de Lacy, mindripper assassin, and his bodyguards. She unveils her wings and uses the full force of her power, and Benedict manages to shield himself at the last second, and smugly says that she missed. Catalina just smiles and tells Benedict's aegis mage, now completely under her control, "save me".
• Functional Magic: Specifically 'Inherent Gift', people are either born with magic or none at all and those with magic can only serve a unique narrow function.
• A Glass in the Hand: Connor Rogan does this quite a lot in the series
  • While on a date with Nevada he cracks a window with his magic when Nevada brings up going on a date with Garen Shaffer, a Prince Charming Wannabe, for the purpose of getting information and later on the window breaks completely when Alexander Sturm brings up his nephew.
  • While he listens in on Nevada's date with Garen Shaffer he crushed up decommissioned cars intended for scrap.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: A minor plot point in Sapphire Flames is that House Baylor's security is not nearly as good as it should be. Penelope hired an old army friend of hers who was perfect on paper, but in practice kind of sucks at his job. The book starts with Augustine breezing past the guards as "Catalina", even though he's in a strange car that's too expensive and fancy for the thrifty Baylors and the logbook (which they're supposed to check every time someone wants to come in) shows Catalina's already home.
• Impoverished Patrician: Turns out the entire Sagredo family are this, and have been for centuries. They keep producing charming, handsome powerful sons and more or less put them up on the auction block, marrying them to whoever has the largest dowry, which they use to put off the creditors for another generation. Alessandro's party boy and social media star rep is the result of photoshop images, leased cars, and rented tuxedos. Simply getting a job isn't allowed because 'Sagredo's don't serve or obey other men'. Alessandro rebelled against this before he ever met Catalina; instead he uses his Magical Null ability to become an assassin and bodyguard. Over the ten years of his career he has made sixty million dollars US, and ninety-nine per cent of this has gone to support his mother and two younger sisters - he says flatly that this amount won't even come close to clearing his family's debts.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: The Baylor family magic. It's Penelope's main ability, and Leon has it to the point where he can predict where a bullet will land as it's fired. Nevada and Catalina both mention having it as a reason (besides a great deal of training and practise) for their shooting skills. In Diamond Fire Catalina is able to win a sword fight even though she's never picked up a rapier before; in Sapphire flames she mentions that 'the family magic' is part of what makes her an outstanding swordswoman. How it works varies for each person (Leon's is extremely strong, while Nevada's only kicks in after she's attacked).
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Marat Kazarian, one of the investors in the Pit, might be a "loud asshole" as Catalina says, but at heart he just wants to do the right thing. In fact, he's an asshole in part because he knows he hasn't done the right thing and is lashing out from the guilt—in particular, he blames himself for Felix's death because he didn't support Felix's bid to shut down operations.
• Knight Templar: Caesar and his followers. Wants Primes to rule, like monarchies in the past, so they can pursue things without having to deal with things like "Law and Order".
• Lack of Empathy: Animal mages have a difficult time relating to other people, occasionally even their own children; they come into their powers so young they only learn to be friends with animals. This is why Cornelius's relationship with his sister is so distant, although by the end of the second book they're working to make it better. (They haven't seen their brother for a year, even though he lives half an hour's drive away). This is also why Cornelius was hit so hard by losing his wife; somehow, she overcame his natural barriers and he truly fell in love with her - he knows exactly how rare she was, and how unlikely he'll find anything like it ever again.
• Lamarck Was Right: the principle of most marriages among the Houses; everything is about producing more powerful magicians. A family line that doesn't produce mages of equal or increased strength is known as a 'failing vector', and it renders later descendants unmarriageable.
  • Part of the plot for Wildfire is because Rynda Charles has an unusual genetic profile that renders her as a wild card; Rogan's father organizes their engagement as teenagers because he believes that Rynda's wild card and empath talent will enable her and Rogan to breed a telepath-telekinetic. Instead, when she marries Brian Sherwood, her daughter is also an empath and everyone believes her son is a worringly late bloomer or even a null turns out his magic kicked in years ago, it's just in a form that no one noticed. This leads directly to Brian organizing his own kidnapping in order to kill his wife and possibly his children, so he could remarry, have 'proper' children and keep his status as a highly successful Prime.
  • For Rogan, this is a major stumbling block for his and Nevada's marriage; their talents are so different it could lead to a failing vector in their children, or very different abilities that might cause trouble for House Baylor down the road. Nevada doesn't give a damn - and neither does Rogan, once he's convinced Nevada's okay with it. Their first child is such a powerful telekinetic that Nevada starts using their ability in the late stages of her pregnancy.
  • Proven in the most whackjob way with James Tremaine Baylor. He is technically the child of three parents - two genetic and a surrogate mother - all with wildly diverse talents. He himself is powerless, because the gifts cancel each other out, but his three children each inherit a different talent from their paternal grandparents. In addition, the two oldest also get the targeting magic of their mother's family as a minor gift.
  • The Baylors themselves. Leon Sr and Frida had two children: Penelope inherited her father's targeting magic (unknown what gifts Gisele has). The two girls had five children between them: while Leon Jr is the only one to have targeting as his main magic, Nevada and Catalina both have targeting as a minor, secondary talent. Bern and Arabella are unknown, as Bern is permanently Mission Control and Arabella has... other talents.. for combat.
• Last-Name Basis: Nevada refers to Connor Rogan as Rogan for much of the first two books and even sometimes in the third book when talking about him with other people. So does her family for the most part.
• Little Miss Badass: Matilda Harrison, Cornelius's daughter. She's obviously a Prime (she can communicate with any animal in the Nephrozoa clade, which is so ludicrously strong as to be almost unheard of among animal mages; the top end of the scale is usually several related classes), and is extremely serious and mature for her age. When Konstantin, a Prince of the Blood Imperial and a deadly illusion mage, shows up to cause trouble, House Baylor sets Matilda, ten at the time, to watch him in the full expectation she can keep him in line, which she does. (At least until he manages to charm her guard dog into liking him, but even then, the dog still gives away when he's pretending to be someone else.)
  "If anything happens to Rooster [the dog] or her collar, I will know. I will come. I will bring friends. I hope we understand each other."
  "Crystal clear," he [Konstantin] told her.
• Living Aphrodisiac: Catalina has a class of magic classified as "Siren"; basically, whenever she doesn't keep her power tightly leashed, everyone within sight of her person or the sound of her voice instantly loves her. It isn't sexual, meaning anyone is vulnerable to it. But it's a double-edged sword in several ways; first, everyone enthralled by her will do anything she asks, but this rapidly grows to the point where her thralls will fight to possess her, to the point where they will literally tear her to pieces to have a lock of her hair. This did in fact happen to one of her ancestors. There's only a few people in her world naturally immune to her magic (including her eventual Love Interest); primarily her family, because 'we already love her as much as we possibly can'. Catalina was stolen several times as a child (including by the nurse who delivered her) to the kidnapper's ruin, even though it wasn't actually their fault. As a teen and young adult, Catalina is deeply shy and insecure, both because she never knows if someone likes her for herself or her power, and because she knows that her power can ruin people's lives through no fault or flaw of their own if she doesn't intend any harm. Thankfully for Catalina, she eventually learns how and why people's immunity to her works: her magic is a self-protective measure that can't really discriminate about threat levels, but if someone would genuinely never hurt her and would put themself at risk to defend her, then her magic senses no threat and can do nothing. This is why it doesn't work on her family, and why it's stopped working on Cornelius and Runa by Emerald Blaze.
• Loophole Abuse: Catalina needs to find out if Kaylee Cabera's Prime-level magic is natural or caused by illegal use of the Osiris Serum. However, Kaylee's only taken the preliminary tests, which are sealed. Asking the Keeper to unseal the results would be a huge favor, so instead Catalina asks for his opinion on whether Kaylee could ever be certified as a Prime, as his opinions aren't sealed. It's kind of dicey, but the Keeper lets her get away with it because he's so incredibly enraged by the Serum being used. (His answer is that it would take a miracle or a crime against humanity for Kaylee to test as a Prime—the Serum being the crime against humanity.)
• Love Makes You Crazy: The main danger of Catalina's magic. Not only does it make people "love" her to a dangerous degree, but the harpy side of her magic will stop at nothing to protect the people she loves—even if it uses up so much power that it completely drains her life force.
• Mage Species: Magic abilities are passed down by genes and the abilities and power level of the children is usually similar to the abilities and power level of their parents.
• Magic Realism: While many people regard Primes with awe, people with low level abilities are seen as mundane, something you might show off at a party if it's a cool ability. YouTube is full of people doing minor magic the way it's full of things like the bottlecap challenge or skateboarding tricks in real life.
• Mama Bear:
  • Penelope Baylor, Nevada's Mother. Often threatens to shoot people who put her children in danger or emotional distress.
  • Olivia Charles, Mother of Rynda Charles This is partly what entices her to join the Caesar Conspiracy, and among other things commit political assassinations and slaughter a dozen or so people in one night.
• Marriage of Convenience: Many people with magic marry to align their Houses and to have powerful children, rather than for love. Attitudes towards this range from expecting love or at least affection to grow from friendship and shared goals (what Albert wants with Catalina), to viewing it as purely a business arrangement and agreeing to take lovers on the side, to Rynda's incredibly miserable marriage.
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: Although Victoria Tremaine technically goes to prison in Wild Fire, it's more like a temporary concession to appease people it would be inconvenient to fight than an actual punishment (which is the case with rich Primes in general). Not only is the "Spa" so nice it's more like a resort she just happens to be stuck at than a prison, she has plenty of agents on the outside, regularly finagles herself phone privileges, and sneaks a visit to hospital in order to hold her newborn great-grandson in Emerald Blaze.
• Mind Rape: Truthseekers can invade a person's mind to get information, most people are extremely traumatized by the event, oftentimes openly weeping after it's done. It can be done without hurting the target, but not if you want to do it fast.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Downplayed in Diamond Fire, which concerns the apparent theft of the Starlight Crown, a family heirloom Nevada is going to wear for her wedding. The investigation into the theft—which is presumed to be an attempt to humiliate Nevada or make a statement about how she's not wanted in the family —uncovers a whole raft of nasty family scandals. But in comparison to the totally separate attempted poisoning of the entire wedding, all of these are minor. Also, the "theft" is even more minor than it appears—it was just a five-year-old who likes shiny rocks playing around with her telekinesis. She never meant to cause any trouble.
• More Deadly Than the Male: Nevada Baylor, because her abilities are unknown to most people in the first two books and the first half of the third, most people dismisses her as Rogan's side piece.
• Mundane Utility: Alessandro's magical ability allows him to copy any object within a certain distance - including the one of a kind armaments made by Linus Duncan. The first time he and Catalina make love, he uses it to produce a condom out of literal thin air.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Nevada's lover and eventual husband, Connor 'Mad' Rogan, also known as The Huracan and several other ominous-sounding nicknames.
  • Victoria Tremaine doesn't have any nicknames. She doesn't need to. People react to simple mentions of her with 'Oh, Crap!'.
  • People should think this way about House Harrison. They might if their House founder had stuck with their former name of Hamelin which might warn people that when pushed too far they can have people eaten alive by rats.
  • Professional killers have this reaction to 'The Artisan', who hunts them as well as amateur killers; so-called for turning assassination into an art form. also known as Alessandro Sagredo.
• Never Mess with Granny: Grandma Frida, Army vet and has an arsenal of armored vehicles at her disposal including a tank, which she uses.
  • The other one, too; people have been known to run for the door (or the bathroom) whenever Victoria Tremaine is so much as mentioned.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: At the end of Emerald Blaze, a villain decides that Alessandro and Catalina are too dangerous a Battle Couple and they have to be driven apart. Xavier accomplishes this by spilling the truth of the Sagredo's poverty and the fact Alessandro has been excised by his grandfather (for daring to get an actual job), and then snidely saying that as a new House, Catalina is obviously gold-digging and will dump him so she can get someone with actual wealth and power. Given what Catalina had to promise Victoria Tremaine, this has the exact opposite effect: it removes obstacles to their relationship and possible marriage, and pushes them into actually talking about it.
• Nom de Mom: inverted with Penelope and (presumably) Gisele; Frida never took her husband's name, she's referred to once in-series as 'Mrs Afram'. Played straight with her grandchildren, who all have the name Baylor - although in Nevada, Catalina and Arabella's case their father took his wife's name (for good reason) rather than the other way around. In Bernard and Leon's case, it seems like Gisele just didn't care to marry.
• Offing the Offspring: Brian Sherwood. While his aim is not to kill his children, he could not care less as long as he can get out of marriage with his wife.
  • Indirectly with Kelly Waller. She manipulates her teenage son Gavin into becoming involved with Adam Pierce, so he'll help Pierce with the bank robbery that kicks off the first book's plot. The only reason he isn't shot by police is he's too terrified to come out of the hotel room where he's been stashed. After Connor's lawyers get him a reduced jail sentence (meaning he'll be out in his twenties instead of never), he's allowed a day reprieve to attend Connor and Nevada's wedding. Kelly poisons the wedding cake knowing that her only child will be eating it, and doesn't care.
• Power Incontinence: People who use the Osiris Serum face this, assuming they survive. They're suddenly more powerful than they've ever been before (especially if they had no magic), and may very well have a random gift rather than their House's traditional magic, which means no one in your family can teach you, and because you just did something very illegal, you can't exactly get a tutor just anywhere. Incidents are inevitable and often fatal, such as what turned the Imperium against Arkan—he sold the serum to a minor noble of the Blood Imperial, who proceeded to lose control of her very powerful new poison magic at one of the Dowager Empress's socials after one catty comment too many. She killed half the guests and had to be shot to stop her killing the rest.
• Prince Charming Wannabe:
  • Garen Shaffer tries to convince Nevada that Rogan is dangerous and that he will corrupt her if she marries him. While he, on the other hand, shares a similar ideology, field of study, and their genes are more compatible for producing powerful babies. He believes that he and Nevada should marry instead. However, he's insecure and stuck-up, and the fact Nevada is significantly more powerful than him scares him off.
  • Catalina gets one of these in Emerald Blaze; she keeps trying to let Albert Ravenscroft down gently because she does like him, and she doesn't want to insult another House. She never considers him because a) she isn't attracted to him at all and b) according to her bargain with Victoria, Catalina can only marry a man willing to leave his House for hers. He eventually embarrasses himself by trying to fight Alessandro.
  • Ruby Fever brings Catalina a literal prince, Konstantin Berezin. He doesn't expect to lure her away from Alessandro, but he does fully expect Alessandro to die, and he invites her to come to the Imperium with him afterwards, in the full expectation of becoming her Second Love sometime later. He very seriously—and seemingly genuinely—insists this isn't just a ploy to get a Siren Prime into the employ of the Imperium. But Catalina, of course, is having none of this.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Rogan, pre-series. He's a lot better now, but PTSD and a truly horrific experience while in the armed forces has left him with frequent nightmares and his permanent There Is No Kill Like Overkill attitude to... well, almost everything.
  • Penelope Baylor suffered from PTSD after being held as a POW during her army career. She never really got the chance to deal with it because of James' terminal illness; she's mostly okay, but any threat to her family will immediately trigger the most extreme reaction in Penelope, meaning her family frequently has to talk her out of shooting people (Augustin Montgomery really doesn't understand how lucky he is to still be alive!)
• Shipper on Deck: It's revealed that Victoria deliberately manipulated events so that Alessandro and Catalina would have the chance to get together.
• Shout-Out : in-universe. A legal motion justifying all injuries, deaths, and property damage as a fight between two Houses, rather than being processed and charged as crimes, is known as a 'Verona Exception'.
• Sibling Team: The Baylor sisters and cousins (as in all five of them). Alessandro and the older of his two sisters in a more literal sense: at the age of fourteen she became his broker for his assassin and bodyguard work. After his Break the Haughty catastrophe she's flatly refusing to help him put himself in danger any longer.
• The Sociopath:
  • Alexander Pierce, pyrokinetic Prime and social media darling. In elementary school, a shopkeeper took him to task for regularly stealing candy, and Alexander gave him third degree burns for daring to stop Alexander from doing what he wanted. As an adult, Alexander is happy to turn himself into a living nuclear weapon just because he believes he should be able to do whatever he feels like without being restricted by petty things like laws, morals, or consideration for any other person on the planet.
  • Philip Mc Raven, also known as Azazel. Likes killing people by choking and "to see light go out of their eyes as they wet themselves in terror". (In his case, however, people consider him try-hard and second-rate for this, as he doesn't have the power to back up the talk.)
  • Vincent Harcourt, had no qualms of murdering children on multiple occasions.
  • Brian Sherwood, wants to murder his wife so he can remarry, and if his children happen to get caught in the crossfire? So be it.
• Title Drop: The Baylor sisters are described as "a hidden legacy" in the third book (being secretly the descendants of Victoria Tremaine). Ruby Fever has a visual version; Alessandro proposes to Catalina with a ruby ring.
• Training the Gift of Magic: While mages are born with their abilities, not training or exercising them greatly lowers the potential of one's ability. Circlework is often required for more advanced and powerful spells, children of high level mages start studying it as soon as they can hold chalk.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Augustine Montgomery, to the Baylor clan. He's a very old friend of Rogan's, ^note  He's best man at Nevada and Connor's wedding but at least two books come about because of his exercising his rights as Baylor Investigation's mortgage holder, to their physical and financial peril. When he shows up at the family warehouse in book 4, Catalina is told to hurry up and come down before Penelope shoots him (it's implied that Penelope has wanted to shoot Augustine for quite some time).
• What Happened to the Mouse?: As of Emerald Blaze, we still haven't found out who the fuck Caesar is/was. A hint at the very end of Wildfire pointed to Linus Duncan, but his subsequent portrayal in Catalina's books heavily contradicts it. It's possible the authors haven't figured it out yet, either, or are simply waiting for the last of Arabella's books.
  • This plot point is resolved in Ruby Fever: Linus is indeed Caesar, but only as The Mole. He infiltrated the conspiracy, became so influential they appointed him their figurehead, and has been subtly steering them towards destruction ever since.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: Many people will not lie in front of Nevada, in particular her family and Rogan, as it is pointless and will just end up pissing her off. Nevada also prefers not to lie, but will if she has to, with the exception of Rogan. She never lies to him, not even white lies, because she feels it's unfair for her to be the only one in the marriage who's always sure she's hearing the truth.
• Workaholic: Nevada, most definitely, coming from being forced into the role of main family breadwinner while in college. In the three years between Nevada's trilogy and Catalina's, it gets to the point where she puts herself in hospital. Catalina and Arabella pull a palace coup of sorts and take away her ability to contribute financially to Baylor Investigations. In response, Nevada quits as CEO of the business and as head of House Baylor, feeling she 'can't lead people who won't trust her'. The irony, of course, is that they can't trust her not to overwork.
  • In Emerald Blaze, this is revealed to be at least partly a Batman Gambit by Nevada; her workaholic tendencies are real, but she partly exaggerated her collapse to have a reason for leaving House Baylor in such a way as to sever the connection to House Rogan. Nevada was making a Heroic Sacrifice, because her exhaustion was due to a secret investigation of a conspiracy to frame Rogan as a human trafficker. Nevada is not pleased when Catalina reveals that the frame job was the result of two years worth of manipulation by their grandmother Victoria. It was all a test for Nevada, to see if she had what it took to be a real head of House (according to Victoria's standards). Nevada chose the man she loved rather than the welfare of the House, and failed the test. Catalina knows this... because Victoria told her every detail of the plan and how to set a similar one up herself as part of her ongoing 'education' of Catalina.