Cascade – Synopsis

Twenty years ago, a rapidly warming climate melted ice caps, raised sea levels, and returned magic to the world in a mass event known as the Cascade. Since then, the world has struggled to cope. The United States has fractured into several countries and, in the power vacuum left, Canada’s profile and influence on the world has considerably risen. The left-leaning Party currently clings to power with a minority government, led by the scandal-plagued Patrice Abel, and propped up by his precognitive wizard advisor, Ian Mallory, while the right-wing Opposition decries the influence of magic.

Ian is increasingly cornered by fate and politics. Having foreseen the Blight, a disaster that will come within months, he attempts to use magic to delay and control it. Along with Eric Greenglass, his liaison, and Sujay Krishnamurthy, his apprentice and intern, he tries to maintain the government’s minority rule. He pulls in Jonah Augustine, an old friend from his activist days, to map out the areas most likely to be affected by the Blight and to work with his Indigenous contacts to avert the worst of the damage.

Jonah’s ex-wife, Blythe, a climate scientist in Victoria, is tapped for an experimental deep-ocean expedition, using an MAI child to navigate magically-disturbed waters. She encounters an ancient, gigantic skeleton that reaches into her mind and renders her co-pilot comatose. 

Tobias Fletcher, a photojournalist with the right-leaning Post, goes on assignment to photograph Ian for a newspaper profile. Urged by Lucy, his opera star wife, and Reid Curtis, the media magnate behind his paper, Tobias uncovers a series of scandals. But it’s the discovery of Ian’s spellcasting, apparently aimed at Parliament itself and caught on Tobias’ camera, that proves to be the government’s undoing.

An election is called, which the Party loses. Ian informs a brokenhearted Sujay that they are running out of time, and tells her to go home to her family. He’s arrested on an obscure anti-witchcraft statute.  All this is quickly overshadowed by a terrorist attack by a disgruntled MAI on the Canadian Parliament, killing most of his cabinet, sparing only Quinn Atherton, a long-time political operative whose daughter is killed in the blast. The magic spreads, following ley lines that Ian and Jonah had mapped, and consuming the country in fire and earthquakes.

Atherton, backed by the Curtises, uses the chaos following the Blight to institute martial law, expelling foreigners and cracking down on political opponents. Patrice is executed after a show trial. The government’s far-right shift is too much for Tobias, particularly given his recent discovery that Alycia Curtis, Reid’s wife, is an MAI. Tobias is arrested and ends up in a black site in the cell next to Ian, who reveals their shared fate. Knowing what awaits him, Tobias tries to escape and is murdered by the prison guards.

Blythe flees in a refugee boat with her and Jonah’s daughter Laura, but they are set upon by mercenaries from the SVAR who sink their ship, drowning the girl. Blythe is rescued by a giant tentacle emerging from the water as the creature destroys the SVAR ship.

Sujay escapes to her home in Toronto, but finds her family murdered by the Cleaners, a paramilitary organization loyal to the government. She’s rescued by Shadi, who reveals that he was sent to recruit her to the resistance. She performs a spell to bury her name, hiding her from the enemy’s magic, and takes a new one: Maya.