Though she exited Empire at the end of this most recent season, Grace Byers is staying at the network for Season 2 of the Marvel series, The Gifted. 

She will play Reeva, a “smart, charming, authoritative, elegant, beautiful woman who is ruthless in her efforts to fight for her people. She leads an elite band of followers and has a soft spot for her new recruits, but is still capable of extreme violence in defense of her vision.” Reeva will work with Polaris (Emma Dumont), The Frost Triplets (Skyler Samuels) and Andy Strucker (Percy Hynes White)’s faction of mutants.

Natalie Alyn Lynd, Coby Bell, Sean Teale, Amy Acker, Jamie Chung and Blair Redford.

Byers debuted in her first major role as Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson) nemesis Anika “Boo Boo Kitty” Calhoun in Empire‘s first season back in 2015.

Set in Marvel’s X-Men universe, it tells the story of a suburban couple whose ordinary lives are rocked by the sudden discovery that their children possess mutant powers. Reed (Stephen Moyer) and Caitlin (Amy Acker) Strucker are typical middle-class parents dealing with the realities of raising a family. However, when their teenage kids, Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) and Andy (Percy Hynes White), are involved in an incident at their high school which reveals they are mutants, Reed and Caitlin do all in their power to protect their children. Forced to go on the run, the Struckers must leave behind their old lives to flee from a relentless government agency that tracks down mutants, the Sentinel Services, which includes Agent Jace Turner (Bell) Complicating matters further is the fact that Reed is a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office tasked with going after mutants. Desperate and running low on options, the family’s only choice is to contact an underground network that helps mutants in trouble.

The mutants in the network – Eclipse/Marcos Diaz (Sean Teale),  Blink /Clarice Fong (Jamie Chung), Polaris/Lorna Dane (Emma Dumont) and Thunderbird/John Proudstar (Blair Redford) – are dealing with their own issues. With one of their members in prison and their team possibly compromised, they face an uncertain future in a world that looks increasingly dangerous for mutants.

The series is produced by 20th Century Fox Television in association with Marvel Television. This renewal comes as Disney is in talks to acquire 20th Century Fox, therefore potentially reuniting Fox’s Marvel properties, like The Gifted characters, with the rest of its universe.