Bewitched

The first installment of the Bewitched series is set in a contemporary world where supernaturals, including witches, sorcerers, and lycanthropes (werewolves), live hidden among nonmagical humans. Witches draw power from the world around them using incantations and spell components, while sorcerers wield vast magic that gradually erodes their conscience.

Twenty-year-old Selene Bowers is a witch whose power exacts a unique cost: Every time she casts a spell, her magic devours her memories. Diagnosed as progressive and terminal, the condition has forced Selene to build an elaborate system of notebooks, planners, and sticky notes to document her life. She is determined to join Henbane Coven, a prestigious witches' academy on the Northern California coast, but the admissions panel questions whether rigorous spellcasting will accelerate her deterioration. A sympathetic panel member, Constance Sternfallow, tells Selene she will be accepted if she completes two requirements: an impressive magic quest and the acquisition of a familiar, a witch's magical animal counterpart.

Selene books a trip to the Galápagos Islands but never arrives. During the flight, a mysterious masculine voice calls her "Empress" while deep-blue magic floods the cabin and tries to drag the plane from the sky. As the only supernatural on board, Selene uses her magic to help land the aircraft in the Peruvian jungle, saving every passenger at great cost to her memories. After the crash, the disembodied voice continues calling to her, its indigo magic threading through the rainforest like a trail. Following it, Selene encounters a black panther that leaps from the trees and pins her. Rather than fear, she feels an instinctual connection, and her magic binds the animal to her as a familiar. She names the panther Nero.

The voice draws her farther, across a river and through ancient ruins hidden behind powerful wards that disintegrate at her touch. She unearths a concealed crypt beneath the ruins, descending into a chamber whose walls are inscribed with spells in a language she inexplicably understands. At its center rests a sarcophagus bearing the name "MEMNON THE CURSED" and a warning: "For the love of your gods, beware of me" (56). Inside lies a man with olive skin, elaborate tattoos, and a scar running from his left eye to his jaw, apparently alive but trapped in deathless sleep. Compelled by the voice and an inexplicable longing, Selene touches his face and speaks a single command in the ancient language: "Wake."

Memnon opens his eyes, calls her Roxilana, and kisses her with desperate longing. He speaks in Sarmatian, the language of his ancient people, a nomadic empire that once roamed the Eurasian steppe. When Selene insists she is not Roxilana, Memnon reads the curse inscriptions on the walls and his demeanor shifts to rage. He accuses his wife of destroying his empire and entombing him, then uses his magic to force Selene into unconsciousness, seals the crypt, and vanishes. She escapes using her own power and returns to the United States with Nero, deeply shaken.

Selene writes up her quest, omitting Memnon. The Politia, the supernatural police force, determines magic was involved in the plane's safe landing, and Henbane formally admits Selene. She moves into the residence hall and begins classes, but her relief is short-lived. Witches start turning up dead on coven grounds, their bodies mutilated with dark magic. Selene fears Memnon is responsible and confides in her best friend, Sybil, a fellow coven member.

Memnon confirms he has followed Selene to Henbane, confronting her on campus multiple times. He insists she is Roxilana reborn, threatens to destroy her world, and admits to stealing some of her memories using his sorcerer's power. Yet he denies killing the witches when placed under a truth spell, and when Selene allows him to read her mind, he finds no trace of Roxilana's consciousness, only a mind riddled with gaps from her condition. He reluctantly accepts what he sees but remains convinced they share an unbreakable connection.

That conviction proves correct. After requesting her official records from Peel Academy, the supernatural boarding school where her powers first manifested, Selene discovers she is classified not only as a witch but as a soul mate, a person supernaturally bonded to another through an unbreakable magical connection. The revelation forces her to accept that Memnon's claims about their bond are true.

Their relationship oscillates between hostility and intense attraction. Memnon sends Selene vivid dreams through their bond, deposits money into her empty bank account to feed Nero, and heals her after she is gravely injured rescuing a young lycanthrope girl named Cara from a dark spell circle conducted in hidden tunnels beneath the residence hall. He argues that a curse called damnatio memoriae, a magical condemnation from memory that Roxilana placed on them both, stripped his legacy from history and, through the Law of Three, a witchcraft principle holding that any magic performed returns threefold, caused Selene's own memories to devour themselves in return. He insists that lifting the curse will restore both her memories and his historical record.

Selene refuses. She believes her memory loss has shaped her identity and does not want to recover a past she never asked for. Enraged, Memnon sets fire to every journal and notebook on her shelves, destroying years of painstakingly documented memories. The timing is devastating: The Politia arrives that same day to collect the notebooks as evidence to establish her alibi in the murder investigation. Officers find only charred remains and treat the destruction as suspicious, leaving Selene without documentation to clear her name. Desperate, Selene discovers a spell to sever a soul mate bond in the coven's grimoire room and attempts to brew it, but Memnon storms in, overturns her cauldron, and destroys the spell page.

At the Samhain Ball, a celebration of the supernatural holiday marking the thinning of boundaries between worlds, Selene receives a warning from Kane Halloway, a lycanthrope she has been seeing. Kane tells her the Marin Pack considers her a friend for saving Cara and will provide legal help, but the Politia intends to arrest her that night. A shoe Selene left behind during the spell circle has been found with blood from Kasey, a missing coven sister who recruited Selene into the circle.

Before Selene can act, Memnon takes the ball hostage. Holding a witch at knifepoint before hundreds of guests, he confesses to framing Selene: He did not commit the murders himself but moved the victims' bodies to implicate her and direct the Politia's suspicion her way. He demands she agree to lift their shared curse and threatens to suffocate every person in the room if she refuses. When guests begin collapsing, Selene fights him with everything she has, burning through massive amounts of magic and memories. She cannot overpower him. With bodies falling around her, he adds a second demand: Marry him. Selene capitulates. Memnon releases the room, repairs the damage, and wipes every guest's memory of the past ten minutes.

Back in Selene's room, with Politia sirens approaching, they cut their palms and clasp hands in a blood oath. Memnon guides her through a Sarmatian incantation to withdraw the curse. Her recent memories return first, filling out in vivid detail, then her childhood, and finally, with a violent surge, memories from another life flood in. She is Roxilana. Memnon was the great love of that life, a warrior-king who adored her. But the memories also confirm that she did betray him, and she whispers in horror that he should never have gotten those memories back.

The Politia storms the room and arrests Selene. As officers restrain her, Memnon vows to fix everything. Selene, carrying the weight of two lifetimes, looks at him and whispers that she has set a monster upon the world by waking him from his cursed sleep.