Night Witch

Night Witch is the second and final book in the Weatherstone College series, following Spellcaster. Set in a contemporary world where witches and warlocks live hidden among humans, the novel follows Paisley Hallistar, a young witch attending Weatherstone College, a prestigious magic school. A governing council of elders enforces magical law and regulates various magical affinities, such as elemental magic and spellcasting. Paisley publicly registers as a spellcaster, but in the previous book she discovered she possesses a forbidden affinity that was wiped out in the late 1800s.

During winter break after her freshman year, Paisley confesses to her best friend Sara Collier that she is responsible for the monsters that attacked Weatherstone the prior year, killing a student. Paisley is a "night witch," or "reaper": a witch who can touch other planes of existence and summon creatures from Purgatory, a realm of dark energy. The council destroyed every known reaper in the late 1800s and erased the affinity from collective memory. A few survived in hiding, including Paisley's grandmother, who left behind letters and a book called The Reapers of Purgatory. Paisley's mother, Beth, keeps Paisley on a suppression potion to hide her powers and has forbidden her from telling anyone, including her siblings, creating a painful family rift. Sara accepts Paisley without judgment.

Logan Kingston, son of Rafael Kingston, re-enters Paisley's life, revealing he has watched over her since she was fifteen. Rafael is the former best friend of Paisley's father, Tom Hallistar, a Weatherstone professor, and is now Tom's sworn enemy. At a nightclub, Logan calls Paisley his "mate," an archaic term for a magically bonded partner, and takes her to his late mother Isabel's farmhouse in Michigan. He tells her to memorize the address as a permanent refuge and sleeps beside her, keeping her nightmares away for the first time in weeks.

Logan reveals the origin of their bond: As children, Paisley chased him to give him a spell from her grandmother's book, fell and cut her hands, and together they read the spell and pressed their bloodied palms together, forming a mate bond. When Paisley's magic first fully manifested years later, the bond drew them together and culminated in their first sexual encounter, sealing the spell. Meanwhile, Tom faces a council trial orchestrated by Elder Monroe, Belle Monroe's father and a political antagonist to the Hallistars. Monroe fails to appear, the case is dismissed, and Logan confirms he orchestrated the outcome.

Logan invites Paisley, Sara, and their friend Haley Michaels to a concert in New York, where they discover that Logan, Noah, and Tobias Brietlin the Third are Casters, a popular underground rock band performing with magically concealed faces. Romantic connections develop across the group: Sara and Tobias bicker and flirt, while Haley and Noah share quiet affection.

Back at Weatherstone for sophomore year, Logan openly claims Paisley as his mate and reveals he was a virgin before her, having waited his entire life because he knew they were bonded. Marcus Lofting, another sophomore spellcaster, shows unsettling interest in Paisley, and Belle Monroe returns to school as her father's spy, reporting on Paisley's activities. Paisley's older brother Trevor confides that he and Belle are secretly involved.

Paisley's exhaustion worsens until Logan feels her energy nearly fade, the magical equivalent of approaching death. At home, Paisley tells her family the full truth about her affinity and her relationship with Logan. Logan reveals Rafael has spent years plotting revenge, blaming Tom for dismissing a warning about Beth's altered magic before Isabel's death. Beth shares her own theory: During Paisley's traumatic birth, reaper energy transferred to Beth, and years later it accidentally summoned a shadow creature that killed Isabel.

Logan confronts Rafael in Italy, keeping his phone on so the Hallistars can listen. Rafael reveals he embedded an ancient curse in Logan without his knowledge. The first time Logan and Paisley had sex, the curse transferred to her, slowly siphoning her magic and life-force to the Kingston line, designed to kill each Hallistar in reverse birth order. Rafael also controlled a backup spellcaster, whom Paisley suspects is Marcus. Logan reveals a flaw: Because their bond connects them, the curse drains Logan too, threatening the Kingston line. Now self-interested, Rafael provides 15 ingredients for a counter-curse requiring his own blood.

The group disperses to collect the ingredients. Logan burns the suppression potion from Paisley's essence, freeing her reaper magic. She successfully tethers and controls a summoned monster for the first time, sending it back to Purgatory through an act of will. At the family crypt, Paisley's grandmother's spirit consents to giving a finger bone needed for the ritual. At Rafael's headquarters, the counter-curse ritual begins, but the curse resists. Logan slashes his father's chest for blood, and a second fatal cut, delivered by the curse itself as payment for Rafael's dark magic, kills Rafael. His blood completes the ritual and breaks the curse.

Free of both the curse and suppression, Logan and Paisley return to the farmhouse, where their bond deepens until Paisley can sense Logan's emotions at the soul level. Their reprieve is short-lived: Tom warns that Elder Monroe has summoned the entire council, an unprecedented action. Logan proposes a public hearing to expose the historical genocide of reapers and let Paisley demonstrate control of her powers, but council enforcers intercept Paisley first. Monroe announces she will stand trial, and Paisley requests the proceedings be broadcast to the magical world.

Bound on the assembly hall stage, Paisley faces Monroe's accusation that all reapers are murderous. Logan argues she deserves the same chance given to any witch who causes harm during an uncontrolled bloom, the initial emergence of magical powers. Tom places blame on the community for failing to train Paisley. Six spellcasters then forcibly rebloom Paisley's magic, an illegal procedure that violently re-triggers magical emergence, to prove her affinity. The extraction merges the living plane with Purgatory, flooding the hall with hundreds of monsters. Belle pleads with her father to stop, arguing Paisley is the only one who can fix the imbalance, but Monroe refuses. A fire elemental sends a blade of burning metal at Paisley. Logan cannot fully deflect it, and the blade kills her.

The narrative shifts to Logan's perspective. Maddened by grief, he channels the energy of the Earth itself, killing Monroe and the witch who ordered the execution, and devastating the hall. In the darkness between planes, Paisley encounters the spirits of all the murdered reapers. They explain the affinity's true purpose: Reapers are guardians who summon demons to devour dark energy seeping between the five planes of existence, preventing them from colliding. With reapers gone for over a century, the magical world verges on collapse. The sister-witches pour their collective power into Paisley and urge her to return.

Paisley resurrects and reaches Logan through their bond, pulling him back from destroying the world. She tethers the remaining monsters and commands five demons to devour the dark energy coating the hall's walls, demonstrating to the assembly and the live broadcast that reapers are guardians. She declares herself the last reaper and refuses to be controlled by the council. Belle watches from the edge of the room; she and Paisley exchange a brief look before Belle walks away.

Six months later, Paisley sends demons across the world to cleanse accumulated dark energy, using crystals to boost her power. The council now treats her as an invaluable asset. At a stadium concert, Logan, Noah, and Tobias reveal their faces publicly for the first time. Sara and Tobias edge toward a relationship; Haley and Noah are deeply in love. After the show, Logan and Paisley return to the lavender farmhouse, where Paisley reflects that it has been home from the first moment she walked through its gates.