Cream Teas and Crystal Balls recap

While rebuilding her life in Omensford, Fi begins dating Mort and helps at Effie's cafe. Effie secretly gives her a crystal that reveals its holder's deepest desire, then dies in a fire that Fi believes was murder. A teenage pair's attempted burglary and Grace's hostility prove unrelated. The crystal leads Fi to Adriana, supposedly Effie's great-niece, and a magical attack reveals two souls sharing one body. Mort and Liv discover that Adriana is actually Effie's sister, a serial killer who has prolonged her life by taking the bodies of Jenny and Polly. Mort sends Adriana to punishment, and Polly elects to remain dead. Fi overcomes her fear of her electrical magic long enough to revive Effie in Polly's vacant body, after which Effie destroys the crystal. Fi ends the book facing a choice between IT leadership and magical-community work. She rejects Maxie's focus on her power, chooses Mort, and begins an intimate relationship with him.

Previously: Fi killed a witch while defending herself, leaving her afraid of her electrical magic and reluctant to use it. She is rebuilding her life in Omensford, where her mother Nell, her sister Agatha, and the local WWWI form part of her established community.

Fi's attempt to recover Agatha and Neville's escaped cockerel introduces her to Mort, a doctor who treats her injuries and asks her to dinner. Their first date goes well, although Fi hides the dangerous nature of her electrical magic. At the same time, Adriana Harrington arrives at Nell's B-and-B claiming to be Effie's great-niece. Effie recognises the relationship but disputes Adriana's account of why she has come, and their private exchanges reveal that Adriana wants something Effie will not surrender. Cressida detects an unnatural scent around the visitor and urges Fi to be wary. Other concerns gather around Effie's shop: Grace angrily rejects a reading about Pat's estate, while two separate teenagers ask about protection and the defeat of magical wards. Maxie also resumes contact with Fi, complicating her response to Mort. Effie's unease finally becomes concrete when she entrusts Fi with an ancient crystal said to reveal its holder's deepest desire. She insists that Fi hide it from Adriana, then sends Fi away as Adriana arrives for a private confrontation.

Soon after Fi leaves Effie and Adriana together, smoke rises from the high street. Fi reaches Effie's burning cafe and finds Adriana outside, but Effie has not escaped. Firefighters recover Effie's body, and Adriana is treated as her surviving relative. The Omensford WWWI mourns its longtime member and dedicates the Spring Social to her. At the cremation, Adriana takes custody of the ashes. She later tells Fi that the official inquiry blamed sunlight passing through an uncovered crystal ball for starting the blaze. Fi knows Effie understood that precise danger and would not have left the ball exposed. The explanation therefore strengthens rather than resolves her doubts, and she concludes that Effie's death was deliberate. Adriana's earlier pressure over a family dispute, Grace's public anger, and the teenagers' interest in shop security all remain possible lines of inquiry. Fi also has a separate decision approaching after accepting an interview for a remote technology role, but Effie's suspicious death has become her immediate concern.

With the police unwilling to pursue her theory, Fi investigates Effie's death herself. Adriana claims that a failed reconciliation concerned a stolen family heirloom and says she heard something at the rear of the shop before leaving. Grace admits attacking Effie's reputation online because a reading contradicted her hopes of finding money left by her deceased partner. Fi concludes that Grace is instead being exploited by an expensive psychic scheme and removes her as a suspect. The frightened teenage girl then reveals that a boy pressured her into helping him burgle Effie's shop. She supplied information about the wards but secretly sabotaged the plan to protect herself. Fi confronts the boy, who admits intending to steal stock but says the wards stopped him and denies causing the later fire. Their accounts agree on a failed nighttime attempt that could not explain Effie's death. Fi makes the boy promise to stay away from the girl and places her under WWWI protection. The burglary lead is closed, while Adriana and the family heirloom remain unresolved.

After demonstrating her technical skill during a job interview, Fi rediscovers the crystal Effie gave her. Research with Nell identifies it as an object that can show its holder's greatest desire. When Fi activates it, the visions move past work and romance to Adriana searching the ruins of Effie's cafe, revealing that solving the murder matters most to Fi. She finds Adriana at the site and confronts her about inconsistencies in her identity and knowledge. The encounter becomes stranger when the woman alternates between threatening Fi for the crystal and speaking in Effie's voice. Fi realises that two distinct consciousnesses may occupy the same body. Adriana attacks with magic, injuring both Fi and Cressida. Fi feels her familiar's injury through their bond and retaliates with electrical power, but cannot bring herself to kill the body when Effie's voice asks her to do so. Fi manages to call Agatha before collapsing. By the end of the confrontation, both Fi and Adriana are unconscious, Cressida is hurt but alive, and the apparent sharing of one body by Effie and Adriana remains unexplained.

At the hospital, Mort accepts Fi's claim that two souls may share Adriana's body and reveals that his family serves the underworld by managing displaced souls. As Adriana's uncontrolled magic threatens the building, Agatha contains it while Liv and Mort enter the patient's dream realm. They find Effie fighting an older witch and learn that the other soul is not Effie's great-niece but her sister Adriana. Effie says Adriana murdered her for the family crystal. Mort and Liv then travel to the other realm, where Polly explains that Adriana killed her and stole her body after previously occupying another victim, Jenny. Confronted with the evidence, Adriana admits using successive younger bodies and seeking the crystal as a route to greater power and continued youth. Mort sends her soul to a punitive afterlife. Polly refuses to return, so Effie's soul is placed in the vacant body. When the hospital power fails, Fi supplies a controlled electrical shock and revives Effie. Effie destroys the crystal to prevent further abuse. Fi's success proves that her dangerous power can also be used with care, although her future remains unsettled after she receives an IT leadership offer she does not want.

The case closes with Adriana punished, Polly remaining in the afterlife, and Effie alive in Polly's former body. Effie plans to maintain the public identity of her own apparent great-niece, travel using funds recovered from Adriana, and leave her bees in Agatha's care. At the Spring Social held in Effie's honour, Liv asks Fi to consider whether returning to a conventional technology career would recreate her former unhappiness. Agent Jones of the Magical Liaison Office offers an alternative: lower-paid work as a community consultant for Omensford and the protected magical area around it. Fi has not chosen between that role and the IT team-leader position by the end. Maxie is developing a battery intended to store Fi's magical energy, but Fi challenges him over whether he values her as a person or primarily for her power. She turns away from that uncertainty and chooses to dance with Mort. Their tentative courtship becomes a romantic relationship, and the epilogue confirms that Fi spends the night at Mort's home. Her work and the implications of Maxie's project remain open, but she ends the story with greater confidence in her magic and a new intimate partnership.

Adriana's repeated theft of younger bodies is exposed, along with her murders of Jenny, Polly, and Effie. Mort sends Adriana's soul to a punitive afterlife. Polly chooses not to return from the other realm, leaving her body available for Effie. When the hospital loses power, Fi deliberately controls her electrical magic and revives the body with Effie's soul inside it. Effie destroys the desire-revealing crystal, arranges for Agatha to care for her bees, and plans to travel using money recovered from Adriana while publicly continuing as her own apparent great-niece. Fi is offered both a leadership post in IT and a less lucrative community-consultant position with the Magical Liaison Office, but has not chosen between them. She confronts Maxie about his interest in her power and turns toward Mort instead. Their romance becomes intimate, while Maxie's proposed magical-energy battery and Fi's longer-term work remain unresolved.