Exes and Enchantments: A cozy witch mystery set in the UK with slow burn romance recap

Electrical witch Fi investigates a succession of dangerous enchantments in Omensford while an MLO complaint places her career under supervision. Training with Ursula and a restored bond with Cressida give Fi greater control and let her sense magical signatures. She discovers that Agatha's trainee Diane copied fairy-tale spells, causing the dancing shoes, Valentine's enchanted jacket, Jill's tightening necklace, and a prank on Lee. Mort saves Jill with his inherited sword, and Diane's power is bound pending monitored training. A separate inquiry links Finn O'Reilly to the fire at Valentine's home, leading to his arrest. Ursula recommends keeping Fi as an agent, and Agent Jones closes the complaint. Fi rejects her controlling ex Lee, chooses a relationship with Mort, and joins him for their first quiet date.

Previously: Fi, an electrical witch and Omensford MLO agent, has struggled with the fear that her powerful magic can injure people even when she means to protect them. Her small dragon-like familiar, Cressida, communicates with her mentally, while her mother Nell and sister Agatha are also witches. Fi's circle includes her older friend Effie, cafe worker Steve, vampire Valentine, and doctor Mort. A hostile demon essence remains confined in donkey form at Fi's home. Fi and Mort have grown close, but neither their possible romance nor the full nature of Mort's family responsibilities has yet been settled.

Mort shows Fi a hidden gateway beneath his home and explains that his family serves the god of death as hereditary defenders of the mortal balance. He has inherited both the guardianship and a sword that can sever souls. Fi accepts the truth, and they agree to explore a relationship, but a message from her former partner Lee immediately unsettles her. She later agrees to meet Lee for dinner. A separate crisis begins when a woman is trapped in red shoes that force her to dance until Fi, the police, and Nell remove them. Nell finds the magic exceptionally strong and possibly rooted in a curse, but she cannot identify its maker. Agent Jones then informs Fi that someone has accused her of threats and excessive force. Ursula Fortescue is appointed to supervise her while the complaint is investigated.

Ursula begins examining Fi's work, including the stalled red-shoes case and the limits of Fi's magical awareness. Effie encourages Fi to seek closure with Lee before leaving Omensford. At the cafe, Steve tells Fi that vampire Valentine is staying there after a suspicious fire destroyed his home. Fi and Ursula inspect the burned property as a possible anti-magic attack and recover a red hat, although Ursula detects no magical residue. Ursula then tests Fi's electrical abilities. Fi demonstrates immense strength but poor precision, missing a target and scorching a tree before destroying another target outright. Ursula argues that Fi's fear of her own power makes her professional role unsafe. She also discovers that Fi has never learned to channel magic through her familiar bond. Cressida withdraws when this concealed possibility comes to light.

Cressida admits that grief over losing her former witch made her conceal the deeper familiar bond because she feared losing Fi as well. They repair their trust and begin training together. Cressida can absorb part of Fi's energy, allowing Fi to shape what remains with far greater precision. With Ursula's guidance, Fi also begins detecting unfamiliar active magic, though she still cannot read the enchantment on the red shoe. Her progress gives her hope that future bursts can be controlled. Fi then attends the dinner she arranged with Lee. His endearments, decisions on her behalf, and criticism of her need for space remind her why their relationship failed. Lee reveals that he is engaged and may return to Omensford, then asks to use Fi's occupied house. When Steve reports an emergency involving Valentine, Fi leaves and rejects Lee's attempt to dismiss the crisis as drama.

At the cafe, Valentine puts on an abandoned leather jacket and becomes convinced he is wearing splendid robes, although the enchantment has actually made him strip. Fi and Steve take him to Nell before sunlight can endanger him. Nell restrains and sedates Valentine, but Ursula touches the jacket despite the warning and falls under the same compulsion. Nell judges its fading magic to be unusually powerful and likely cast by the same person who enchanted the shoes. When Valentine falls onto Fi, her defensive electrical shock breaks the spell. He cannot identify who left the jacket and observes that few people knew he was staying at the cafe. Fi maps the shared fairy-tale pattern between the two objects, sends her report to the police, and formally files the report about Valentine's burned home. She also recognizes that her feelings for Mort are distinct from her finished relationship with Lee, but Mort asks for space after her attempted apology.

Fi and Ursula trace the enchanted jacket to a charity shop, where it arrived in a late donation before being sold to a cafe customer. Footage shows several youths lingering near the coat section, but the crowded cafe has no camera record of who left the jacket. Since Valentine's presence there was not public knowledge, Fi considers that Steve may have been the intended target. Meanwhile, the hat from Valentine's burned home is sent for police testing. Training with Cressida now allows Fi to sense other people's magic, although strong unfamiliar power causes her pain. Diane demonstrates rare suggestion magic on the confined demon donkey, while Lee announces that he is staying at Nell's B&B and still hopes to relocate. Fi refuses to give him her house. She also finds a recent image of Finn O'Reilly wearing a red hat resembling the arson evidence. Before that lead develops, Agatha calls about another enchanted object, this time a necklace.

A teenager's enchanted necklace tightens around her throat and resists tools, electrical magic, and every attempt to pull it away. Fi calls Mort, whose inherited sword cuts the chain and frees the girl. Using her bond with Cressida, Fi recognizes the same painful magical signature found in the earlier enchantments and confronts Diane. Diane admits that she practised from an annotated collection of fairy-tale magic. She cursed the shoe-shop display after being expelled, enchanted the jacket on a dare meant to humiliate Steve, and tried to make Jill beautiful for a school dance with the necklace. She intended pranks or help but lacked the skill to control or undo the results. Fi prepares to take her into custody, but Ursula instead proposes binding Diane's power temporarily, monitoring her, and placing her with a witch who shares her abilities. Fi and Mort then reconcile, choose a relationship, and kiss. Trying to sense Mort's magic overwhelms and hurts Fi, so they agree she should not repeat it.

Ursula gives Nell a replacement for the broom she broke and confirms that she will recommend Fi remain an MLO agent. Fi must continue daily magical practice, undertake regular training, maintain her paperwork, and obtain approval for paid work at the cafe. Ursula takes Diane to MLO headquarters to begin the proposed binding and supervision. Fi later finds an enchanted pea beneath Lee's mattress, revealing one more of Diane's fairy-tale experiments and explaining his sleepless night. Lee decides to move to Spain rather than remain in Omensford. Police testing matches DNA on the red hat recovered from Valentine's home, and Agent Jones confirms that Finn O'Reilly has been arrested for the arson and will face court. Ursula's assessment also leads Agent Jones to close and remove the complaint against Fi, subject to her training commitments and a seminar on public interactions. Fi declines Maxie's invitation to test his magic-storage battery and instead keeps her plans with Mort, arriving at his home for their first quiet date together.

Mort cuts the enchanted necklace from Jill, and Fi's new ability to sense magic confirms that the necklace belongs to the same series as the shoes and jacket. Diane admits copying annotated fairy-tale spells without being able to control or reverse them. Her magic is temporarily bound, and Ursula takes her to MLO headquarters for monitoring and a suitable apprenticeship rather than imprisonment. Ursula recommends that Fi remain an agent if she continues daily practice, formal training, paperwork, and work on public interactions. Agent Jones then removes the complaint against Fi. Finn O'Reilly is arrested for the arson at Valentine's home after DNA from the recovered red hat matches him. Lee abandons his plan to settle in Omensford and intends to move to Spain. Fi and Mort reconcile and begin dating, although sensing his magic is unsafe for her. Cressida remains central to Fi's improving control. The demon donkey is still confined, and Maxie's magic-storage battery remains an unfinished project.