White Witch, Black Curse recap

Rachel begins with no memory of Kisten's murder and no knowledge of his killer. While Al continues her demon lessons, the FIB draws her into attacks marked by drained emotion, damaged auras, and unreliable memories. Empath Ford helps her interpret the victims and examine the blank place in her own mind. Pierce, a nineteenth-century witch Rachel knew as a ghost, returns and becomes entangled in the case. The trail leads to banshee Mia, her daughter Holly, and others exploiting demon-derived magic. Rachel and her partners stop the immediate predation, though doing so requires magic orthodox witches regard as black. Pierce is given a living body and stays near Rachel. The same struggle finally releases Rachel's blocked memory: she recalls that Piscary killed Kisten. The truth gives her an answer rather than a reunion, and her relationship with Marshal ends. Rachel closes the case with Ivy and Jenks alive, but her forbidden magic has attracted the attention of the Coven of Moral and Ethical Standards.

Previously: Rachel Morgan runs Vampiric Charms with living vampire Ivy Tamwood and pixy Jenks. She exposed Trent Kalamack as secretly elven, freed Ceri from demon Algaliarept, and learned that childhood genetic treatment connected to both the Morgan and Kalamack families left her able to work demon-associated magic. Rachel gave up custody of the Were Focus after its immediate crisis, then lost living-vampire boyfriend Kisten to murder and lost the crucial memories of their last meeting. Repeated attacks by Al later drew Rachel into the ever-after and revealed more about her altered abilities. She accepted Al as a dangerous teacher, while Trent remained a mistrusted source of family history rather than a friend. At the opening of this book, Rachel herself still knows only that Kisten was killed: she has not recovered the missing memory and cannot identify his murderer. She is grieving, studying under Al, and trying to maintain the church partnership while Marshal offers a possible relationship she is not sure she can enter.

A new supernatural investigation presents victims whose emotions and auras have been disturbed in ways ordinary police procedure cannot measure. Ford, an empath working with the FIB, helps distinguish genuine emotional traces from the fear and grief surrounding the scenes. His ability also offers Rachel a cautious way to examine her own missing memory, though neither of them can simply force the truth out without risking further damage. Al continues teaching Rachel magic that other witches consider forbidden. Marshal remains supportive, but Rachel's household, demon obligations, and fixation on Kisten's unsolved death keep widening the distance between the life he offers and the one she actually lives.

Pierce returns as a ghostly presence from Rachel's past. He is protective, magically capable, and adapted to a period when both witch law and courtship operated differently, making his help useful but difficult to control. The pattern in the current attacks points toward a predator who consumes emotion and aura rather than leaving a conventional magical signature. Mia, a banshee Rachel has met before, becomes central to the inquiry, and her daughter Holly complicates any response because the child shares the same supernatural needs without adult responsibility for how they are met. Rachel begins to suspect that the damage around the victims may resemble the mechanism hiding Kisten's final night from her.

Rachel, Ford, Ivy, and Jenks trace the aura damage through banshee feeding and forbidden witch practice. Tom Bansen's willingness to use demon-derived magic shows how easily Rachel's own abilities can be grouped with predation by anyone judging only the source of a spell. Pierce pushes for direct action and becomes more firmly attached to Rachel, while Al remains willing to manipulate both of them if it increases his influence. The investigation now threatens the church directly. Because Ivy's emotions are unusually intense and closely tied to Rachel, she is both a formidable ally and a valuable target for a creature that feeds on feeling.

The banshee conflict escalates into captivity and magical coercion, forcing Rachel to choose between forms of magic that witch authorities approve and spells powerful enough to save people immediately. Ford's empathy helps the group work around attacks designed to confuse emotion and memory. Rachel uses the same broader understanding of aura and demon magic to approach the block around Kisten's death. Pierce's existence also changes: what began as contact with a ghost becomes a chance for him to return physically, at a cost and under conditions shaped by Al. The rescue and the recovery of Rachel's memory converge as the group closes on the source of the attacks.

Rachel and her allies stop the immediate banshee predation and survive the final confrontation, including the direct threat to Ivy. Rachel employs magic that succeeds in saving lives but falls within practices the witch establishment calls black. Pierce is restored to a living body and remains in Rachel's life rather than returning to the dead. The disruption to emotion and aura also releases Rachel's blocked memory of Kisten's last night. She remembers that Piscary killed him, replacing an unnamed absence with a painful fact. The knowledge lets her grieve without continuing to hunt an unknown figure, but it also closes the possibility that memory alone could have saved Kisten. Marshal and Rachel accept that their attempted relationship cannot continue. Ivy, Jenks, Ford, and Pierce survive, while Rachel's visible use of forbidden magic brings her to the attention of the Coven of Moral and Ethical Standards and sets up a new conflict with witch authority.

Rachel and her allies stop the immediate banshee predation after a confrontation in which emotional and magical attacks threaten Ivy and the others helping her. Rachel uses magic that the witch establishment classifies as black, saving lives but giving the Coven of Moral and Ethical Standards grounds to scrutinize her. Pierce is restored to a living body and remains close to Rachel, no longer only a ghost from her past. The investigation also breaks the barrier around Rachel's lost memory. She finally recalls that Piscary killed Kisten and understands the violence surrounding their last meeting. Recovering the truth does not restore Kisten, but it ends the uncertainty that has kept Rachel from grieving with full knowledge of what occurred. Her relationship with Marshal does not survive the distance created by that grief and by the dangers at the church. Rachel finishes the book with Ivy and Jenks alive, Pierce physically present, and the banshee crisis contained, but her use of forbidden magic has moved her from private demon student to a public target of witch authority.