“This dark contemporary fantasy has a mesmerising blend of high stakes drama, magic and rivals-to-lovers romance” ―Cosmopolitan
by Isa Agajanian
February 3, 2026
Book 2 of 2: Spells for Life and Death
Genre: paranormal mystery, witches, supernatural
Ghosts passed through the cottage sitting on the peak of Townsend Hill like passengers in a train station. Some, Teddy Ingram knew, stayed longer than others.
More than half a year has passed since the disappearance of Gemma Eakley and Teddy Ingram still has no clue as to whether she is alive, dead or something worse. With Gemma's young daughter left in his care Teddy haunts the rural haven of Townsend like one of its many spirits.
But then Aurelia – his beloved ex-rival – returns with the news that her own mother is dead – and a ghost forms from the pages of her farewell to give the would-be lovers a message: They won’t let me rest.
One coven's efforts to reverse the looming extinction of witches involves resurrecting the dead. Meredith's old coven wants to know what secrets she took with her to the funeral pyre; did she have the key to fixing their botched attempts at necromancy?
From the acclaimed author of Modern Divination comes the dark and magical concluding part of the Spells for Life and Death duology.
Excerpted
from QUIET SPELLS by Isa Agajanian, published by Tor, an imprint of Pan
Macmillan. Copyright © 2026 by Isabel Agajanian.
Water pooled around Alaric’s leather shoes, trickling towards the front door of a humble – rather bleak – South London flat. It descended from each step of a rickety staircase before him with a faint hiss. The caretaker lowered himself to one knee, enough for the hem of his trousers to droop into the water but not his kneecap. Rolling up his shirt sleeve, Alaric let the water pass through his fingers and made a note to himself: Clear.
Then again, diluted with so much of it, he’d miss even the darkest colour of witch’s blood.
A soft, distinctly male whimper trickled down from the flooding loo.
So, his witch was still alive. This, Alaric had not expected. He smothered a spiteful urge growing in his stomach.
Mercy, mercy.
He was bound to this man’s survival, to being abundantly forgiving, which wasn’t much of a stretch from his general unwillingness to overexert himself on a job. Alaric rose again, throwing his shoulders back to protest against the ache in his body. He’d endured far too many years of this profession. The caretaker role would have long since drained any good man. Who could blame him for wanting one easy job when his muscles ached as much as they did – when he’d been carrying the weight of this thankless role for as long as he had.
Much of it was tedious. His days consisted mostly of paper- work, inventory, making sure that every borrowed magical artefact was within arm’s reach and returned to his care promptly. Sometimes, a low-ranking offshoot of the royal family would call upon him with a hush-hush task like demon banishing or divinatory reconnaissance, and he would have to pretend he hadn’t been singing songs about the downfall of the British monarchy every night straight through his youth.
This particular excursion, which had him skulking cautiously around every corner, should have been rarer. But fate had been rather unkind to him lately, and the only person he knew who could have ever truly made sense of it had disappeared eight long months ago.
He knew fate favoured patterns. One peculiar house call became two, then three; and this one, which was not technically a house call because it was a flat, marked the eighth visit of the past two months. Certainly the first that would follow him home.
And spell trouble for all of them.
At least it would be quick. Alaric’s silence on the matter of the witch in question meant he wouldn’t stand any trial with the council. He’d kept the peripheral details of the shapeshifting witch Leona Sum’s case as quiet as he could. He explained with the confidence of a man past the need for concern that Leona Sum had come and gone and left little mess to clean up.
What he did not say was that his town’s resident diviner, Gemma, was still gone, and her family, waiting for her back home, were reluctant to believe that Leona worked alone. He did not divulge the specificities of Theodore Ingram’s lying low on account of the accidental shattering of London’s Tate Modern Museum, though the council had begun to take interest in the influences stealing Alaric Friedman away from his work all the time. He was hiding something – they were all sure of it – but he remained seemingly, stubbornly oblivious to any and all inquiries regarding the current instability plaguing the witches of England due to Leona Sum’s violent harvesting of magic.
Which was a difficult balance of omission on both sides. The council was eager for Alaric to devote more to them – to give his unwavering commitment, sacrifice his loves, and divulge his dirty secrets, which included the large cover-up for Townsend’s new resident reaper. On the other hand, the boy grew restless in Townsend whenever Alaric left for too long, asking for his whereabouts when Alaric wanted to keep him as uninvolved in council assignments as possible.
He’d always had a soft spot for Gemma’s family, and Teddy Ingram was no different, woven into the sordid bunch with an invisible stitch. But there was only so much he could give in reassurance that he was doing everything in his power to find Townsend’s missing matriarch and bring her home.
Trust me, thought the caretaker as he pushed himself onto the last step, I’m tired too.
A limb, hidden past the elbow, poked out from behind the bathroom door. Alaric reached for the inner pocket of his leather jacket, tracing the ridges of two bronze bangles through the fabric.
He cleared his throat. The man’s wrist twitched in response, and he choked something unintelligibly. Alaric answered presumptuously.
‘Alaric Friedman. Your resident council seat—’
The witch pitched forward as a mucus-drowned cough leaked out. Bile spilled from the corner of his mouth. He’d been poisoned. Perhaps, he’d poisoned himself. Everything Alaric had learned about the man subverted whatever his former expectations had been, and he turned from villain to victim to vulnerable. In any circumstance, he should not have been the type of person who would drink his own draught of destruction.
The caretaker crossed over the body, twisting the shrill tap until the water stilled. Surely, the man wouldn’t care for Alaric’s title, or his duty, or the fact that he was bound by magical decree to keep the man alive. More likely, the man wanted to curse him for the intrusion, for what Alaric knew that the man did not want discovered.
It was too late for the man to have secrets when those secrets affected his family.
Alaric slipped the bangles from his pocket and shut them around the man’s wrist, the pooling over of bathwater back crawling up his trousers fully. Whatever curse sat on the edge of the man’s tied tongue fizzled out ineffectively while his dark, quivering wrists were circled in those flimsy bronze bands. They were small enchantments that would stifle even the darkest spells.
There was no struggle, which gave Alaric a stricter sense of urgency. Up until now, he’d taken his time, built himself up for a slow interrogation; the man would live, after all. And from what Alaric knew of him, the suffering in-between was not entirely undeserved. He had been watching, studying him, from a safe distance, the periphery of known existence. From a shadow wedged between dimensions. And though the man had walked a careful path, Alaric knew it was because the man had created a monster.
The caretaker would concern himself with that later. The monster in question was dead now, and her maker was in too poor a state to withstand even the gentlest questioning.
The man forced a response, mustering up the strain of a hundred crushed breaths. ‘Here to . . . kill me?’
‘No, Mr. Sum.’ Alaric propped the man against the side of the tub with a groan. The man didn’t seem fazed by the sound of his surname in a stranger’s mouth, though Alaric suspected he lacked the energy to seem much of anything at all. The care- taker clasped the man by his chin, examining his eyes, then his teeth, before delivering his verdict. ‘You’re not going to die today.’
Water pooled around Alaric’s leather shoes, trickling towards the front door of a humble – rather bleak – South London flat. It descended from each step of a rickety staircase before him with a faint hiss. The caretaker lowered himself to one knee, enough for the hem of his trousers to droop into the water but not his kneecap. Rolling up his shirt sleeve, Alaric let the water pass through his fingers and made a note to himself: Clear.
Then again, diluted with so much of it, he’d miss even the darkest colour of witch’s blood.
A soft, distinctly male whimper trickled down from the flooding loo.
So, his witch was still alive. This, Alaric had not expected. He smothered a spiteful urge growing in his stomach.
Mercy, mercy.
He was bound to this man’s survival, to being abundantly forgiving, which wasn’t much of a stretch from his general unwillingness to overexert himself on a job. Alaric rose again, throwing his shoulders back to protest against the ache in his body. He’d endured far too many years of this profession. The caretaker role would have long since drained any good man. Who could blame him for wanting one easy job when his muscles ached as much as they did – when he’d been carrying the weight of this thankless role for as long as he had.
Much of it was tedious. His days consisted mostly of paper- work, inventory, making sure that every borrowed magical artefact was within arm’s reach and returned to his care promptly. Sometimes, a low-ranking offshoot of the royal family would call upon him with a hush-hush task like demon banishing or divinatory reconnaissance, and he would have to pretend he hadn’t been singing songs about the downfall of the British monarchy every night straight through his youth.
This particular excursion, which had him skulking cautiously around every corner, should have been rarer. But fate had been rather unkind to him lately, and the only person he knew who could have ever truly made sense of it had disappeared eight long months ago.
He knew fate favoured patterns. One peculiar house call became two, then three; and this one, which was not technically a house call because it was a flat, marked the eighth visit of the past two months. Certainly the first that would follow him home.
And spell trouble for all of them.
At least it would be quick. Alaric’s silence on the matter of the witch in question meant he wouldn’t stand any trial with the council. He’d kept the peripheral details of the shapeshifting witch Leona Sum’s case as quiet as he could. He explained with the confidence of a man past the need for concern that Leona Sum had come and gone and left little mess to clean up.
What he did not say was that his town’s resident diviner, Gemma, was still gone, and her family, waiting for her back home, were reluctant to believe that Leona worked alone. He did not divulge the specificities of Theodore Ingram’s lying low on account of the accidental shattering of London’s Tate Modern Museum, though the council had begun to take interest in the influences stealing Alaric Friedman away from his work all the time. He was hiding something – they were all sure of it – but he remained seemingly, stubbornly oblivious to any and all inquiries regarding the current instability plaguing the witches of England due to Leona Sum’s violent harvesting of magic.
Which was a difficult balance of omission on both sides. The council was eager for Alaric to devote more to them – to give his unwavering commitment, sacrifice his loves, and divulge his dirty secrets, which included the large cover-up for Townsend’s new resident reaper. On the other hand, the boy grew restless in Townsend whenever Alaric left for too long, asking for his whereabouts when Alaric wanted to keep him as uninvolved in council assignments as possible.
He’d always had a soft spot for Gemma’s family, and Teddy Ingram was no different, woven into the sordid bunch with an invisible stitch. But there was only so much he could give in reassurance that he was doing everything in his power to find Townsend’s missing matriarch and bring her home.
Trust me, thought the caretaker as he pushed himself onto the last step, I’m tired too.
A limb, hidden past the elbow, poked out from behind the bathroom door. Alaric reached for the inner pocket of his leather jacket, tracing the ridges of two bronze bangles through the fabric.
He cleared his throat. The man’s wrist twitched in response, and he choked something unintelligibly. Alaric answered presumptuously.
‘Alaric Friedman. Your resident council seat—’
The witch pitched forward as a mucus-drowned cough leaked out. Bile spilled from the corner of his mouth. He’d been poisoned. Perhaps, he’d poisoned himself. Everything Alaric had learned about the man subverted whatever his former expectations had been, and he turned from villain to victim to vulnerable. In any circumstance, he should not have been the type of person who would drink his own draught of destruction.
The caretaker crossed over the body, twisting the shrill tap until the water stilled. Surely, the man wouldn’t care for Alaric’s title, or his duty, or the fact that he was bound by magical decree to keep the man alive. More likely, the man wanted to curse him for the intrusion, for what Alaric knew that the man did not want discovered.
It was too late for the man to have secrets when those secrets affected his family.
Alaric slipped the bangles from his pocket and shut them around the man’s wrist, the pooling over of bathwater back crawling up his trousers fully. Whatever curse sat on the edge of the man’s tied tongue fizzled out ineffectively while his dark, quivering wrists were circled in those flimsy bronze bands. They were small enchantments that would stifle even the darkest spells.
There was no struggle, which gave Alaric a stricter sense of urgency. Up until now, he’d taken his time, built himself up for a slow interrogation; the man would live, after all. And from what Alaric knew of him, the suffering in-between was not entirely undeserved. He had been watching, studying him, from a safe distance, the periphery of known existence. From a shadow wedged between dimensions. And though the man had walked a careful path, Alaric knew it was because the man had created a monster.
The caretaker would concern himself with that later. The monster in question was dead now, and her maker was in too poor a state to withstand even the gentlest questioning.
The man forced a response, mustering up the strain of a hundred crushed breaths. ‘Here to . . . kill me?’
‘No, Mr. Sum.’ Alaric propped the man against the side of the tub with a groan. The man didn’t seem fazed by the sound of his surname in a stranger’s mouth, though Alaric suspected he lacked the energy to seem much of anything at all. The care- taker clasped the man by his chin, examining his eyes, then his teeth, before delivering his verdict. ‘You’re not going to die today.’
(they/them) is a writer and illustrator in the United States. Raised in California and spirited away to Florida, then Oregon, Isabel is never writing in one place for too long. They are joined in their pursuit of good stories by a hefty grey cat named Mosse and at least one roommate at a time. Modern Divination is their first published novel at the crux of a hundred unpublished stories
