The Incandescent
by Emily Tesh
Contents
Overview
The Incandescent follows Dr Saffron Walden, Director of Magic at Chetwood School, an institution where talented teenagers learn to handle dangerous magic under constant threat from demons. Walden is a meticulous teacher and administrator whose life is built around risk assessments, wards, pastoral care, and the belief that supervised education is safer than fear or prohibition.
Her work is complicated by brilliant sixth-former Nikki Conway, whose childhood was marked by a fatal demonic incursion, and by Chief Marshal Laura Kenning, whose security-minded caution clashes with Walden’s academic authority. Around them orbit anxious students, overworked staff, aging magical infrastructure, and the ancient presence known as Old Faithful, a higher demon long tied to the school.
The novel blends school story, workplace fantasy, and supernatural crisis, exploring responsibility, trauma, privilege, teaching, institutional duty, and the ethical costs of power. Its central tension asks how far a teacher can go to protect students without becoming another danger herself.
Plot Summary ⚠️ Spoilers
Dr Saffron Walden, Director of Magic at Chetwood School, begins the story immersed in the mundane but serious work of magical safety. Preparing an Upper Sixth summoning lab, she clashes with Chief Marshal Laura Kenning, who wants prodigy Nikki Conway excluded because Nikki’s childhood incursion killed her family. Walden insists that structured supervision is safer than avoidance, and Kenning agrees to observe.
The lesson initially validates Walden’s methods: Nikki, Will Daubery, Mathias Wick, and Aneeta Shah identify a planted warding error and conduct fourth-order summonings. But Mathias, distracted after Will speaks out of turn, overcommits power and attracts a far stronger entity. Walden and Kenning fight it back, and Nikki’s quick use of a risk-form banishment helps save the class. Walden identifies the presence as Old Faithful, a tenth- or eleventh-order demon that has stalked Chetwood for centuries, including a fatal 2003 incident involving student Charles Green.
Walden and Kenning investigate Old Faithful’s history in the archives with Philomela Jones. Kenning argues the school should close; Walden counters that the demon follows Chetwood’s magical density and that dispersing students could spread the danger. They begin weekly coordination, but the immediate danger deepens when Aneeta reveals Nikki believes the demon killed her parents and has been studying archdemon arrays.
A major incursion erupts at School House, trapping Nikki and Mathias in the tower. Will impulsively runs inside, forcing Walden and Kenning to enter together. They rescue Will from a seventh-order archdemon, but Walden sends Kenning and Will out and continues alone. Guided by the ghost of former headmaster Rodney Merringham, she reaches Nikki and Mathias, seals a collapsing triple array, and leads them toward escape. Old Faithful then appears wearing Charlie Green’s dead body and voice.
To save Nikki and Mathias, Walden makes a blood-oath bargain: Old Faithful must release them, while she remains to fight. The demon honors the oath but nearly destroys her physically and psychologically, tormenting her with Charlie’s death. Kenning returns and gives Walden the opening to awaken the tenth-order Phoenix bound beneath her tattooed spellwork. Through Walden, the Phoenix overpowers Old Faithful, and Kenning kills Charlie’s possessed body with her runed sword. Because the Phoenix is itself dangerous, Walden swears a blood-geas giving Kenning power to act if it ever threatens the world.
After the crisis, Walden protects Nikki, Mathias, and Will from off-site removal and houses them under observation. She and Kenning share their formative failures: Walden’s reckless teenage summoning that killed Charlie, and Kenning’s guilt over Marshal failures after the Conway tragedy. A possible romance begins, but in the governors’ inquiry Kenning takes responsibility for security failures and is dismissed, while Walden is retained. Mark Daubery, Will’s uncle and an alumnus, is appointed to review and lead security. Kenning leaves Chetwood, and she and Walden mutually set aside a relationship.
Life at Chetwood continues under strain. Nikki nearly drops Invocation and considers abandoning magic, but Walden and Ebele Nwosu support her. Mark and Walden begin working together on patrols, then a casual sexual relationship. During planar sweeps, they find new demon activity after Old Faithful’s death; the Phoenix speaks in Walden’s mind, teaches a territorial form of banishment, and grows more active. Walden tries to define teaching for it as helping a smaller self become stronger, even as staff and students remain anxious.
At Christmas, Walden goes to a London staff party where Mark flirts with her and Laura unexpectedly appears. Outside, Walden and Mark kiss just before multiple wild incursions tear open in Covent Garden. Walden channels the Phoenix to create visible perimeters, Laura arrives to reinforce wards and dispatch demons, and Marshals led by Chief Arjun Ramamurthy later question Walden suspiciously. Mark extracts her from scrutiny, Laura warns that both Mark and the Phoenix are dangerous, and Walden goes home with Mark.
In the spring, a Year Nine possession incident exposes serious ward failures. Walden, Todd Cartwright, and David Bern begin auditing Chetwood’s old thaumic engines. When Nikki considers rejecting her Oxford offer out of guilt, Walden reveals her own culpability in Charlie’s death and argues that responsibility means learning rather than self-punishment. Their conversation makes Walden consider deliberate sabotage. She realizes Mark may have accessed the engine room, but instead of alerting Ramamurthy, she investigates alone.
Walden finds a school umbrella Mark had cursed to lure demons, confirming that he engineered threats to test her Phoenix. She confronts him, but the Phoenix’s territorial fury overtakes her. It fully indwells Walden, manipulating staff, blocking communications, and treating Chetwood as its protected domain. Nikki, Aneeta, Will, and Mathias realize adults are compromised and secretly leave for London to seek Laura Kenning. Their absence activates Walden’s geas, drawing Laura back to Chetwood.
Laura teams with Todd, who understands that the Phoenix is anchored in Walden, the school, the engines, and hidden magic. Todd smashes the thaumic engines, weakening the Phoenix but causing Chetwood to slide toward the demonic realm. Laura duels the Phoenix at Charlie’s memorial as the grounds burn. The Phoenix reveals a further anchor: Mark held in stasis through an array tied to Charlie’s corpse. The horror lets Walden surface long enough to tell Laura to cut off her tattooed right arm. Laura obeys, breaking the binding; Walden begs the Phoenix to hold the school stable as reality buckles.
Walden wakes in a warded NHS hospital with her arm amputated. Ramamurthy confirms Chetwood is temporarily stable, Mark survived, and Mark’s hidden curseworkings are under investigation. Laura visits with a card from Nikki, Aneeta, Will, and Mathias, whose futures show the value of Walden’s teaching. The Phoenix remains bound to Chetwood’s magical shadow, guarding its territory against rival demons. Walden decides she does not want to return to Chetwood, but new grants for magical teaching in state schools suggest another path. She and Laura finally choose a serious relationship, and Walden begins rebuilding her life, work, and sense of self beyond Chetwood.
Characters
- Dr Saffron WaldenChetwood’s Director of Magic, an expert invoker, teacher, and administrator whose identity is built around protecting students through rigorous education and safety systems. Her past responsibility for Charlie Green’s death, her bond with the Phoenix, and her devotion to Chetwood drive both her heroism and her gravest mistakes.
- Laura KenningChief Marshal at Chetwood who initially clashes with Walden over risk, Nikki Conway, and school security. She becomes Walden’s essential ally against Old Faithful and later the Phoenix, sacrificing career security and ultimately choosing a committed relationship with Walden.
- Nikki ConwayA brilliant sixth-form magician whose childhood incursion killed her family, making her both unusually capable and deeply traumatized. Her study of archdemon arrays triggers the School House crisis, but her intelligence, moral seriousness, and later Oxford plans also embody Walden’s hopes for teaching.
- Will DauberyA confident and privileged Upper Sixth student whose impulsiveness worsens early dangers and leads him to rush into School House after Nikki and Mathias. He matures through the aftermath, supports his friends, and plans to study Sorcery at Christ Church.
- Mathias WickA powerful but anxious student whose overcommitted summoning attracts the first major threat in class. He is later trapped with Nikki, struggles with confidence, senses the oath-binding during the Phoenix’s takeover, and plans a gap year followed by Marshal apprenticeship.
- Aneeta ShahA careful, loyal sixth-former who alerts Walden to Nikki’s dangerous research and repeatedly supports Nikki through crisis. She helps organize the students’ response to the Phoenix and later heads toward biochemistry at Imperial.
- Old FaithfulThe ancient higher demon tied to Chetwood for centuries, repeatedly testing the school’s defenses and feeding on its magical density. It wears Charlie Green’s body during the School House incursion and forces Walden to confront her oldest guilt.
- The PhoenixA tenth-order demon bound beneath Walden’s tattoos, initially used as a desperate weapon against Old Faithful. It grows more articulate and territorial, teaches Walden new forms of banishment, then possesses her and tries to remake Chetwood as its protected domain.
- Mark DauberyWill’s uncle, a Chetwood alumnus, and the consultant appointed to overhaul school security after Laura’s dismissal. Charming and politically connected, he becomes Walden’s casual lover while secretly planting demon-luring curses to test her control of the Phoenix.
- Todd CartwrightChetwood’s site manager and Keymaster, responsible for the Great Key, practical infrastructure, and deep knowledge of the school’s warded systems. His warnings about neglected maintenance prove important, and his destruction of the thaumic engines helps break the Phoenix’s hold.
- Ebele NwosuSchool House caregiver, Matron, and Nikki’s foster mother, central to the pastoral care surrounding Nikki after the incursion. She presses Walden to intervene when Nikki considers rejecting Oxford and helps frame trauma as something requiring support rather than punishment.
- Reverend EzekielA Chetwood teacher and pastoral figure who teaches Invocation ethics and helps protect students during crises. His lessons on consent and demonic personhood support the book’s broader concern with power, responsibility, and care.
- David BernChetwood’s Headmaster, who manages governors, media pressure, and institutional fallout after the major incursions. He supports Walden during investigations and authorizes urgent reviews when the school’s warding failures become systemic.
- Lilly TibbettA newly qualified Evocation teacher whose anxiety and inexperience place her close to several later crises. She raises the alarm during the Year Nine possession incident and later triggers evacuation when the Phoenix endangers the grounds.
- Philomela JonesChetwood’s archivist-librarian, whose records provide Walden and Kenning with the school’s long history of Old Faithful incidents. Her knowledge helps establish that the demon’s presence is institutional and centuries old.
- Charlie GreenWalden’s schoolmate and boyfriend who died in the 2003 summoning that shaped her life and career. Old Faithful uses his preserved body and memories to torment Walden, and Charlie’s remains later become part of the Phoenix’s hidden anchoring system.
- Chief Arjun RamamurthyA senior Marshal who questions Walden after the Covent Garden incursions and later investigates Mark’s curseworkings. He represents the official scrutiny Walden avoids too long when she first suspects sabotage.
- Dr Rosalind ChanWalden’s former partner, now a successful magical researcher in California, who gives a careers talk at Chetwood. Her views on compromise, money, and power sharpen Walden’s reflections on Mark, Laura, privilege, and principle.
- Rodney MerringhamA former Chetwood headmaster who died in 1926 while attempting to destroy Old Faithful. His ghost guides Walden through the warped School House incursion toward Nikki and Mathias.
- Professor Roger RollinsA consultant involved after the Phoenix crisis, connected to grants for establishing magical teaching in state schools. His work points Walden toward a possible future outside Chetwood.
- NoorA Year Nine student possessed by a third-order demon during the spring term warding failures. Her exorcism and asthma crisis reveal that Chetwood’s defenses have been compromised beyond ordinary nuisance possessions.
- AlfieA Year Nine student carrying a weak imp linked to a contraband Nintendo Switch in his dormitory. His case begins as a disciplinary problem but helps expose a wider pattern of demonic infiltration.
- MorrisA Year Nine student who admits sourcing the unauthorized console that attracted an imp. His confession helps Walden separate ordinary student misconduct from the more serious unexplained ward breach.
Themes
Emily Tesh’s The Incandescent is, at heart, a fantasy of safeguarding: not simply defeating demons, but asking what it means to be responsible for young people, institutions, and dangerous knowledge.
- Duty of care versus control. Dr. Sapphire Walden’s world is built from risk assessments, ward checks, forms, and emergency procedures, yet the novel repeatedly tests whether systems can truly protect anyone. The early dispute with Laura Kenning over Nikki’s participation frames the central tension: exclusion may look like safety, but education under supervision can be safer than fear-driven prohibition. Later, Walden’s refusal to let Marshals remove traumatized students, and her painstaking pastoral work with Nikki and Mathias, show care as active, bureaucratic, emotional, and imperfect.
- Teaching as an ethical vocation. The classroom scenes are not incidental; they define Walden’s morality. She plants errors for students to find, debriefs failure, annotates Mathias’s mock paper to reveal possibility rather than inadequacy, and helps Nikki see that self-punishment is not responsibility. Even the Phoenix learns through Walden’s teacherly habits, a motif that becomes unsettling when instruction turns into possession. The book suggests that teaching is power—but power that must be disciplined by humility and consent.
- Institutions as both shelter and danger. Chetwood is magical, beloved, exclusionary, historically compromised, and genuinely protective. Old Faithful feeds on the school’s density and history; Mark exploits its hierarchies and access; the governors prioritize reputation. Yet the school also gives vulnerable sorcerers structure, community, and a future. The debate over privilege, scholarships, and state magical education broadens the novel beyond one boarding school into a question of who gets protected and who is left exposed.
- Trauma, guilt, and the refusal of martyrdom. Nikki’s family tragedy, Walden’s loss of Charlie, Laura’s guilt over failed Marshal outreach, and Mathias’s panic all show trauma as something that distorts judgment. Walden’s bargain with Old Faithful and later surrender to the Phoenix reveal the seduction of sacrifice. The ending rejects heroic self-erasure: Walden survives, disabled and changed, and must rebuild rather than atone forever.
- Partnership over solitary competence. Walden often writes herself as the mitigation, but the novel proves no one can be the whole answer. Nikki’s quick banishment, Todd’s destruction of the engines, Laura’s oathbound intervention, and the students’ escape all save Chetwood. The final movement toward Laura and toward new forms of teaching imagines safety not as individual mastery, but as trust, distributed responsibility, and love.