Kitaine Neris Series Recap
The Vanish Witch
All witches are born with a little bit of magic. Throughout their lives they can strengthen their magic by drawing on the ley lines, which are veins of raw magic deep within the earth. However, over three hundred years ago a group of witches tried to draw exponential power from the ley lines but only succeeded in destroying themselves and draining the lines. Thus, witches were no longer able to strengthen their magic, leaving them only with the small amount of magic they were born with.
Kitaine Neris is a Vanish Witch whose magic can make things disappear. When working with her coven, Kit Vanishes things like garbage and weapons swept off the streets, but Kit’s magic is a bit stronger than other witches: she can Vanish people. For the past couple years, Kit has used her magic to go after the violent and corrupt in her city, Vonuis, to make it a bit safer. However, due to a tragic misstep, Kit accidentally Vanishes her boyfriend, Marrik.
As Kit continues to go after marks and tries to cope with Marrik’s loss, she’s approached by Paluna Montclair, a witch who asks Kit to Vanish her husband Linton Gladstone, one of the council members of the High Coven, the governing body of witches. Paluna reveals that rumors that witches with stronger magic are being kidnapped by the High Coven so their magic can be imbued into amulets are true. Witch magic runs in the blood, and the only outcome for the kidnapped witches is death. Kit had recently met teenaged twins, Phinra and Milene, whose mind-based Memoria magic was targeted by the High Coven’s grab teams. The twins were saved and are now under the protection of Kit’s sibling Jiano, who is the Madame of a bordello, Kiss and Hex. Paluna, who is descended from one of the witches who overtaxed the ley lines, has spent years building a skilled network of operatives with the objective of toppling the corrupt High Coven and putting an end to their brutality against witches. Kit is compelled to join Paluna’s cause despite the risks, but when she tries to Vanish Gladstone at Kiss and Hex, she doesn’t realize he is wearing one of his experimental amulets, which contains magic that repels. Thus, Kit’s magic is blown back onto her and she Vanishes.
But instead of disappearing, Kit ends up in a dark, desolate pocket world called Elsewhere and realizes that for a few hundred years, anything Vanish Witches used their magic on ended up there. Elsewhere also contains a portion of the ley lines from Kit’s world. That means Kit has ended up in a world full of garbage, weapons, and every bad soul ever Vanished; including all her marks, who are thirsty for revenge.
But Kit didn’t end up in Elsewhere alone. Remington, a ghost bound to an amulet that’s been with her family for hundreds of years, takes the trip with her. Remi also has strong feelings for Kit, though Kit has been dismissive of them. They encounter an enigmatic witch name Onyx who has the magical abilities of all witch classes. Onyx was one of the witches who drained the ley lines and ended up creating a tear in the world which dragged in some of the ley lines. Using the tremendous magic she pulled from the lines, Onyx created a pocket world and has remained there ever since. Afterward, the ley lines pulled in anything that was Vanished from the real world to Elsewhere. When Onyx realized criminals were appearing, she turned Elsewhere into a hellish wasteland to keep them uncomfortable.
Onyx tells Kit and Remi if they can get rid of most of the criminals, called Blights, she will bring down the walls of Elsewhere and send them back to their world. The condition is set to ensure the Blights don’t return as well. Kit agrees, and Onyx guides Kit through strengthening her magic on Elsewhere’s ley lines so she will be strong enough to execute a plan that can Vanish more people at once.
But Blights weren’t the only ones who ended up in Elsewhere, and Kit has an intense reunion with Marrik, who fell in with a group who fight Blights and save people from the errant magic that exists in Elsewhere. As Kit and Marrik navigate their complicated reunion, they enact a plan to get rid of the Blights. After the plan goes awry, it all comes down to a tense showdown with a group of Blights where a way out seems impossible. That is until Remi, whose ghostly magic is a Withering Touch of decay, unleashes his magic to the fullest. Amplified by the ley lines, Remi Withers the Blights, Onyx, … and himself.
As it turns out, all they needed to do to escape Elsewhere was to destroy Onyx. At the last moment, Kit has a strange moment with Onyx, Remi’s desiccated ghost, and a touch that Onyx calls a ‘gift.’ Then, Elsewhere collapses and Marrik and Kit return to their world.
The Vanish Tide
After returning from Elsewhere, Kit and Marrik try to adjust back to their lives, an especially difficult task for Marrik who was in Elsewhere much longer. Kit is happy to be reunited with her parents and sibling, Jiano. Kit also struggles to accept that Remi withered in Elsewhere. Now that Elsewhere is gone, the ley lines have flowed back to the world, strengthening them. Their return sent a jolt of power through every witch, giving them a boost in magic but causing them to momentarily lose control of it, which caused various issues. That witches grew stronger in an instant and can now draw on the lines again has spiked the agitation of anti-witch groups. Kit, who is now the strongest witch in the world, becomes a target for those who think she will use her Vanish magic recklessly.
Along with rising unrest from the hate groups, Kit is caught in the crosshairs of Linton Gladstone after attempting to Vanish him. Kit is apprehended and made to wear suppression gloves that cut her off from her magic. However, Paluna orchestrates a plan to free her and puts Kit and the story of Elsewhere in the spotlight, hoping her rising popularity as the ‘Savior of the Ley Lines’ will make the High Coven hesitate to retaliate against her. While Kit grapples with being in the public eye, she comes to realize that Onyx saved Remi before he Withered completely, putting what was left of him within his amulet. When Kit’s consciousness is able to visit Remi in the amulet, she somehow morphs the dark landscape into a beautiful scene, similar to something Onyx did in Elsewhere. Kit has yet to understand the ‘gift’ Onyx left her with but has been seeing it manifest in ways she can’t control.
Meanwhile, the jolt of power that occurred when the ley lines returned caused Magnes Witches to inadvertently pull down several sky islands that had been orbiting outside of earth’s atmosphere after their stability could no longer be maintained. One of them, Nimbisu, poses a threat to Vonuis as it starts to fall. To stop it, Gladstone recruits Kit and introduces her to a Vanish Witch named Saffron who can teach Kit higher abilities of her magic. A Vanish Tide, which is the ability to Vanish something from a distance, can make Nimbisu disappear before it crashes. Kit also learns how to do a Vanish Shift, which is the ability to move something from one location to another using an anchor of her blood and magic.
But while the threat of Nimbisu looms, the witch haters strike, first attempting to drown Kit and other witches in a shipping container that was set up for them to test their stronger magic. Elliot, a member of Kit’s coven, drowns, along with several other witches. As Kit contends with the target on her back, she also contends with Marrik’s witch-hating family, who are desperate to get Marrik away from Kit. Namira, Marrik’s cousin, is initially hostile toward Kit but attempts to help them by providing intel on what the rest of Marrik’s family might be planning.
Kit also gets a surprise from Paluna in the form of Remi’s bones, which were used by Kit’s ancestor to call his ghost from the Afterlife and bind him to the amulet. When Kit tells Paluna that Remi is in the amulet, Paluna believes that if Remi’s ghost can be restored, they could look into bringing him back to life since Paluna’s Regressa magic can revert his bones back to his body once she becomes stronger. This gives Kit hope that Remi could one day get what he desires most: life.
Things with the witch haters reach a boiling point when Jiano’s bordello is set on fire. Kit attempts to save everyone by using a Vanish Shift to send them to the location of the anchor at her apartment. However, she comes to the horrifying realization that subterfuge by Namira caused her anchor to end up on Nimbisu, and thus, her parents, Jiano, and numerous members of the bordello are now on a sky island whose crash into Vonuis is imminent.
Kit faces a terrible choice: either she uses a Vanish Tide to save Vonuis from Nimbisu and loses her friends and family, or does nothing and loses them, and many others, when Nimbisu crashes. However, Kit realizes that combining a Vanish Tide and Vanish Shift to perform a Shifting Tide, an extremely powerful Vanish ability, could save everyone. After recruiting help to get an anchor of her blood and magic out to open water, Kit strengthens her magic on the ley lines then heads to the top of the High Coven’s tower where she unleashes a Shifting Tide and relocates Nimbisu to one of Vonuis’ rivers.
Kit’s friends and family are saved. But the damage to Kit and Marrik’s relationship due to Namira’s actions causes Kit to break up with him. While being comforted by her family, Milene uses Memoria magic to recreate a memory of Remi in an attempt to cheer Kit up. When Remi’s amulet comes into contact with the memory of him, Remi’s withered ghost fuses to the memory and fully restores his ghost. Kit, who realizes how much she doesn’t know about all the ways various magics can work together, is overjoyed to have Remi back.
Kit, Jiano, and Remi head to Paluna’s spy chamber to catch up but are shocked to find it empty of everyone and everything, which includes Remi’s bones. Linton Gladstone shows up and Kit realizes that the suppression gloves, which she was forced to keep and were embedded with tracking technology, were responsible for revealing Paluna’s spy chamber to him. Paluna is now in Gladstone’s grips, as well as Remi’s bones, and Gladstone makes it clear that Kit is his to command. But despite now being under Gladstone’s thumb, Kit is determined to take him down one way or another.
The Vanish Requiem
Kit is under the thumb of Linton Gladstone, one of the six members of the High Coven, after he discovered his wife Paluna was operating against him and made Paluna disappear. With Paluna’s whereabouts unknown, Kit has no choice but to do as Gladstone bids to ensure Paluna’s safety. Thus, Kit, her sibling Jiano, and several members of Jiano’s bordello, known as Hexes, participate in a high fashion photoshoot on Nimbisu, a former sky island that was enroute to crash into the city before Kit unleashed a high level ability of her magic called a Shifting Tide to relocate the island to open water. Jiano, Kit’s parents, and the Hexes ended up on the sky island while it was falling due to the actions of witch haters. Gladstone is using Kit’s triumph over diverting a tragedy by unleashing a splashy media campaign centered around Kit and the good that can come from strong witch magic.
Kit takes a walk across the island where she is joined by Remi, an amulet bound ghost who is in love with her and snuck onto the island. Remi’s bones were found by Paluna’s team but are now in Gladstone’s possession after he swept into her secret base. While conversing, they spot a suspicious person emerging from underground who takes off running. A large, strange skull full falls out of his bag before he retrieves it and continues running. While chasing him, the ground gives out under Kit and falls. She comes across a cave full of witch items and finds a body on a stone bier. The body wakes up and attacks her, unleashing magic Kit has never experienced. However, due to the lack of oxygen, Kit and her attacker pass out.
Kit awakens in the High Coven tower. Saffron, a Vanish Witch who works closely with Gladstone, brings her to converse with Gladstone over the comatose body of the witch who attacked her. They’re joined by Maira, a Mortem Witch who is a coven Guardian Kit is acquainted with. Maira works in the Forensics and Cremation department of the HC. Kit’s attacker was an Effingo Witch, whose magic lies in duplication. Millennia ago, Effingo Witches, their god, and another class of witches with stop magic called Finis were targeted by the other witch gods due to gross misuse of their magic. The Effingo and Finis gods and their entire classes of witches were eradicated. Saffron and Gladstone theorize that the Effingo Witch was put into stasis with the skull of the Effingo god, which was the skull Kit saw that person run off with. They believe that the Effingo has a plan to bring their witch god back, which is something Gladstone does not want to happen. He demands Kit’s help with retrieving the skull using her Vanish abilities and forces her to Vanish the Effingo Witch.
At home, Kit reconnects with her family. She converses with Remi, who opens up about his past as an amulet bound ghost. Remi once again declares his feelings for Kit, who reckons with the fact that her feelings for Remi have changed. But her complicated feelings for her ex-boyfriend Marrik make it confusing for her to know what to do.
Kit wonders if a tracking spell could be used to find Paluna and asks her mother, Nollari, a Regen Witch. Unfortunately, they would need a personal item of Paluna’s to track her. However, they have a fragment of Remi’s knuckle bone, which is fused to his amulet, and realize they can use that to track his bones. Nolla performs the spell and the next day Kit, Jiano, and Remi are shocked when they track his bones to the High Coven tower.
Kit goes to her office and meets meeting with Emmala Jett, the head of Witch and Normie Relations. Emmala received an encrypted flash drive along with a message to seek Kit out. Emmala believes there might be information on the flash drive related to the growing list of missing Normies which is tied to the rumor that Normies have been used to kidnap witches for the High Coven. Kit believes Paluna orchestrated for Emmala to get the flash drive since part of Paluna’s plan to bring down the HC was to involve the Normie government, but Kit doesn’t understand why she directed Emmala to her knowing she can’t decrypt the flash drive. Nevertheless, Kit tells Emmala she will try to help.
Kit gets a call that her coven-mate Elliot’s ghost appeared near the site of his death in The Bramble. Several weeks prior, a witch hater attack caused Elliot to drown, an event that would have killed many others, including Kit, had she not Vanished the shipping container they’d been locked into. Kit rushes to The Bramble where she’s met with Elliot’s ghost and distraught parents. Kit’s coven Guardian along with Maira asks if she would participate in a ritual called a Vanish Requiem along with Milene, one of the two teenage Memoria Witches in Jiano’s care after they were saved from their abusive foster family. Milene has stronger Memoria magic, and with Kit’s strong Vanish magic they can Vanish the memory of Elliot’s death and soothe him with a fond memory to help him cross over.
Kit asks Milene if she’d help but Milene insists that Phinra can do it because she’s just as strong as she is. More details about the twin’s abusive past comes to light and Kit and Jiano realize that Milene has revenge in her heart. Phinra agrees to do the Vanish Requiem and a couple days later they send Elliot’s ghost to the Afterlife peacefully.
Kit gets a call from Gladstone that the Effingo god’s skull was found at an illegal underground witch market and he wants Kit to go undercover and use a Vanish Shift to retrieve it. Maira accompanies Kit to get ready for the operation. After heading into the market, Kit is recognized by the skull thief and chaos breaks, leading Kit to chase him down before she’s able to Shift the skull and thief. Kit is then lost in the tunnels, however she is suddenly whisked away by an unknown person.
Kit comes face to face with the Effingo Witch she thought she Vanished, whose name is Blanquillard. Blanq made a duplicate of himself and that is what Kit Vanished. Blanq explains the demise of the Effingo and Finis Witches from his perspective, and as Kit thought, it’s not as black and white as Gladstone thinks. Blanq asks for Kit’s assistance in retrieving his god, Xyn’nabria’s, skull so he can fulfil the task he was left with, which was to bring them back to life so their class of witches can thrive again. Kit is hesitant, but in return, Blanq offers to teach her the magic of resurrection, which would allow Kit to bring Remi back to life. Kit agrees to assist but after their conversation she is still lost in the tunnels.
Kit is soon found by Jupiter, a member of Paluna’s spy team who was tasked with keeping an eye on Kit. During their conversation Kit realizes that she was meant to turn the flash drive Emmala received over to someone on Paluna’s team since it was likely they’d crossed paths. Sending the drive to Kit first was Paluna’s way of pacing when Emmala received the information she needed. Jupiter helps Kit get out and promises to follow up with the decrypted drive.
Kit reconvenes with Gladstone after the mission and continues to clash with him over their differing ideals as Gladstone is more than willing to make deadly sacrifices for what he believes is the greater good of witches. Kit also learns that powerful spell work in the HC tower has saved them from devastating events like lunar storms that blow down fiery sediment from the moons Cebis and Aulura. At home, Kit reconnects with her family.
The re-opening day for Kiss and Hex arrives after it was damaged by a fire started by witch haters. Kit and her family enjoy the re-opening. Maira attends and Kit chit-chats with her. Kit dances with Remi, who again expresses his feelings, making Kit wish she could give him more as she continues to be aware of her feelings for him. Then, to Kit’s surprise, Marrik shows up. Kit had previously been sending text messages to Marrik that were undelivered. Marrik explains that he joined the Task Force in an adjunct role in order to use his connection to his witch hating family to try and bring them to justice for their attacks on Kit and other witches. This includes his cousin Namira who escaped accountability for everything she did. Kit isn’t happy that Marrik joined the Task Force but can understand why. The emotions between them continue to be fraught. Just as they’re getting close, Jiano informs them that Milene and Phinra have disappeared.
Kit, Jiano, and Marrik track Phinra’s phone to their foster family’s house. Before they can stop them, the twins use Memoria magic and they are knocked out. Kit is pulled into a mind bend of her, Marrik, and Remi together in a way that turns spicy. Kit is able to pull herself out of the mind bend and is greeted by Gladstone, who had been tracking Kit. Phinra and Milene are taken into custody for the gruesome attack and Gladstone plans to make them an example of how they deal with witches who misuse their magic.
Kit is forced to attend a rally where Gladstone plans to continue using her as well as reveal the Effingo god's skull. All six members of the HC are present. While there, she shockingly comes across Paluna and realizes that Gladstone has her under intense Memoria magic as she does not recognize Kit and is not acting like herself. During the rally, ghostly Wither magic breaks out. Three members of the HC council are killed and the god’s skull disappears.
The next day an unhappy Blanq arrives at Kit’s apartment to lament that he has not acquired his god’s skull yet. Jupiter arrives with the decrypted flash drive, which contains the names of Normies who were used by the HC to kidnap witches and then killed. Kit is shocked to come across the name of Maira’s son, Thorne. She finally pieces things together and realizes that Maira had been lying when she talked about her son being on a backpacking trip when his social media reveals the trip happened a year ago. She then realizes that Maira’s department must have been given the body of her son to burn as a John Doe, which was how the HC covered their tracks, then summoned his ghost and found out how he was killed. Maira was standing next to the god’s skull at the rally and has been MIA ever since. After revealing that he has one of Xyn’nabria’s teeth, Kit has her mother do a tracking spell.
They end up in underground tunnels and find Maira with her son’s ghost as well as the skull. Maira plans to summon Xyn’nabria and bind them to an amulet so she can use their tremendous Wither magic to enact revenge on the HC. She summons the god’s ghost, but binding Xyn’nabria to an amulet does not work and Xyn’nabria renders her unconscious before leaving with Blanq, declaring that they can sense where the rest of their bones are.
Kit, Remi, and Jupiter catch up to Xyn’nabria and Blanq at the High Cover tower and meet up with Marrik. An enraged Xyn’nabria realizes that their bones were ground up and used to build the tower. Kit realizes that it was the god’s bones that powered the spells in the tower. In their intense rage, Xyn’nabria unleashes their Wither magic and the tower starts to collapse. Marrik enters the tower to retrieve Jiano and Calla as well as Phinra and Milene. Kit asks the twins to help her perform a Vanish Requiem to Vanish the memory of Xyn’nabria’s death. Afterward, they soothe Xyn’nabria with a memory from Blanq. Though forlorn that they and the Effingo class will not live again, Xyn’nabria is comforted by the fact that there is still an Effingo Witch in the world who can carry on their legacy and fades to the Afterlife. Kit and everyone else escape the collapsing tower and have to reckon with the fact that Remi’s bones were in the tower and there is no way to save them.
A few days later, Kit, Remi, and her family are celebrating Jiano’s birthday. Remi has refused to talk about the loss of his bones and Kit is heartbroken for him. She finally admitted she has feelings for him but can’t give him anything else. When Kit gets a message from Jupiter to head to the back yard, she’s surprised when she meets Saffron there. And even more surprised when Saffron reveals the box with Remi’s bones. It turns out that Saffron was part of Paluna’s team all along and saved Remi’s bones before the tower collapsed. Remi and everyone else are overjoyed that his bones were saved. Jupiter arrives with Paluna, who was also rescued and is now free of the Memoria magic. Marrik and Blanq, who is now living with Marrik, also arrive. Blanq intends to uphold his promise to help them bring Remi back to life. Paluna lets Kit know that it is almost time to strike down the High Coven once and for all. Despite everything, Kit finally feels as though she is no longer a pawn on the game board.