“Almost no one was paying for magical boarding school because of the magic. The magic was an interesting quirk, a historical curiosity, in a few cases a genuine passion being indulged by a loving parent—but you didn’t pay fifty thousand pounds a year for magic tricks, any more than you paid it for Shakespeare or the respiratory system or the ability to solve quadratic equations. No: Chetwood’s school fees were insurance money, a policy taken out against the future. Let my child be safe. Let my child be happy. Let my child have every single possible chance at freedom, joy, hope, power. Because an elite education was an investment in power. Magic was the least of what you gained at Chetwood. What mattered was the power to walk the walk and talk the talk, to have your résumé picked out of the pile.”
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Emily Tesh has become one of my favorite fantasy writers from her Greenhollow Duology which contains two of the most incredible novellas I have ever read. The Incandescent is an absolute treasure of a novel that features an incredible world that I just fell in love with.
Chetwood is a magical boarding school where students can study different types of magic. Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood and she oversees all the administration tasks that come with such an important position but also still finds time to teach Invocation, which is the power of summoning demons to briefly use their magic for various purposes. Invocation is a dangerous form of magic, but Walden is a master of it. She even bears the tattoo of a phoenix, a powerful demon that is bound to her that she can call forth as needed.
Walden leads a very busy life, she has no time for much outside of her job, much to her dismay when she gets to know Marshal Laura Kenning, a demon hunter who Walden is immediately attracted to. When her students attempt a high level invocation without her approval or knowledge, a very powerful demon nearly threatens the school and it is up to Walden to put things to rights and continue to protect the school in the process.
This book blends all the best aspects of magic, dark academia and sapphic romance. Walden is incredibly intellligent, courageous when it comes to magic, and wary when it comes to love. I adored her character in every way. Emily Tesh introduces magic to the reader in a way that is both familiar and new. Chetwood is an incredible boarding school and having read some other fantastic dark academia novels in the past (Naomi Novik’s Scholomance trilogy to name one), I felt both at home and enthralled being within its walls. This is definitely a book you want to pick up. It’s gorgeous from start to finish and a perfect read for fans of dark academia.
Of Worlds Forgotten 
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