The Incandescent
by Emily Tesh

Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted May 10, 2026

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Emily Tesh's second novel is already on three award ballots (Nebula, Hugo, and Locus), and I suspect it might show up on a few others later into the year, particularly for British Fantasy. It is of a type generally referrred to as dark academia, although not all are necessarily about magic schools. I have only read a handful of that type, and most within the past few years, so I can't say how this compares. Some may focus more on the students, but the main character here is 38-year-old Dr. Sapphire Walden, Director of Magic at Chetwood School, an upper echelon boarding school which seems to adhere to British traditions I'm only familiar with from films, but I have to assume they are accurately depicted. Chetwood offers a wide curriculum even though specializing in magic. Dr. Walden had been a student of the school until graduating in 2003, then she was at Oxford for a degree in Sorcery, and later had other opportunities to use her magic elsewhere, but chose to come back to Chetwood to teach. One offer she had was in the US, from the Pentagon.

I need to be brief so as not to spoil, which would be extremely easy, so I'll give a brief outline of this alternate world. A world in which magic is not hidden, but known to exist, known and used in the world of business and the military. Boarding schools devoted to those who had shown magical ability at a young age are highly prized. Chetwood might not have been the first, but it is one of the oldest of such schools still extant. Its charter had been signed by King Henry VII. It had always attracted the gifted from wealthy families, but did not turn away those of lesser means, with several scholarships available. The Caretaker of the school, Ezekiel Cartwright, and his wife, the Matron Ebele, had four children of their own, but had fostered others over the years, including Nicola Conway, whom Dr. Walden considers the most talented teenage magician she had come across in nearly twenty years. The only other person I will name is Laura Kenning, the head of the paramilitary Marshal Corps at Chetwood, members of which know some basic magic, but mostly for defense.

There were things that I anticipated, and they did happen, but the manner in which they unfolded, and the aftermath was unexpected. One thing that was acknowledged by everyone is that any place inhabited by practicing magicians would attract the notice of demons, from small, mostly harmless imps, up to tenth level or higher demons. The one known to inhabit liminal spaces around Chetwood was called Old Faithful. Walden had encountered it as a student, and later as a teacher. She had little respect for the Marshal Corps, until Kenning aided her in the defeat of Old Faithful. Someone had to answer for that incursion, and in my opinion it should have been Walden, but Kenning bears the brunt of the school board's wrath, being removed from her position. She is still a Marshal, and goes back to London for more training, and she proves her mettle again when called on to fight another ascendant demon at the climax.

The magic and the demons are interesting, but it is the people dealing with them that makes the story better. The majority is written in omniscent third-person, with a bit of second-person narrative toward the end. Not everything is consistent in its logic, particularly how long it took for Walden and others to realize what had been happening to undermine the integrity of Chetwood's warding spells. As important as such schools were in training magicians for the future, you would think certain systems would have gone through more improvements over the years, or that more than two people would be responsible for the maintenance. And neither of those two were aware of the problem until it was almost too late. A few of those things almost detract from the more interesting elements, which are the fast pace of the action, and the detailed analysis of the characters' thoughts and motivations. Not my favorite read from 2025, but still very exciting and entertaining, and recommended.

 

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