When one day magic turns to death, Iris Gray vows not to tell anyone that she is a witch.

It doesn’t matter that the Magic Council found her innocent, it doesn’t matter that her magic was once considered a miracle - one the night on the lake crossed everything out. Having moved to Washington state, Iris lives an ordinary life, hiding the fact that she is a witch. To cope with her worries and worries, she writes spells, but never uses them. She enjoys working at the sanctuary run by her mother, but their intern, ornithology student Pike Alder, only disgusts her because he hates witches.

One day, Pike says something particularly nasty about witches, and Iris decides to write a cruel curse for him. But just as she is about to burn the spell in the fire, an owl swoops down from a tree and steals it, then flies away from the reserve. This owl is a powerful amplifier, and if it dies, Iris's dark spell will fall not only on Pike, but on everyone in the area.

Iris and Pike are forced to go into the forest together to find the bird, due to fate on which his life depends, but he does not know the truth. There will be many dangers along the way, and Iris will have to decide how far she is willing to go to keep her secrets.