1649. The year Edinburgh burned.Scotland was cursed by witches and in 1649, the witch panic was at its peak. No-one was safe from the executioner's flames.Below the imposing behemoth of Edinburgh castle, nineteen year old Nessie Macleod is forced to watch her mother, Isabelle, burn to death for witchcraft. Her mother's crime stains her more than the ashes that scatter across the Esplanade. Shunned by Edinburgh's townsfolk, she's also hounded by the witch pricker, John Brodie. Brodie killed her mother and now he's coming for her.The daughter of a witch is always a witch.When old Annie Dickson is accused of cursing the flescher's pigs through witchcraft, she suffers for days at Brodie's hands before betraying three women and starting a witch hunt that sees one woman killed and another executed before the baying town.Nessie is lured to Greyfriars Kirkyard, where she's haunted by the ghosts of the women burned for witchcraft. They want revenge on Brodie and his men. Nessie learns her grandmother was executed during the North Berwick witch trials in 1597 for conspiring to kill King James VI. She left behind everything Nessie needs to stop Brodie and lay the witches' ghosts to rest. But using objects to harm people is witchcraft and there's only one penalty the courts will impose:Death."Never wish for the flames."