What happened in The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson - Recaptains

The basics

Title: The Shadow Cabinet

Author: Juno Dawson

Series: Her Majesty's Royal Coven #2

- Queen B (2024)
- Her Majesty's Royal Coven (2022)
- The Shadow Cabinet (2023)
- Human Rites (2025)

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Goodreads Summary:

Hidden among us is a secret coven of witches. They are Her Majesty’s Royal Coven. They protect crown and country from magical forces and otherworldly evil. But their greatest enemy will come from within.

There are whisperings of a prophecy that will bring the coven to its knees, and five best friends are about to be caught at the centre. Life as a modern witch was never simple … but now it’s about to get apocalyptic.

Here is a spoiler summary of what happened in The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson to help refresh your memory before you read the sequel. If you need help remembering what happened in The Shadow Cabinet then you’re in the right place.

What happened in The Shadow Cabinet?

• 35 years ago, in Galway, Ireland, Miranda Kelly travelled to Inishmann to find a witch called Mrs Cleary. Miranda thinks something is wrong with one of the babies that she is carrying. Mrs Cleary confirms that one of the twins will be good, the other will be evil.
• Ciara attends her own funeral. The other attendees obviously think they’re burying Ciara, but it’s actually Niamh in Ciara’s body. As you’ll recall, Ciara did a body swap at the end of book one and is now pretending to be Niamh.
• Ciara can’t remember much. She tries to get to grips with where the coven is at now. She’s upset that she was left in a coma for nine whole years.
• Moira Roberts is trying to get in touch with Niamh about her inauguration, but Ciara is ignoring her.
• Elle and Leonie think Niamh is acting weird, but they think it’s because Ciara just died and that’s totally normal.
• Leonie wants to find her brother, Radley, who was last seen in pursuit of Dabney Hale. Ciara decides to help find Radley in the hope it’ll lead her to Dabney.
• Luke, Niamh’s kind of boyfriend shows up, and doesn’t notice much wrong with Niamh.
• Ciara cuts her hair. She has to ask Theo to tidy it up for her because she looks terrible. Theo realises that Niamh is actually Ciara.
• Elle stresses over whether to remove Helena from the group chat. She talks to her husband, Jez, about Holly’s interest in witchy stuff. Jez doesn’t want this discussed in the house.
• Leonie and Chinara argue a bit over whether Ciara was fully stable. Leonie insists that she really liked her because she was ferocious. Leonie is worried about her brother, Radley, and decides she needs to go and find him.
• Ciara knocks Theo out and goes through her memories. She learns what happened to Helena. She erases some things from Theo’s memory so she no longer realises that Niamh is not Niamh.
• Demons, specifically Nybbas, talk to Ciara in her mind and ask her to let them in to play.
• Ciara teleports to the HMRC offices in Manchester for her (Niamh’s) coronation. The oracles show Leonie where her brother could be. In the vision, Ciara recognises a witch called Domino who has been dabbling in body swapping. She is forced to admit she knows her to be, you know, helpful and everything.
• Domino has been opening and running underground witchy clubs for decades, and she seems to have drawn in Radley on his search for Hale. Leonie decides to head to Italy to find her brother.
• Ciara realises that the Head Oracle, Irina, knows that she’s in Niamh’s body. Ciara goes to confront her, and Irina tells Ciara the prophecy about Theo and says Ciara must kill the child. Ciara asks if Irina is on glue.
• Theo stays with Elle for the night. Holly asks Theo if she fancies her brother, Milo. Theo says she doesn’t think of him that way.
• Ciara summons Lord Ose for help vanquishing a witch.
• Leonie heads to the Voodoo Lounge. She is unimpressed to find that Domino is keeping a woman called Senait there. Domino says Senait is an Ethiopian goddess.
• Leonie asks where her brother and Hale are. Domino doesn’t really give anything away, and leaves Leonie alone with Senait. Senait asks Leonie to help her escape. She gives Leonie a key and asks her to meet her later, and in return she’ll tell Leonie where to find Hale.
• Leonie leaves the Lounge and is attacked by warlocks, presumably hired by Hale. She fights them off.
• Ciara recalls a time at university when she first spoke to Helena and Dabney about letting demons into their bodies.
• Ciara goes to find Luke, Niamh’s kind-of-boyfriend, to sleep with him.
• Irina the Oracle is found dead.
• Ciara tells Elle that Jez is cheating on her.
• Leonie breaks Senait out of the villa. Senait knocks Domino out on the way out. Senait tells Leonie they have to go to Istanbul because Hale went there looking for the Seal of Solomon.
• Theo is at Elle’s house again, although only the teens are there. They wonder why they’re allowed pizza on a Wednesday and think something must be up. Milo says that Theo can look in his head to see if he might be a warlock – he’s not – and Theo sees that Milo quite fancies her.
• Elle and Ciara are camping out outside the hotel where Jez is having his affair. Ciara can tell he loves the other woman.
• Luke attends the “working men’s club”, whatever that means. His father is there, along with a bunch of other WITCHHUNTERS. Yep. Luke works for witch hunters. Apparently Luke’s mother was a witch and this set his dad off. The other men question Luke about Niamh and the other women in the village. It turns out that Luke was sent there on a mission to get close, confirm they’re witches, and then the men will kill them.
• HMRC sent Leonie some reading about King Solomon and the seal. Apparently the warlocks think Solomon was a warlock with a super powerful ring.
• Senait shares a bit about her past. She was a dancer in Ibiza when Domino found her, and she now just wants a quiet life by the sea.
• Ciara meets the new prime minister, Milner, as part of her Head Witch duties. He’s exactly what you would expect a posh Eton guy to be. His second in command, Harkaway, isn’t that great either.
• Selina asks Ciara for a word. She wants to try to promote covens and more warlock x witch relationships so that more witches will be born. There aren’t many left.
• Elle confronts Jez and uses her powers on him. Something terrible seems to happen at the end of the chapter although we’re not sure what yet.
• Elle returns home and Holly can tell something is wrong. Elle tells the teens that Jez has left them for another woman. Holly tries to read her mum’s mind but can’t get in. Theo refuses to try.
• Leonie meets with an acquaintance, Mehmet, in Istanbul and asks where Hale and Radley are. Mehmet tries to deceive them but then admits that Hale went into the mountains on an archaeological dig.
• Elle tells Jez’s colleague, Gary, that Jez has left and so she’s shutting down the shop for a while. She goes into the office and we see Jez – she has turned him into stone.
• Prime Minister Milner shows up at HMRC for a surprise visit. He’s very interested in the witch training rooms. Ciara shows off her powers and Harkaway smiles, and Ciara realises that she has given the government reason to fear witches.
• Leonie arrives at the dig site in Ankara. The archaeologists think they’ve found the Queen of Sheba. Leonie talks to one of them about the myth tying Sheba and Solomon together. The two were said to have fallen in love, and conceived a child together. Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba a ring.
• Milo invites Theo to a party. Theo declines. Holly sees them bonding and gets upset. Holly asks Theo to stay away from her brother and Theo agrees.
• Luke tells the witch hunters that he had found evidence of witchcraft in the village. He gives them Reverend Sheila Henry’s name so he doesn’t need to turn Niamh in. His father introduces him to a warlock called Ralph, who can read minds. He wants to help the men because he hates witches.
• Leonie jumps into a puddle, which is actually a water conduit – a tunnel to another place. She steps out and is surrounded by a crowd. They welcome her to Aeaea.
• That’s meant to be a mythical place It has been kept secret for women’s protection.
• Zehra shows Leonie the Seal. they found it at the dig site four months ago, and took it to Aeaea to hide it. Leonie warns them that Dabney Hale is looking for it. They ask if Leonie’s coven plans to stop him.
• Zehra and Leonie kiss, which is fine because Leonie has an open relationship. They fall asleep together.
• Ciara summons Helena’s ghost to find out why she has been having visions and memories of the past stirring. She wants to know why Helena woke her up from the coma. Helena/Belial says a demon made her do it. Belial attacks Ciara.
• Calista reaches out to Leonie in her mind and says they’ve been found and are under attack. Zehra is killed. Hale’s men have arrived, along with their leader. Hale grabs the Seal. He paid Senait to take Leonie to Aeaea.
• Elle returns to the garage and finds the other woman, Jessica, outside. She asks if Jez is really gone. Elle confirms that he is.
• Elle asks to meet Niamh at a cafe. She realises that she’s Ciara.
• Ciara is forced to tell Elle that Helena switched her body with Niamh’s. Elle shows Ciara what she did to Jez. They agree to help each other.
• Milo visits Theo and cuts his hand. He drips blood all over the Song of Osiris book. It reveals some words.
• The witch hunters drown Sheila. She fights back, but Luke’s dad kills her with a crossbow bolt.
• An Oracle tells the other HMRC witches that Leonie is in danger.
• Leonie has been taken to Russia. Hale has Radley there too, who is badly beaten. Hale plans to use Leonie to assassinate the Prime Minister.
• Theo has been reading the book. She realises that Niamh might have been drugging her with White Sorbus.
• Holly admits that she’s jealous of Milo because she fancies Theo.
• Luke has been imprisoned. He has a chat with his dad which isn’t very positive. He uses Sandman to knock out his guard and escape.
• Ciara learns that three witches are missing and wants to call off the coronation. Unfortunately she’s not in charge until the ceremony is complete.
• Luke barges in and admits he’s a witch hunter and was tasked to scout for witches in the village. He tells Ciara that Sheila is dead. Ciara tells him she’s not Niamh and starts to wipe his mind, but then she’s teleported away.
• The coronation happens and the ceremony is almost complete when Theo points out that Ciara is not Niamh. Everything becomes a bit chaotic while Ciara figures out that Theo stopped taking the drugs. Leonie also shows up, hexed, and determined to kill the PM.
• Ciara is teleported away to a restaurant by Hale.
• Chinara arrives and knocks Leonie out. Elle heals the PM.
• Ciara asks Hale while he brought her back. He says he loves her. Doubt. He wants her to be his Demon Queen. Ciara snaps his neck.
• Ciara puts the crown on her head. It’s painful at first. She recalls her mother taking her to a witch and asking if Ciara had demons. She recalls being told to kill Niamh, but coming across Conrad instead. She messed with their memories, wiping Conrad’s entirely and making Niamh believe she found Conrad’s body.
• Ciara unleashes carnage on the Great Manchester area. Peter, Luke’s dad, shoots her with a crossbow, which disrupts the whole thing. Luke arrives at a bad moment and tries to kill his dad for killing Niamh. His dad fights him off. Then Ciara wakes up.
• Ciara throws Peter off the top of the tower. Luke finally realises that Niamh is Ciara. Ciara tries to suffocate all the mundanes and Luke talks her out of it.
• Ciara destroys the Seal.
• Leonie is not charged with anything, although it’s partly because HMRC is in a bit of chaos. Ciara calls Leonie back to the village.
• Ciara goes to talk to the PM to tell him his own staff wanted him dead. Awkward.
• Theo moves in with Elle.
• Leonie, Chinara, and Ciara help Elle with the Jez problem. They question how she managed to turn her husband into a rock but she’s not sure. They bring Jez out of his rock state.
• Jez and Elle apologise to each other. Elle worries about what the kids will think, because they think their dad walked out. Jez asks what she means by “kids”. Weird question? Is this the rock talking?
• Jez tells Elle that they only have Holly. Milo was stillborn. What.
• The friends see Milo turn into another guy. Jude. Ciara’s ex.
• Jude stops time. He’s a demon. Actually, he’s Lucifer. He tells Ciara he’ll see her soon.
• A twig snaps. A pale foot enters the clearing. Ciara asks Theo what she has done.

That’s what happened in The Shadow Cabinet! Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!

Other recaps for this series:

• Her Majesty’s Royal Coven (Her Majesty's Royal Coven #1)