All of Us Villains

***All Of Us Villains*** is the first book in the duology by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman. It follows four characters, Alistair Lowe, Isobel Macaslan, Gavin Grieve, and Briony Thorburn, in the days leading up to and beginning a centuries old competition for magick between their families and three others.

## Dedication

> *For Trevor and Ben, HAGS*
>
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## Summary

The Blood Moon rises. The Blood Veil falls. The Tournament begins.

Every generation, at the coming of the Blood Moon, seven families in the remote city of Ilvernath each name a champion to compete in a tournament to the death.

The prize? Exclusive control over a secret wellspring of high magick, the most powerful resource in the world--one thought long depleted.

But this year a salacious tell-all book has exposed the tournament and thrust the seven new champions into the worldwide spotlight. The book also granted them valuable insight previous champions never had -- insight into the other families' strategies, secrets, and weaknesses. And most important, it gave them a choice: accept their fate or rewrite their legacy.

Either way, this is a story that must be penned in blood.

## Plot

After twenty years, the blood moon has risen again, signaling two weeks until the Tournament.

Alistair Lowe and his brother, Hendry Lowe, visit the Magpie, a pub in Ilvernath. We learn that, though nothing is set in stone, Alistair is the projected Champion for the Lowe family, and that they have won "two tournaments for every three" (4). There, Alistair is intercepted by Isobel Macaslan, another Champion. She and Alistair each cast a curse on one another, leaving equal impressions. The next day, Isobel is at a graveyard with her family, waiting for the chance to collect magick from the recently buried. The funeral party don't want them there, and Isobel apologizes, but they won't hear it. Later, she visits the spellmaker Reid MacTavish's shop in town with her father in tow. They ask him to make the *Roach's Armor*, so she can use it in the tournament, and while he works, Isobel steals the instructions for a death curse.

Elsewhere in Ilvernath, Gavin Grieve attends the wedding of his sister, Callista, to Roland Payne. The Grieves are considered by many to be the weakest in the tournament, suffering loss after loss as each one goes by. There has never been a Grieve victor thus far, but Gavin is determined to be different. A fight breaks out between his younger brother, Fergus, and one of the younger Payne boys—Gavin puts a stop to it with a class three *Hold in Place,* but Briony Thorburn notices the scuffle and intervenes, claiming there's no guarantee the boys wouldn't start fighting again once he took the spell away. She uses a *Know Your Enemy* spell, prompting both boys to see things from the other's point of view, and leaves with an offhanded remark on Gavin's lack of power.

Later that week, Briony Thorburn waits in her family's ampitheatre, along with her sister, Innes Thorburn, and a distant cousin named Emmett. The three of them are awaiting their final test, the one that will show who deserves to be their family's champion. Elder Malvina and Elder Jasmit say that they are going to hold the last trial in private, which confuses everyone, but they comply. A government agent named Helen Yoo says they are going to work with the Thorburns, saying they will support them on a few terms. One is that the Kendalle Parliament's Curse Division gets to study the high magick, and two is that they get to choose their champion. Everyone agrees, and Agent Yoo chooses Innes to be Champion.

Alistair goes to get some high magick from the vault underneath the Lowe's mansion, but it requires blood to enter. As Alistair does not have any curses, he uses the *Page Turner* to slice open his abdomen. His grandmother, Marianne Lowe, berates him and tells him to make a *Vintner's Plague* curse. The spellmakers of Ilvernath come give the family spells and curses. Bayard Attwater, one of the spellmakers, tries to attack Marianne Lowe, but she blocks it and Alistair casts the poorly crafted *Vintner's Plague*, nearly killing Mr. Attwater.

At her mother's spellshop, Isobel hears about Mr. Attwater. After cleaning vandalism off of the shop's windows, she fixes a *Longer Locks* spellstone, brought to her by Oliver, someone she knew from school. She talks to her mother, who tries to get her out of the Tournament by moving them to Karaktos, but Isobel stops it by casting *Bog's Innards* and runs away crying. When Gavin finds out about Mr. Attwater, he was looking over his dossiers on the other potential Champions. Fergus comes in to ask for a spellstone, and tells him about what happened at the Lowe family estate.

The Thorburns' Champion-Crowning ceremony was something Briony had always dreamed about, but she wasn't chosen, and she and Innes weren't talking. During the party, Reid MacTavish comes to talk to her, and figures out that the government chose Innes as the Thorburn champion, likely because she was compliant. Briony wonders why her family would cast aside centuries of tradition for a single book, and she goes into her room and starts reading A Tradition of Tragedy.

Alistair dreams about his training as champion, which started when he was seven, and his family started scaring him with monster stories. When he wakes up, he goes to find Hendry, but he's not in is usual haunts. The family gathered together to give Alistair his gift, an ancient ring as old as the Tournament itself. Marianne tells him the story of the past tournament: "Alphina was meant as champion. Rowan and Moira were meant to continue the line. And Todd was meant to die."(85). As Alistair slowly realises what happened to his brother, Marianne explains that that was how they always won. This answers the excerpt from The Tradition of Tragedy at the beginning of the chapter: 'The Lowes win even when no one else expects it . . . And the rest of us are left to ask how. We never get an answer.'

Gavin visits the spellmakers of Illvernath, who mostly turn him away, but he eventually talks to Reid MacTavish, who offers to make his power greater by turning him into a vessel. Gavin agrees, and Reid tells him the cost of the curse: in exchange for greater power, Gavin would be restricting his magick for the rest of his life. After Reid finished, a tattoo of an hourglass remained on his bicep. Gavin casted a Flicker and Flare to test the magick, and it was far more powerful than a class two spell usually was. A few grains of sand trickled from the top of the hourglass to the bottom and Reid warned him that if the top of the hourglass fully ran out, he would die.

Briony was researching the Tournament in the shadow of her family’s Landmark, the Tower. Innes came over to talk to her, and Briony tried to avoid her, but Innes wanted to make amends, as she knew she would die early. As they start to walk home, Finley Blair, Elionor Payne, and Carbry Darrow approach the two, trying to recruit Innes to their alliance. Innes refuses, and Finley threatens her. Briony snaps back, and the trio leaves. As Innes and Briony walk back to their house, Briony worries for her sister, and decides that no matter what, she will make sure the Tournament ends.

Ten hours before the start of the Tournament, something breaks inside Isobel. She realised her competitors weren’t just enemies, they were someone’s family. She told her father she didn’t want to kill anyone, and her father blew up a bit, guilting her into staying. Isobel went to her room to make the *Reaper’s Embrace*, the spell she stole from Reid MacTavish, but something went wrong, and she lost her sense for magick.

At the opening ceremony, Gavin kept to the back of the hall, observing the faces he had seen for so long on his dossiers. He left his plate under a portrait of Alphina Lowe, and went outside, literally bumping into Alistair. Gavin casts *Hold in Place*, but instead of freezing him, it shatters his drink. Alistair later takes inspiration from this encounter, using *Shatter and Break* on his mother’s drink out of spite. He uses it again on Osmand Walsh’s finger. Osmand threatens him, saying that once the Tournament is over, the people will rise up to kill him. Alistair simply responds with, “I guess you’d better sharpen your pitchforks, gents.”(122) He later had an encounter with Isobel, who pretends to flirt with him a bit, but leaves him to get dead drunk.

Mayor Anand introduces each champion as they come, carving their name in the Champions’ Pillar. Protesters line the streets, but they cannot stop the Tournament from taking place. Briony finds and talks to Reid MacTavish after the champions carve their names, and they realise there is a possible way to destroy the Tournament. Briony tries to tell Innes about this, but she doesn't believe her. Briony realises she has to take her place, and casts *Deathly Slumber* on her. Innes tries to use *Mirror Image*, but she fails and falls asleep. Briony cuts the ring off of her sister's finger, and takes her place as the Thorburn Champion. This causes a crack in the pillar.

When the blood veil falls, Isobel, Briony, and Gavin fight for the Castle, with Briony saving Isobel and Gavin getting the castle. Briony realises Isobel can’t see magick anymore, and Isobel left to go find Alistair. Alistair went to the cave, where Finley and his allies offered him a place in their group. He fought them off, but realised the spellstones he had were laced with dangers to himself.

Isobel finds the Cave, where Alistair was living, and the two of them eventually form an uneasy alliance, after numerous death threats, a near escape, and a monster story. Briony goes after the Sword, one of the most powerful relics. There she finds Finley, who is shocked Briony is there instead of her sister. Briony asks for an alliance, and Finley takes her to the Monastery. Briony talks to Carbry, but Gavin attacks the monastery, discovering that some of his spells are weirdly powerful, because they run off of life magick. He escapes back to the Castle and the alliance of four heals.

Isobel and Alistair are making a water purifying spell, and Isobel keeps finding excuses to flirt with him. Alistair threatens her with a *Fear of the Dark* spell, but stops when he imagines Hendry. As night falls, another Relic falls, the Cloak. Alistair goes after it, but is stopped by Finley and Briony. The three of them fight, with Alistair eventually summoning the *Conjurer’s Nightmare*. Finley and Briony run away, and Alistair puts the Cloak in a bag. He gives the Cloak to Isobel as a peace offering.

## Characters

 Alistair Lowe

Hendry Lowe

Isobel Macaslan

Cormac Macaslan

Honora Jackson

Reid MacTavish

Gavin Greive

Callista Greive

Fergus Greive

Briony Thorburn

Innes Thorburn

Agent Helen Yoo

Marianne Lowe

Bayard Attwater

Finley Blair

Elionor Payne

Carbry Darrow

Osmand Walsh