All of Us Villains

The first installment of a duology, the novel is set in Ilvernath, a remote city harboring the last known vein of high magick, the most powerful form of magick in the world. Centuries ago, seven families cast a curse requiring each to send a champion to a tournament to the death every generation, with the winner's family gaining control of the high magick for twenty years. Common magick, stored in spellstones and crafted by spellmakers, is widely available, but high magick can double any spell's power. One year before the story begins, an anonymous bestseller called A Tradition of Tragedy exposed the tournament, flooding the city with reporters and tourists. Now the Blood Moon signals the tournament will begin in two weeks.

Alistair Lowe, presumptive champion of the dominant Lowe family, cultivates a villainous exterior but is privately anxious and deeply attached to his older brother, Hendry Lowe. At a pub, Alistair encounters Isobel Macaslan, already named as her family's champion. The Macaslans are scorned as scavengers. Isobel visits Reid MacTavish, a young cursemaker with the most reputable shop in Ilvernath, hoping for sponsorship. Reid refuses but crafts a protective enchantment called the Roach's Armor, sealed in Isobel's locket. While he works, Isobel discovers a recipe for the Reaper's Embrace, a class 10 death curse, and steals the page.

Gavin Grieve is champion of the only family never to win. At his sister's wedding, the spellmaker Osmand Walsh publicly tells him no one would ally with a Grieve. Briony Thorburn resolves a brawl more elegantly than Gavin can, deepening his sense of inadequacy. The Thorburns, the largest and most admired family, are approached by Agent Helen Yoo of the government's Curse Division, who offers unlimited spells in exchange for choosing the Thorburn champion herself. She selects Briony's younger sister Innes over the athletic Briony, and the elders publicly lie that Briony was judged unworthy. Meanwhile, Alistair retaliates against a spellmaker who attacks his grandmother, but an error in his curse permanently blinds the man, turning Ilvernath's spellmakers against the Lowes.

On the morning before the tournament, Alistair's family reveals that in every generation, one member is secretly sacrificed to create the Lamb's Sacrifice, an invincible curse. Hendry has been killed for this purpose. Alistair is devastated and vows never to use it. That night, Gavin visits Reid, who tattoos an hourglass on Gavin's arm using a curse that lets him amplify spells by drawing on his finite life force. When the hourglass empties, Gavin dies.

Isobel attempts to craft the Reaper's Embrace using her own blood, but the ritual goes catastrophically wrong. When she recovers, she can no longer sense or use any magick. Terrified of her family's rejection, she enters the tournament defenseless. At Innes's champion party, Briony meets Reid, who hints the tournament might be breakable. He later explains that the curse can be safely dismantled by pairing each of seven Relics with its corresponding Landmark. Relics are powerful artifacts that fall at random during the tournament; Landmarks are the seven magickal sites the champions claim and defend. If the curse collapses violently instead, all champions die. Unable to convince Innes, Briony casts a sleep spell on her, severs Innes's pinky to take the irremovable champion's ring, and carves her own name into the Champions Pillar. A red crack appears in the stone.

When the Blood Veil falls, sealing the grounds in a crimson barrier, the champions race to claim Landmarks. Gavin reaches the Castle first. Alistair, heading for the Cave, is ambushed by three allied champions: Finley Blair, Elionor Payne, and Carbry Darrow. He discovers the spellmakers have sabotaged all his enchantments. Isobel arrives at the Cave unarmed, and Alistair lets her in, agreeing to help restore her powers in exchange for her spellmaking expertise. He secretly wards the entrance, making her his prisoner. Isobel teaches Alistair spellmaking while using flirtation as a survival strategy. When the Cloak Relic falls, Alistair retrieves it despite breaking his arm and gives it to Isobel, making her invulnerable to common magick. They form a formal alliance.

Gavin discovers his amplified concealment spell lets him pass through the inner Blood Veil, a second barrier separating the tournament grounds from the city center. He considers fleeing but learns that forfeiting would transfer his spot to his younger brother Fergus. Meanwhile, Briony joins Finley's alliance at the Monastery and realizes the map of Ilvernath mirrors a spellboard: The seven Landmarks form a septogram, a seven-pointed star, with the Champions Pillar at the center. Gavin attacks the Monastery but nearly dies when his life magick gives out.

When the Mirror Relic falls, Alistair fights to give Isobel time to claim it. Elionor deals him a near-fatal wound and leaves him for dead. Isobel finds him dying and realizes the Reaper's Embrace requires the blood of someone who matters deeply to her. She uses Alistair's blood to complete the curse, and her magick returns. She heals him with every spellstone she has. Elsewhere, Briony's alliance collapses when Elionor turns the others against her. Carbry attacks Briony with a death curse, but her shield reflects it, killing him in the tournament's first death.

The surviving champions gather at the Castle. Alistair confesses his family murdered Hendry to create the Lamb's Sacrifice, and Gavin demands he bury the ring containing it. Alistair does so, choosing his brother's memory over his family's legacy. When Briony confesses she stole the champion title by attacking Innes, Isobel traps her with a corroding curse. Isobel, Gavin, and Alistair form a new pact, but Alistair secretly frees Briony and sends her to test the cursebreaking theory.

Briony finds Finley and offers her life in penance. He refuses to kill her, revealing his family's origin story: The first Blair pulled the Sword Relic from a lake inside a cave, pairing it with the Cave Landmark. While Isobel, Gavin, and Alistair battle Elionor at the Monastery, Briony and Finley enter the undefended Cave. After fighting through defensive illusions, Finley plunges the Sword into the pillar's glowing red vein. Both Relic and Landmark cancel each other out, and the Cave collapses. The Blood Veil flickers from red to white.

At the Monastery, the weakened Veil lets combatants pass into town. Hendry emerges physically real but trailing a red shimmer, reconstituted from the buried Lamb's Sacrifice ring whose magick has been absorbed into the unraveling curse. When Elionor attacks Hendry and her curse passes harmlessly through him, Alistair kills her. Gavin secretly absorbs Elionor's dissipating life magick, discovering he can refill his hourglass. Briony and Finley announce the curse can be broken, but Alistair refuses: Ending the tournament means Hendry disappears.

In the chaos, Alistair accidentally strikes Isobel with a stray curse. She survives by activating the Roach's Armor, which saves her life but stops her heartbeat, leaving her in a corpse-like state. Forced to choose sides, Isobel kisses Alistair and secretly channels the Reaper's Embrace into him, a slow death curse that kills based on the victim's wrongdoings. She escapes with Briony and Finley. Gavin retreats, abducts Osmand Walsh to drain his life magick, and claims the Mirror Relic from Elionor's body.

At Reid's shop, Reid confirms the safe method requires matching all seven Relics to their Landmarks. When Isobel wakes, she casts the Divining Kiss, a spell that reads surface thoughts, on Reid and discovers he authored A Tradition of Tragedy, manipulated multiple champions, and plans to seize the high magick once the curse collapses. Reid traps her behind a shield spell, leaving Isobel cornered.

In the final chapter, Alistair and Hendry return to the Lowe estate. The Reaper's Embrace has begun turning Alistair's hands white, accelerating with each wrongdoing. The brothers confront their grandmother, and the chapter ends with blood on Alistair's hands, implying the Lowe family's reckoning has arrived. The story continues in All of Our Demise.