Excerpt from All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody, Christine Herman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Not that the seven cursed families of Ilvernath paid much attention to the modern world, even if the world had recently begun paying attention to them.

The Magpie was the boys' favorite pub, although no one would guess that from how infrequently they visited. Determined to keep their identities concealed and their photographs out of the papers, Alistair insisted they vary the location for their nighttime excursions. They couldn't afford to become familiar faces—they'd been homeschooled for that very reason. The way their grandmother talked, one whisper of their names and the city would be raising their pitchforks.

Alistair looked grimly upon the Magpie, its sign a dark shadow in the red moonlight, and wondered if the trouble was worth it.

"You don't have to come inside," Hendry told him.

"Someone needs to watch out for you."

Hendry reached underneath his T-shirt and pulled out a piece of quartz dangling on a chain. The inside pulsed with scarlet light—the color of a spellstone fully charged with high magick.

Alistair grabbed Hendry by the wrist and shoved the stone back beneath his shirt before someone noticed. "You're asking for trouble."

Hendry only winked at him. "I'm asking for a drink."

Magick was a valuable resource throughout the world—something to be found, collected, and then crafted into specific spells or curses. Once upon a time, there had been two types of magick: frighteningly powerful high magick and plentiful, weaker common magick. Throughout history, empires had greedily fought for control of the high magick supply, and by the time humanity invented the telescope and learned to bottle beer, they had depleted it entirely.

Or so they'd believed.

Hundreds of years ago, seven families had clashed over who would control Ilvernath's high magick. And so a terrible compromise was reached—a curse the families cast upon themselves. A curse that had remained a secret … until one year ago.

Every generation, each of the seven families was required to put forth a champion to compete in a tournament to the death. The victor would award their family exclusive claim over Ilvernath's high magick, a claim that expired upon the beginning of the next cycle, when the tournament began anew.

Historically, the Lowes dominated. For every three tournaments, they won two. The last cycle, twenty years ago, Alistair's aunt had murdered all the other competitors within four days.

Before they'd learned about the tournament, the rest of Ilvernath could only point to the Lowes' wealth and cruelty as the reasons an otherwise mysterious, reclusive family commanded such respect from lawmakers and spellmakers. Now they knew exactly how dangerous that family truly was.

So with the foreboding Blood Moon gleaming overhead, tonight was a risky time for the only two Lowes of tournament age to crave live music and a pint of ale.

"It's one drink," Hendry said, giving Alistair a weak smile.

Although the Lowe family hadn't formally chosen their champion yet, the boys had always known it would be Alistair. Tonight meant far more to either of them than a simple drink.

"Fine." Alistair threw open the door.

The pub was a cramped, slovenly place. The air was thick from tobacco smoke; rock music blared from a jukebox in the corner. Red-and-white checkered cloths draped over every booth. For the sociable, there were billiards. For those keeping a lower profile, there was a pinball machine, its buttons sticky from whisky fingers.

The Magpie was flooded with cursechasers. They traveled the world to gawk at magickal anomalies like Ilvernath's, such as the curse in Oxacota that left a whole town asleep for nearly a century, or the curse on the ruins in Môlier-sur-Olenne that doomed trespassers with a violent death in exactly nine days' time. Now, the tourists clustered in groups, whispering over well-worn copies of A Tradition of Tragedy. The recent bestseller had exposed the death tournament and Ilvernath's surviving vein of high magick … and had catapulted their remote city into the international spotlight.

Copyright © 2021 by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman