"This is, quite honestly, the worse game of tag ever played."
Book 2 starts off with Trystan in a cell at King Benedict’s. Otto Warsen’s head hanging from the rafters at the Manor, and Evie dead. Or at least Trystan thinks she’s dead. Becky helped her eat some fruit that makes it appear as if she is dead…or maybe she really is dead? The antidote to this fruit is a potion or Love. Trystan is slightly losing it because he loves her and now she’s dead. There is a guard there that tries to tell Trystan to not lose hope. King Benedict has an unmasking ball where he wants everyone in the kingdom to see Trystan’s face. During this, he rolls out Evie’s dead body in a glass casket and is like look at this poor girl that was his last victim. When the King gets close to Trystan and starts to grab his mask, everyone starts screaming because Evie has disappeared from the casket. Trystan’s guards, who are mostly women, start fighting everyone.
Unfortunately, Evie and Trystan both get unmasked and now they are Wanted. But they all manage to escape on Fluffy.
Upon returning home, Trystan is determined to shove his feelings for Evie so far down and pretend they don’t exist. He is convinced that he is no good for her and that he doesn’t deserve her.
Meanwhile, the gurve’s have been busy since their wall was removed and Trystan finds out that there will be a baby soon. How soon, Blade has no idea. They aren’t sure what will happen if the female has the baby in captivity but the animals don’t seem to be unhappy. They are together, safe, and well fed. Trystan considers letting them free but he is afraid that Benedict’s men will find them and he knows at least in his cage, they are safe.
Benedict had told Trystan that there’s some prophecy and Benedict is trying to fulfill it because if he doesn’t, the magic will disappear from their land. Evie, with help from an “informant”, has gotten her mother’s old letters and a section of the Rennedawn’s Story. “The person who saves the magical lands will take Fate’s youngling well in hand; when Fate and starlight magic fall together, the land will belong to you forever. But beware the unmasked Villain and their malevolent dark, for nothing is more dangerous than a blackened good heart…”
Evie believes that if Trystan fulfills the prophecy then he can save the magic and piss off Benedict at the same time. They already have the gurve’s, which are called Fates, and there’s about to be a baby. He has The Villain that has been unmasked. So now they just need starlight magic. And guess who had starlight magic? Evie’s mom, Nura. Who she hasn’t seen since the day she accidentally killed Gideon and disappeared.
So they set off on a quest to find Evie’s mom.
Main things that happen:–Evie’s informant is actually her brother Gideon. When he got blasted by his mothers magic, he was taken to the King’s palace. He lost his memory and has slowly been getting it back these last five years. He is the same knight who killed the one that was going after Evie after Trystan was taken at the end of book 1. He is the same knight who tried to tell Trystan to not lose hope after Trystan saw Evie dead. He ends up at the Manor after helping them get away from the Valiant guards for a second time. None of them completely trust him so he is followed around by a member of Trystan’s guards.
–-The magic that conceals the manor is faulty and parts of it keep appearing.
–They travel to this cave where they meet this magical creature. The creature gives her a vial of stardust and tells her he is giving it “to the daughter of wishing stars”.
–They find all these clues that appear to just lead them in circles trying to find her mother. Evie confronts her father where he tells her to ask Gideon for the truth. Gideon tells her that his magic can siphon off other’s magic and he was told by his father that he needed to do this to his mom to help her. But in reality, it was making her magic really unstable and she wasn’t able to control it.
–Their chase leads them to Renna Fortis, a childhood friend of Evie’s mom. And guess who Renna is? Becky’s mom. So they all head to Becky’s childhood home. A few things happen here, Trystan is tested by Hands of Destiny and it almost kills him when Evie saves him. Destiny tells him “You were always supposed to meet Evie Sage, Trystan Maverine. Just as Evie Sage is meant to be your downfall, and you her undoing.”
–We learn that the reason Becky has left home and doesn’t talk to her parents anymore is because her mom was trying to work with Benedict to find a cure for the Mystic Illness, which Becky’s grandma has, and basically offered up Becky’s magic. When Becky refused, her mom tried to steal it from her anyways. Evie’s mom, Nura, was there, she came there for help since her magic was so fucked up. I think Renna tried to help her at first but her magic was too unstable and Renna was mostly trying to harvest it to give to Benedict, and she ended up dying. All that is left of her is a vial of stardust, that Renna gives to Evie. They have to leave pretty quickly after that because Renna has called the King’s guards because she is a dick.
–Lyssa has taken well to the manor. She cooks a lot with Edwin the Ogre. Once Gideon arrives, she gets to know her older brother. But she is also a little sneak. She tries to “help” others. She steals Evie’s notebook, where she has doodled pictures of her and Trystan, and leaves it on his desk. She locks Tati and Claire in a closet together. She helps Fluffy learn how to breathe fire. She thinks about helping Becky and Blade but she seems unsure if Becky actually likes him because she can be mean to him. And she steals a key, and makes visits to her father in the dungeons, and by the end of the book, he escapes (and locks his poor 10 year old daughter in the cell in his place). Lyssa says someone slipped her note to go to her dad and by the end of the book, we still don’t know who slipped her that note.
–Trystan spends literally the whole book trying not to have feelings for Evie and failing. Evie also tries to shut her feelings off and does a poor job of it. What’s annoying is that everyone (us and literally everyone in the book) know how they feel about each other but they can’t seem to see it.
–Gideon tells Evie at the end of the book that he didn’t actually get the antidote to her when she was “dead”. And she said that's impossible, the only other cure is Love. And Gideon’s like … yeah I know….(hint hint Trystan loves you, you dummy).
At the end of the book
—The Manor is attacked by Benedicts guard. They steal the pregnant female gurve and when the male escapes and tries to go after her, the guards shoot him out of the sky. Luckily they only got his wing so he didn’t die but he is injured.
—Trystan’s magic has been acting real weird and draining him real quick. For some reason, he has the stupid thought that it might have something to do with Evie, because now she can see his magic. It also seems to like her, always curling around her legs like a cat.
—Trystan finally reveals that Kingsley was an actual human prince. A friend of his. But Trystan’s mom hit him with a spell and it turned him into a frog. The spell was supposed to hit Trystan and it was supposed to kill him. Why was Trystan’s mom trying to kill him? I don’t think we know that.
—Nura’s letters, when mixed with the stardust Evie got from that magical creature, turn into a glass slab. Later on, Lyssa accidentally drops the vial of stardust that Becky’s mom gave her (the stardust that is the only thing left of Nura), it looks like a piece of missing sky. Just like the piece that the magical creature is missing. Evie and Trystan take the magical creature his missing piece of sky. He tells Evie she can have whatever she wants since she returned his piece of sky. Evie says that when her mother was destroyed by her magic, she didn’t die did she? She left behind stardust because she is now a star? The magical creature says yes, a wishing star. Evie wants her back so that's what the magical creature gives her. Her mom - alive and well. –Nura says that there is another part of the prophecy but she can’t remember it. When she was a wishing star, she saw and heard lots of things. But she also forgot a lot.
–Gideon realizes at the very end of the book that the prophecy could also be talking about Evie because she was also unmasked. And she had a good heart…well, HAD one. Until she’s been going through all this shit.
Book 3 comes out August 5, 2025
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