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  For Trevor and Ben,

  HAGS

  ALISTAIR LOWE

  The Lowes shaped cruelty into a crown, and oh, they wear it well.

  A Tradition of Tragedy: The True Story of the Town that Sends its Children to Die

  The Lowe family had always been the undisputed villains of their town’s ancient, bloodstained story, and no one understood that better than the Lowe brothers.

  The family lived on an isolated estate of centuries-worn stone, swathed in moss and shadowed in weeping trees. On mischief nights, children from Ilvernath sometimes crept up to its towering wrought iron fence, daring their friends to touch the famous padlock chained around the gate—the one engraved with a scythe.

  Grins like goblins, the children murmured, because the children in Ilvernath loved fairy tales—especially real ones. Pale as plague and silent as spirits. They’ll tear your throat and drink your soul.

  All these tales were deserved.

  These days, the Lowe brothers knew better than to tempt the town’s wrath, but that didn’t stop them from sneaking over the fence in the throes of night, relishing the taste of some reckless thrill.

  “Do you hear that?” The older one, Hendry Lowe, stood up, brushed the forest floor off his gray T-shirt, and cracked each of his knuckles, one by one. “That’s the sound of rules breaking.”

  Hendry Lowe was too pretty to worry about rules. His nose was freckled from afternoons napping in sunshine. His dark curls kissed his ears and cheekbones, overgrown from months between haircuts. His clothes smelled sweet from morning pastries often stuffed in his pockets.

  Hendry Lowe was also too charming to play a villain.

  The younger brother, Alistair, leaped from the fence and crashed gracelessly to the ground. He didn’t like forgoing the use of magick, because without it he was never very good at anything—even an action as simple as landing. But tonight he had no magick to waste.

  “Do you hear that?” Alistair echoed, smirking as he rose to his feet. “That’s the sound of bones breaking.”

  Although the two brothers looked alike, Alistair wore the Lowe features far differently than Hendry. Pale skin from a lifetime spent indoors, eyes the color of cigarette ashes, a widow’s peak as sharp as a blade. He wore a wool sweater in September because he was perpetually cold. He carried the Sunday crossword in his pocket because he was perpetually bored. He was one year younger than Hendry, a good deal more powerful, and a great deal more wicked.

  Alistair Lowe played a perfect villain. Not because he was instinctively cruel or openly proud, but because, sometimes, he liked to. Many of the stories whispered by the children of Ilvernath came from him.

  “This is a shitty idea,” Alistair told his brother. “You know that, right?”

  “You say that every time.”

  Alistair shivered and shoved his hands in his pockets. “This time it’s different.”

  Two weeks ago, the moon in Ilvernath had turned crimson, piercing and bright like a fresh wound in the sky. It was called the Blood Moon, the sign that, after twenty years of peace, the tournament was approaching once more. Only a fortnight remained until the fall of the Blood Veil, and neither brother wanted to spend it in the hushed, sinister halls of their home.

  The walk downtown was long—it was a waste of magick to drain a Here to There spellring this close to the tournament, and they couldn’t drive. Both were lost in their thoughts. Hendry looked like he was fantasizing about meeting a cute girl, judging from how he kept fiddling with his curls and smoothing the wrinkles in his sleeves.

  Alistair was thinking about death. More specifically, about causing it.

  The gloomy stone architecture of Ilvernath had stood for over sixteen hundred years, but in the last few decades, it had been renovated with sleek glass storefronts and trendy outdoor restaurants. Despite its disorienting maze of cobbled, one-way streets, questionable amenities, and minimal parking, the small city was considered an up-and-coming spot for the art and magick scene.

  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.

  “I didn’t believe that the Blood Moon was actually scarlet,” Alistair overheard one of them whispering. “I thought it was just a name.”

  “The tournament is a high magick curse. High magick is always red,” another answered.

  “Or maybe,” drawled a third voice, “it’s called the Blood Moon because a bunch of kids spend three months murdering each other under i
t. Ever think of that?”

  Alistair and Hendry avoided the tourists as they shuffled through the pub. “Do you think Grandma will start getting fan mail?” asked Hendry, snickering. “I heard there’s a photograph of our whole family in the first chapter. I hope I look good.”

  “Sorry to break it to you, but that picture is from ten years ago,” Alistair said flatly.

  Hendry looked momentarily disappointed, then delighted. “So the entire world knows you had a bowl cut?”

  Alistair rolled his eyes and headed toward the bar. Even though he was a year younger than Hendry, his hollow stare always made him look older—old enough to avoid being carded.

  After he ordered, Alistair found himself waiting beside a pair of girls bickering with each other.

  “Did you honestly come here alone?” the first girl asked. She smelled strongly of cheap beer, and like all the patrons here, she wore crystal spellrings on each finger that glowed white with common magick. Alistair guessed they were filled with simple spells: Hangover Cure, Zit Zapper, Matchstick … whatever suited a Friday night pub crawl.

  “Of course not,” the second girl said, smoothing down her violently red curls. “My friends are over there.” She gestured vaguely at the entire bar.

  “I thought so,” sneered the tipsy girl. “You’re famous now, you know. There’s a picture of you on the cover of one of my mum’s magazines. You’re wearing sweatpants.”

  “It’s been known to happen on occasion,” the redheaded girl grumbled.

  “I heard the Darrows have chosen now, too. That makes three champions so far—Carbry Darrow, Elionor Payne, and you.” The first girl smiled viciously, in the kind of way that made Alistair guess the girls had once been friends. “But no one wants the Macaslans to win.”

  Alistair realized it now—he recognized the redheaded girl. She was the Macaslan who’d been announced as champion months and months before the Blood Moon had appeared, and the paparazzi had branded her the face of the tournament ever since. Alistair wasn’t surprised that the Macaslans would stoop to such desperate grabs for attention. His grandmother had always described them as the bottom-feeders of the seven families, willing to use unsavory methods for even a taste of power. But the Macaslan girl’s designer handbag and pretty face didn’t give the impression of someone who would have to fight for attention.

  At their words, several of the cursechasers stared, and the Macaslan girl cleared her throat and turned her back to them.

  “Well, I don’t care what people think of me,” she said. But Alistair disagreed. No one wore heels to a dive bar if they didn’t care about their reputation. “The evening news already called me and the Lowe champion rivals. Because I’m the one who’s going to win.”

  The tipsy girl rolled her eyes. “The Lowes haven’t even announced their champion yet. Whoever they are, they mustn’t be that impressive.”

  As the bartender slid Alistair his drinks, Alistair fantasized about how quickly the Macaslan champion’s confident expression would fall when he held out his hand, a ring glowing on his knuckles and charged with a curse, and showed her exactly how impressive he was.

  But there would be time for that once the tournament began.

  Still, as he turned around, pints in both hands, he met the Macaslan girl’s eyes. They held gazes for a moment, assessing each other. But not wanting to be recognized, he walked away.

  At the pinball machine, Hendry took the offered glass and shook his head. “I thought you’d start something.” A spell shimmered around his ears—a Listen In, probably. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “Maybe I should’ve.” Alistair took a sip and smiled despite himself. He shouldn’t be excited for the tournament, but he’d been groomed for it since his childhood. And he was ready to win.

  “No, definitely not. What is it you say about our family? ‘Grins like goblins. They’ll tear your throat and drink your soul’? You can’t help yourself. You have no restraint.” Although it sounded like Hendry was scolding him, his smirk said otherwise.

  “Says the one who brought a high magick spellstone to a dive bar.”

  “Someone has to watch out for you,” Hendry murmured, repeating Alistair’s exact words from earlier.

  Alistair scoffed and turned his attention to the pinball machine. Its artwork resembled the fairy tales he’d grown up with: A prince rescuing a princess from a castle, a knight riding into battle, a witch laughing over a cauldron. And Alistair’s favorite, the dragon, its mouth open in a snarl—worth one hundred points if the pinball struck its fangs.

  While Alistair inserted a coin into the slot, Hendry sighed and changed the subject. “I had a dream today—”

  “Typically, one has them at night—”

  “—while napping in the graveyard.” Despite his charm and freckled nose, Hendry was still a Lowe. He had a little villain in him. The Lowe family graveyard was his favorite place, full of vague, unnerving epitaphs for those who’d died young—even excluding the tournament, their family had a surprisingly large amount of tragedy in its history. “In the dream, you really were a monster.”

  Alistair snorted and mashed the game’s buttons. “What did I look like?”

  “Oh, you looked the same.”

  “Then what made me a monster?”

  “You were collecting the spellrings of dead children and hiding them in your wardrobe, cackling about souls trapped inside them.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Alistair said. “I’d do something like that now.”

  “You know, you should take a page out of that Macaslan girl’s book and try to seem more likable. This tournament is different—the curse isn’t a secret anymore. I mean, look at all these tourists! In Ilvernath! If you plan to survive, you’ll need alliances with other champions. Partnerships with spellmakers. You’ll need the world’s favor.”

  Alistair looked at his brother intensely. Hendry was breaking their unspoken rule not to discuss the tournament, and it wasn’t like him to be so serious. Besides, it didn’t matter that A Tradition of Tragedy had turned Ilvernath’s peculiar red moon and its bloody history into a global scandal. The Lowes had their pick of spellmakers lining up to offer Alistair their wares. Misfortune had a way of finding those who defied the Lowe family—their grandmother’s notorious curses made certain of that.

  “Are you worried about me?” Alistair asked.

  “Of course.”

  “The family isn’t.”

  “I’m your big brother. I have to worry about you.”

  Alistair’s first instinct, as always, was to crack a joke. But confident or not, it was difficult to find humor in the tournament.

  Kill or be killed. It was a somber affair.

  Alistair’s fear wasn’t for his life, but for his mind. Even the most villainous Lowe victors left the tournament changed, broken. But Alistair refused to accept such a fate. No matter how brutal, how terrible he’d need to be, he couldn’t let himself care. Not about the other champions. Not about his soul.

  He needed to become the most villainous of them all.

  He was still debating how to respond to Hendry when he was tapped on the shoulder.

  “We’ve never met before,” said the Macaslan girl as Alistair abandoned his game and turned around. Her words weren’t a statement—they were an accusation. The other townies and cursechasers behind her whispered, their wide eyes fixed on the two boys who’d drawn the local Macaslan celebrity’s attention.

  Hendry flashed his sunlight smile and held out his hand. “We’re not from here. We came to see if the book was true. That Blood Moon really is something.”

  His smile proved ineffective against the girl, who didn’t return it. Her gaze dropped to his outstretched hand, to the rings with crystal spellstones dotting his fingers. “Sharma, Aleshire, Walsh, Wen,” she said. “How impressive that, as a tourist, you’ve managed to purchase from half the spellmakers in town.”

  Hendry withdrew his hand and laughed awkwardly. “Impressive you can identify a spellring’s maker simply by looking at it.”

  He elbowed Alistair in the side for him to say something. Unfortunately, despite their grandmother’s warnings about exposing themselves, Alistair had little desire to keep up the charade. The cursechasers were going to stare anyway—he might as well give them something to look at.