Many of the stories whispered by the children of Ilvernath came from him. Not because he was instinctively cruel or openly proud, but because, sometimes, he liked to. He was one year younger than Hendry, a good deal more powerful, and a great deal more wicked.Īlistair Lowe played a perfect villain. He carried the Sunday crossword in his pocket because he was perpetually bored. He wore a wool sweater in September because he was perpetually cold. Pale skin from a lifetime spent indoors, eyes the color of cigarette ashes, a widow’s peak as sharp as a blade. “That’s the sound of bones breaking.”Īlthough the two brothers looked alike, Alistair wore the Lowe features far differently than Hendry. “Do you hear that?” Alistair echoed, smirking as he rose to his feet. 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. The younger brother, Alistair, leaped from the fence and crashed gracelessly to the ground. Hendry Lowe was also too charming to play a villain. His clothes smelled sweet from morning pastries often stuffed in his pockets. His dark curls kissed his ears and cheekbones, overgrown from months between haircuts. His nose was freckled from afternoons napping in sunshine. Hendry Lowe was too pretty to worry about rules. “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. 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. They’ll tear your throat and drink your soul.

Grins like goblins, the children murmured, because the children in Ilvernath loved fairy tales-especially real ones.

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. The family lived on an isolated estate of centuries-worn stone, swathed in moss and shadowed in weeping trees. 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 Lowes shaped cruelty into a crown, and oh, they wear it well.Ī Tradition of Tragedy: The True Story of the Town that Sends its Children to Die

All of us villains amanda foody