Apprentice to the Villain summary - Full recap with spoilers

Read an Apprentice to the Villain summary, the second book in Hannah Nicole Maehrer’s Assistant to the Villain Series. If you are wondering what happened in Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer, then you are in the right place! Get ready for the next book by reading up on exactly what happened in the previous ones.

Special thanks to Erica for providing this Apprentice to the Villain summary! Check her out on Instagram at @itsneverthelastchapter or on her book blog or her personal blog.

Author
Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Ratings
4.4 stars on Amazon
4.1 stars on Goodreads
Add Apprentice to the Villain at Goodreads.

Assistant to the Villain Series:
#1 Assistant to the Villain (recap)
#2 Apprentice to the Villain (this page)
#3 Accomplice to the Villain (recap)
#4 Adversary to the Villain (synopsis)

***** Everything below is a SPOILER *****

What happened in Apprentice to the Villain?

Your Apprentice to the Villain summary:

The Villain is captured by King Benedict. The king orders a Showing to portray the Villain as the reason for the Mystic Illness that plagued the kingdom. While trying to escape, the Villain sees his assistant Evie Sage’s dead body. He is broken and doesn’t fight back anymore. One of the knights tells him to have hope, but the Villain doesn’t understand. He is brought before the people, accompanied by his father, Arthur. Evie’s body is displayed to the people in a coffin, and the king blames the Villain for it.

Evie wakes up and rescues him with the help of his Malevolent Guard, his sister Clare, Becky (the HR head), and Blade (the dragon trainer). They rescue the Villain and bring him back to Massacre Manor. Evie tells him that he could fulfill the Rennedawn story before the king and seize hold of the kingdom. Her mother’s letters, which her brother Gideon gave her, stated that they needed the guvres, the Villain (a good man turned evil), and her starlight magic. A rhyme in the letters hinted at retrieving dust that made wishes come true, which could be found in the caves below the kissing oaks.

When they reach the place, the creature talks about a missing piece in its sky due to human greed and how the book about saving Rennedawn was written to protect it from its predicted future of fading magic. It hands Evie a vial of stardust from the sky to guide her, calling her the daughter of wishing stars, and invites her to return to see the stars at night.

Outside the caves, they are ambushed by the Valiant Guard. One of them is Gideon. Gideon was also the knight who had tried to calm the Villain down in the palace after he saw Evie’s dead body. They accept him into their group. During the fight with the Valiant Guard, Evie can suddenly see the Villain’s magic. He is shocked and realizes his magic is weakening.

the perfect gift for book lovers — *Tell me more! (ad)*
*More bookish gift ideas*

A guard alerts Becky that a door in the manor has suddenly become visible. Over the next few days, more parts start becoming visible, making them tense.

The Villain and Evie use the stardust on her mother’s letters. The dust transforms the letters into a glass map with the Heart Village marked by a 5-pointed star. The Villain, Evie, Clare, and Tatianna make their way there.

In Heart Village, the Villain and Evie are captured by her cousin, Helena. Helena holds Evie and the Villain captive. While struggling to escape, they share a moment of panic, wondering if they’re going to die. Evie asks the Villain to kiss her, but, believing she’s under duress because of the flowers she smelled earlier while entering the village, he refuses without explanation. Evie is mortified. Clare, Kingsley, and Tattiana rescue them just in time. Helena tells her cousin that she never intended to hand them over to the king. It’s because of him that her theatre is losing its magic too. Helena also confirms that Evie’s mother, Nura, had visited the village briefly. She wasn’t quite herself, probably grief-stricken from killing Gideon, whom she didn’t know was alive. Helena hands a small pouch that Nura left for Evie. When Evie opens it back at the manor, she finds the edge of a gold frame that’s in her old house.

The Villain sets out for Evie’s village to find the frame. He forbids Evie from going along, fearing for her safety. But ends up finding her questioning a frame seller about Nura. When she doesn’t get answers, she suggests they head to her house to look for the frame. The Villain and she kiss. They are interrupted by his brother, Malcolm. He’s been staying in the house since the villagers burned his bar down after they learned about this relationship with the Villain. He recognizes the frame and shows them the portrait. There are two women in it in an open field, and it’s signed JJ.

Evie interrogates her father in the holding cell about the women in the frame. He reveals that one woman is Nura and the other is her best friend, Renna Fortis. Evie’s father also tells her to question Gideon, who is responsible for what happened to Nura. Gideon confesses that when he was 12, he thought he had caught the plague. But it was actually his powers that were coming through. He has the power to suppress other powers. His father told him to keep it a secret. He always wanted to be a Valiant Guard at the palace. So when the king met him, he felt thrilled. His father told him that Nura’s powers, after giving birth to Lyssa, were too strong and dangerous for her well-being. So while she slept, he had to suppress them. He didn’t realize that his father was colluding with the King. One night, Gideon fell asleep, and Nura woke up with her powers at their fullest glory.

The Fortis Fortress is inaccessible to anyone without a key. Becky reveals she can access it because Renna Fortis is her mother. The Villain is thrown into a pit by Becky’s brothers to survive a test by the Hands of Destiny.

During this test, the Villain is put through excruciating pain and torture with fake-real scenarios, but Evie rescues him. Hands of Destiny tells him that Evie was meant to meet him. She was meant to be his downfall, and he was her undoing. During the rescue, he realizes he might be in love with Evie.

After the test, the Villain recovers from exhaustion. Evie confesses she’s in love with him. He doesn’t say anything back.

While they are sparring, she kisses him. The Valiant Guard arrives, and a fight ensues. The Villain is unable to control his magic, but Evie is. He’s worried that without his magic, he won’t be able to fight King Benedict or protect Evie. So he tells Evie to keep her distance. When heading back inside after the fight, they hear a loud scream. Evie recognizes it as her mother’s. The memory plant in Becky’s home was the one letting out the screams. When questioned, it’s revealed that Nura Sage had come for help. But Renna Fortis was aiding King Benedict in exchange for a cure for her ailing mother. They’ve been working to develop a hybrid plant between the memory plant and another rare flower to siphon magic to relieve overbearing power. She used the flower on Nura to siphon her magic away, but it consumed Nura, and only stardust was left. She hands Evie a crystal slab that Nura left for Evie and a vial of stardust she found when Nura died. Renna had been lying to them about Nura recovering and coming to meet them because she was already dead. Renna had also alerted the Valiant Guard of the Villain so he could be captured, leaving Evie and Becky to stay with her

How did Apprentice to the Villain end? Apprentice to the Villain summary

Back at the manor, the invisible barrier has broken, and the Valiant Guard storms the place.

When Trystan and the group reach the manor, they join the fight against the Valiant Guards. But the guards succeed in capturing the female guvre and injuring the male guvre. After the fight, they learn that Lyssa has been visiting her father in the holding cell, and he’s escaped.

Lyssa tells Evie that someone slipped her a note saying that her father wants to speak with her. Evie wonders who it could be.

*Assistant to the Villain necklace (ad)*
*More gift ideas*

Trystan informs Evie that Kingsley was once a human, and he’s been searching for an enchantress to turn him back from his frog form. His name was Alexander, the prince of the southern kingdom who died ten years ago. The Villain’s mother had turned him into a frog by mistake.

During a tea party, Lyssa drops the vial of stardust on the crystal, and it transforms into the color of the midnight sky, glowing brightly. Evie rushes with the Villain back to the kissing oaks. She hands the slab to the creature, who accepts it as the missing piece of its sky. It grants Evie a wish, turning the brightest wishing star in the sky she’d been seeing and wishing on all along back into Nura Sage.

They take Nura to Massacre Manor. She reveals that there are four, not three, objects to fulfill the prophecy. Gideon offers to go back to the palace to retrieve the magical storybook and figure out the missing object. Evie refuses. Gideon confides in her that he never got to her in time to give her the antidote to the death fruit Becky had given her, to help her play dead.

A week later, Keeley hands Gideon a page he had torn from the storybook. He realizes that Evie could be the unmasked villain with a blackened good heart – the fourth missing object to fulfill the prophecy of Rennedawn.

There you go! Thanks for reading this recap of what happened in Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer. We hope you enjoyed this Apprentice to the Villain summary with spoilers.

Special thanks to Erica for providing this Apprentice to the Villain summary! Check her out on Instagram at @itsneverthelastchapter or on her book blog or her personal blog.

Ready to read or reread Assistant to the Villain, Apprentice to the Villain, Accomplice to the Villain, or Adversary to the Villain? Click to buy and help us pay for hosting! (paid links)