Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer - Recaptains

The basics

Title: Apprentice to the Villain

Author: Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Series: Assistant to the Villain #2

- Assistant to the Villain (2023)
- Apprentice to the Villain (2024)
- Accomplice to the Villain (2025)

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Goodreads Summary:

Evie Sage has never been happier to be the assistant to The Villain. Who would have thought that working for an outrageously handsome (shhh, bad for his brand) evil overlord would be so rewarding? Still, the business of being bad is demanding, the forces of good are annoyingly persistent, and said forbidding boss is somewhat…er, out-of-evil-office.

But Rennedawn is in grave trouble, and all signs―Kingsley’s included―point to catastrophe. Something peculiar is happening with the kingdom’s magic, and it’s made The Villain’s manor vulnerable to their enemies...including their nemesis, the king.

Now it’s time for Evie to face her greatest challenge: protecting The Villain’s lair, all of his nefarious works, and maybe (provided no one finds out) the entire kingdom. No pressure, Evie.

It’s time to step out of her comfort zone and learn new skills. Like treason. Dagger work. Conspiring with the enemy. It’s all so…so…delightfully fun.

But what happens when the assistant to The Villain is ready to become his apprentice?

Here is a spoiler summary of what happened in Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer to help refresh your memory before you read the sequel. If you need help remembering what happened in Apprentice to the Villain then you’re in the right place.

What happened in Apprentice to the Villain?

• Trystan recalls how he regretted hiring Evie as his assistant, but she really did improve things around the office so it was actually beneficial. 
• Trystan confides in Kingsley the frog prince, who comments on Evie’s attractiveness. 
• Evie tells Trystan that she had to leave school at age thirteen to look after her sister.
• A knight tells King Benedict that Evie is dead. King Benedict demands to see the body, but the knight pretends it’s not suitable for viewing at this time. The King demands that the body is made ready by the end of the week.
• King Benedict talks about a fable, Rennedawn’s Story, which is about the origin of the kingdom and a prophecy about saving the kingdom’s magic.
• King Benedict tells the knight to find Nura’s letters to find where Evie’s mother is.
• Trystan is still imprisoned. He’s mostly worried about Evie and whether she’s okay. 
• Benedict’s guards beat Trystan while Benedict interrogates him on the whereabouts of the guvres. Trystan doesn’t give away any information. He tells Benedict to release his father. 
• Benedict tells Trystan that Evie is dead. Trystan doesn’t believe this because of the ink magic on Evie’s finger.
• Guards and a knight take Trystan to the unmasking ceremony. Trystan fails in his escape attempt, and actually comes across Evie’s body in a small room.
• Trystan is overcome by grief. He tries to strangle King Benedict, but his face transforms into Evie’s for a moment.
• Guards drag Trystan away as the knight tries to reassure him.
• Becky and Blade await the unmasking ceremony. Guards drag Trystan into view and chain him to a pole. Evie’s coffin is taken up to the dais, and King Benedict tells the crowd that she was a victim of Trystan.
• Benedict declares that he’s going to fulfill the prophecy and save the kingdom’s magic.
• Arthur tells Trystan to escape. Trystan is too upset to listen.
• Benedict accuses Trysten of causing the Mystic Illness. Trystan publicly accuses the king.
• The crowd shouts that the coffin is empty. Evie appears alive at the top of the staircase.
• Evie faked her own death by eating a sleeping death fruit.
• Benedict grabs Evie, and Evie slashes his cheek in return. She tells him to release Trystan and Arthur, and she’ll let everyone live. The king laughs this off.
• The Malevolent Guard take off their disguises and attack the king’s guard.
• Trystan is released and gets his magic back.
• Evie releases a massive chandelier and it crashes to the ground. 
• King Benedict grabs Kingsley. Trystan tries to attack the king but holds off. Kingsley bites Benedict and escapes.
• Evie escapes with her mother’s letters.
• Evie and Trystan escape through Hickory Woods. They jump into a ravine to escape the guards, and they land on Fluffy the dragon.
• Trystan suggests they separate the guvres, but the female is already pregnant so it’s pointless now. Trystan worries about keeping a baby guvre in captivity.
• The crew discuss the prophecy and how it relates to the guvres, and how they’re connected to bigger events.
• Arthur leaves.
• Lyssa, Evie’s sister, is in Trystan’s office.
• Trystan tells Edwin, the chef, to teach Lyssa how to cook.
• Evie shares Nura’s letters with Trystan. They state that whoever fulfills the prophecy will rule the land. The letters also contain a code, which points to a location.
• Trystan and Evie talk about her killing Warsen, her abusive employer. Evie is quite calm about it all.
• Evie and Trystan and the crew fly to the north border – the location stated in the letters. Evie disappears into the woods and comes across a sentry. Evie asks it for permission to pass through and it steps aside, allowing Evie and Trystan into the cave.
• Evie falls into a trap.
• Lyssa and Becky get to know each other. A guard tells them the wards have been breached.
• Evie and Trystan land on a cloud. Evie jumps off. Trystan is unimpressed and the two argue about Evie’s recklessness. It ends when they nearly kiss and the sky starts shaking.
• A massive creature lands next to them. It tells Evie it doesn’t have a name. Trystan asks it for a vial of stardust. It gives it to Evie, and says the other creatures have abandoned the world.
• When Trystan and Evie exit the cave, they find Tatianna and Clare arguing, and a guard holding a blade to Blade’s throat.
• Evie is held at swordpoint but gets away. A knight knocks Trystan out. The captain of the Guards tell the knight to kill Trystan, but the knight refuses.
• Evie hugs the knight. She explains that he’s her brother, Gideon. Who was meant to be dead.
• Gideon previously revealed his identity to Evie, and that his magic can suppress other magic. His mother didn’t kill him, obviously, it just teleported him to King Benedict’s palace.
• Trystan locks Gideon in a room and places guards outside.
• Becky tells Evie about the wards failing.
• Gideon escapes and there are arguments and Evie cries.
• Lyssa asks Evie if their father is ill. Evie says no, he’s abusive though.
• Evie realises she has dropped the vial of stardust and chases after it as it rolls down the hall. It rolls into Trystan’s room. Evie grabs it, and tells it to calm down so it stops vibrating.
• Evie and Trystan sprinkle some stardust onto Nura’s letters. They explode and transform into a map.
• Lyssa reveals that Trystan threw Damien off the roof.
• The crew ride to Heart Village to find Nura. They cross the bridge into the village. There are creatures there. They don’t like Trystan.
• Evie answers the bridge creatures’ riddle and charms them.
• Evie is intoxicated by a flower. She starts spouting nonsense.
• They search for Nura. They’re ambushed by a group of men who have been looking for Trystan because of the wanted posters. They take Trystan and Evie to their boss.
• Gideon seems to recognise Becky.
• Trystan uses Evie’s thigh dagger to cut through their ropes. Helena, Evie’s cousin, enters the room. Helena is the boss.
• Evie tells Helena that she is looking for Nura, who was apparently in the village a few years back.
• Evie notices the gold ring on Trystan’s arm, which is identical to the one on her finger. 
• Trystan breaks the window, allowing water to gush into the cell.
• Becky stops her interns from fighting.
• Gideon tells Becky that he knows who she is, but promises to keep it a secret.
• Kingsley enters the cell as it continues to fill with water. Tatianna and Clare appear. Trystan pushes Evie out of the window. Before he can get himself out, Helena arrives and holds a dagger to his throat.
• Helena lets Trystan go. She was testing them to see what would happen between Trystan and Evie. Bit weird, but okay.
• Helena gives Evie a velvet bag that Nura left with her. Helena tells Evie to visit Nura’s old house.
• We learn that the southern kingdom imprisoned the enchantress who originally created the manor’s wards. She allegedly killed the crown prince.
• Trystan insults Evie and she doesn’t speak to him for a few days. She wants to return to her childhood home as she found a gold frame in the bag that Nura gave her. 
• Trystan goes to Evie’s home town instead. He hears an ex-boyfriend of hers making rude comments, so Trystan uses his magic to put some pain into the guy’s knee.
• Trystan comes across Evie, who is dressed in a disguise, in a framer’s shop.
• Evie leaves when Trystan annoys her once again.
• Trystan and Evie go to search Evie’s childhood home. Trystan accidentally comes across her underwear. They argue again. They kiss.
• Trystan’s brother Malcolm shows up and is tackled by Trystan before he realises who it is. Trystan offers to help rebuild Malcolm’s tavern after the Guards destroyed it. Malcolm tells them that he’s living in Evie’s childhood home.
• Malcolm shows Evie a picture that has no frame. It’s of Nura as a child, alongside another girl.
• Trystan and Evie return to the mansion. Blade tells them that the guvre is due to give birth in a month’s time.
• Evie confronts her father about the picture. Her father tells her (after Evie stabs him) that the other girl was Nura’s best friend, Renna. Renna came from a warrior family. Griffin tells Evie that the king destroyed Nura.
• Evie bursts out of the dungeon and collapses. Gideon runs off and Evie gets up and chases him.
• Marvin captures Gideon. Gideon tells Evie that he was trained by Griffin, and Griffin and the king had Gideon use his magic ability on Nura to stop her magic.
• Evie tells Trystan what she learnt about Renna. He says it’ll be difficult to get into her family’s fortress.
• Lyssa sets a fire in the courtyard and Trystan and Evie have to put it out. Lyssa tells them she was trying to teach the dragon to breathe fire.
• Becky reveals that Renna is her mother.
• Gideon apologises to Evie.
• The crew flies to the fortress. There’s a lot of fog so no one can see what’s going on. Becky uses a key to remove the fog.
• Becky’s brothers, Roland and Rudy, show up. Becky asks them how their grandmother is, as she has had the Mystic Illness.
• Trystan is dragged off by a plant. It nearly suffocates him but his magic cuts him free.
• Trystan is taken to an arena, known as the Trench.
• Renna shows up and recognises Evie. Ramona, Becky’s grandmother, arrives too. Becky asks about Nura and gets snapped at.
• Renna tells them that Nura left for another residence to see some healers. She should be back in two days.
• Becky hasn’t forgiven her mother after her family disowned her when she wouldn’t allow the king to access her magic.
• Trystan is made to relive events from his past. Becky asks her brother to stop the attack. Evie steps in to save Trystan from the creature.
• Trystan hallucinates saving Evie from the king and kissing her. He realises that she’s not real. The real one breaks him free.
• Trystan passes the test of the hands of destiny and is allowed to leave. He is taken to the infirmary.
• Evie defends Becky against Renna.
• Evie trains with Becky’s brothers. Trystan thinks they’re actually fighting and threatens everyone. He argues with the brothers.
• Evie asks Trystan to teach her to fight. They spar. They kiss.
• Valiant Guards arrive.
• Marvin is injured. Guards are at the mansion too.
• Trystan uses his magic against the guards. Evie protects Trystan from an arrow. The Guards retreat.
• Evie hears her mother screaming and has a panic attack. The screams are coming from a memory plant.
• Renna reveals that she had the king’s help in saving her mother. Renna reveals that Nura died and turned into stardust.
• The Guards get into the guvre enclosure at the mansion.
• Becky shouts at her mother. Raphael tells everyone to leave because Renna has summoned the Guard.
• The crew returns to the manor. The Guards have captured the female guvre. The male attacks the Guards but is wounded. Evie defends Gideon.
• Fluffy kills some Guards.
• Griffin escaped during the attack. Lyssa was locked in the dungeons.
• Lyssa asks Evie if she hates her, and the two hug it out. Lyssa tells Evie that Griffin asked to see her and he stole the key from her to escape the dungeon. Evie tells Gideon and Lyssa that Nura is dead.
• Evie talks to Trystan about the note. Someone must have delivered the note to Lyssa, but who?
• Trystan tells Evie that Kingsley is the prince of the Southern kingdom, which she did already know.
• Trystan will now be staying away from Evie because of destiny and such.
• Lyssa drops the vial of stardust and the floor glows. A star starts shimmering on the floor. Evie takes this as a sign to go back to the cave to find Nura.
• Evie and Trystan go into the cave. Evie gives the sentry the crystalised slab of floor, which is the sentry’s missing piece of sky. The sentry grants Evie a wish, and she asks for Nura back. The sentry frees Nura from the sky.
• Evie introduces Nura to Trystan.
• The sentry tells the group that the cave’s magic is fading. The cave starts to shake. The group leaves the cave and it collapses with the sentry inside.
• Evie realises they now have the three things from the prophecy, except the female guvre. Nura says there’s a fourth thing but can’t remember what it is.
• In the epilogue, Gideon considers the tensions among the group. Gideon wonders whether Evie is the villain of the prophecy.

That’s what happened in Apprentice to the Villain! Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!

Other recaps for this series:

• Assistant to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain #1)