58 pages • 1 hour read
Hannah Nicole MaehrerAssistant to the Villain
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 37-48Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 37 Summary
The next day, Evie discovers that a map is missing from Trystan’s collection. As they debate what this means, voices discussing the traitor drift down the hall, and they both hide in the map closet to listen, where they are forced to be pressed against one another. The voices are disrespectful of Evie, and the speakers don’t understand why Trystan is so defensive and protective of her—even hurting one of the interns because he said something nasty about her. After they leave, Evie asks Trystan what the intern said, but he doesn’t tell her. This makes Evie not want to know because “it must be unbelievably bad if even someone with as evil a heart as Trystan couldn’t bear to repeat it” (227).
Chapter 38 Summary
Trystan drives Evie home, and on the way, Evie spots one of the king’s guards in the forest near the mansion. Evie gives chase and discovers that the guard is really Becky in disguise. She meant to sneak into the king’s palace in hopes of finding a cure for her grandmother’s mystic illness. Evie admits that her father also has this illness, and because neither woman likes having something in common with the other, they resolve to “never speak of it again” (232).
Chapter 39 Summary
At home, Evie is relieved to find her father and sister well, though her father is having another weak spell. Someone has left an invitation to a party hosted by the core healer—an almost mythical type of healer who can heal even the soul. The missive promises a cure for the mystic illness. She doesn’t know if it’s true but resolves to learn more in order to help her father. She puts on the finest dress she owns, pins her hair back, and applies makeup, looking at her reflection and thinking, “[T]his person in the mirror [is] who she was always meant to be” (236).
Chapter 40 Summary
Chapter 41 Summary
The three go in search of the core healer, but Becky gets distracted by a man. This in turn distracts Blade, who is jealous. Evie continues to search alone. The healer is Trystan’s father, and he recognizes Evie by the letter she supposedly wrote him, requesting an invitation. Evie sent no such letter, and she questions whether the man knows who Trystan is. He does, but before they can discuss it, Trystan arrives, looking upset about this forced reunion with his father. As the men stare one another down, Evie discreetly looks around for the closest escape route “to run away from this disaster” (245).
Chapter 42 Summary
Trystan excuses himself and Evie from his father’s presence, only for Evie to take off running away from him. He catches up to her away from the party and reassures her that he isn’t angry at her. Instead, seeing his father has triggered all the sorrow of feeling neglected as a child, but instead of wallowing in it, he is determined to “wring this moment of every ounce of joy he could” (250). He asks Evie to dance just as the music slows, and as they spin together in the darkness, they discuss their families. Evie notes that Trystan’s siblings don’t hate him and revealing the truth about her brother’s death. Despite the heartache plaguing their pasts, Trystan is forced to acknowledge that “it was a nearly perfect moment” (253). Suddenly, they hear screams.
Chapter 43 Summary
The spy in Trystan’s office has freed the male guvre, and the beast is now attacking the party. Trystan sees his sister in the fray and goes after her while Blade tries to capture the guvre. Evie finds Trystan’s father wounded but alive and helps him until they are surrounded by the king’s guards, who “didn’t look like heroes at all” (259).
Chapter 44 Summary
Trystan finds his sister and pulls her from the chaos just as Blade runs by with a rope to catch the guvre. Trystan’s sister can make a sleeping potion, and as she runs off to help Blade, Trystan hears Evie scream. He starts for her, but a pain lances through his head, knocking him unconscious, and he realizes that “he’d never reach her in time” (261).
Chapter 45 Summary
The guards round up Evie, Trystan’s father, and other uninjured party guests, but they don’t seem to know what to do with the prisoners. Evie finds Trystan unconscious in the crowd and realizes that she has to get everyone away safely. She pretends that Trystan is her husband and makes up a story about trying to conceive and starting her menstrual cycle that night. This unnerves the guards. The guards are about to let them go when Trystan awakens. Knowing that he will attack the guards and ruin their clean escape, Evie flings herself at him and kisses him.
Chapter 46 Summary
Trystan thinks that the kiss is a dream and pulls Evie closer, deepening it until someone coughs, getting his attention. Quickly, he realizes that he is awake and soon cottons on to Evie’s cover story. Two guards offer to lead him to a healer for the wound on his head, but instead, one of the guards grabs Evie while the other pins Trystan, holding a sword to his chest. Trystan’s father has been taken into custody and accused of being the Villain, and the guards now think that Evie and Trystan are accomplices. Evie and Trystan take down one of the guards, and the other begs for mercy because he was only following orders to catch the Villain. Trystan takes the man’s sword and runs him through, whispering menacingly that the man was wrong because “the Villain caught you” (270). Evie hugs him, and all at once, Trystan realizes that he loves her and has for a long time. He pulls her close to be near her for one more moment. He resolves never tell her how he feels, in hopes of preventing her from dying at his side.
Chapter 47 Summary
Evie and Trystan meet up with the rest of the group. Blade and Trystan’s sister have caught the guvre, and the guards have absconded with Trystan’s father. Trystan wants everyone to spend the night at the office, but Evie needs to go home and check on her family. Before she goes, she vows they’ll save his father, to which Trystan says, “Villains aren’t particularly adept at saving people” (278).
Chapter 48 Summary
At home, Evie collapses on the couch from exhaustion and wakes to find her sister standing over her. Her sister notices Evie’s troubled look and asks what’s wrong. Not wanting to trouble the girl, Evie explains that there is a rat loose at work that she can’t capture, even though she has looked in all the obvious places. Her sister asks if she’s looked in the unobvious ones, leaving Evie to wonder if she was “[t]oo focused on making lists to truly look at what was in front of her own eyes” (281).
Chapters 37-48 Analysis
The party hosted by Trystan’s father is an effective plot device on multiple fronts, for it reveals more of Trystan’s backstory even as it intensifies the action and further develops the relationship between Trystan and Evie. Additionally, the author intends the event to be a “hook” to leave certain questions unanswered and thus interest readers in the upcoming sequel, for although the narrative reveals that the party itself is a setup, the intended outcome of the setup is left to be explored in the subsequent installment of the series. Even so, several details make the party a point of no return for the primary characters; specifically, the king’s capture of Trystan’s father makes Trystan’s battle with the king all the more personal. Though Trystan doesn’t have the best relationship with his father, he cares about the man and is invested in mitigating the effects that his capture will have on his other children. As a result, Trystan will do whatever it takes to free him, once again marking himself as something more sophisticated than a two-dimensional embodiment of evil.
The dance that Trystan shares with Evie further explores The True Definition of Evil, for when he first took up the role of villain, he discarded things that he didn’t believe villains were allowed to have, such as happiness. This compulsion represents the author’s humorous critique of the shallow nature of stereotypical fairy-tale tropes, for her own villain is far more heroic than any villain has any right to be. Accordingly, such a paradoxical villain would also exhibit the full range of human emotion, and despite Trystan’s efforts to remain steadfast to his stereotypical evilness, Evie has reminded him what it feels like to be happy. Thus, the dance represents the ways in which Trystan grapples with the boundaries of his perceived villainy. He wants to be happy even though he doesn’t think he should be, and the dance is a concession that he makes—giving himself one moment of happiness to sustain the will to maintain his evil persona. Similarly, he only lets himself indulge in the kiss with Evie in Chapter 46 because he is sure that it is only a dream. In this way, the author highlights the intense conflict between his outward veneer and his inner desires.
While The Effectiveness of Trust-Based Relationships is primarily explored through Evie’s interactions with Trystan, her interactions with Becky in Chapter 38 highlight a new facet of this theme, for the women start to overcome the walls of distrust that stand between them, expanding on their workplace relationship. Up until this point, each woman has disliked the other for unidentifiable reasons, though Evie has postulated that Becky wants her job and is jealous. The revelation that Becky’s family member suffers from the same mystic illness that afflicts Evie’s father renders her character sympathetic. Instead of being just another uptight administrative assistant with a superiority complex, Becky becomes a real person, and Evie’s reaction shows The Damaging Power of Expectations to prevent people from forming more meaningful bonds. Evie has spent so long disliking Becky that she doesn’t know how to like the woman now, even when they clearly have something in common. By the end of the book, Evie and Becky will finally develop a tentative friendship, but at this point, both women can only deal with the situation by ignoring it, which works as a temporary coping mechanism.
The conversation that Evie and Trystan have as they dance in Chapter 42 touches on the family dynamics within the novel and highlights The Effectiveness of Trust-Based Relationships. Both Trystan and Evie believe things about their family that aren’t true—Trystan because he’s convinced himself of the lies and Evie because she is being deceived by her father. These similarities allow them to understand each other in ways that no one else has been able to, drawing them closer together. Evie’s observations about Trystan’s father and siblings also suggests that Trystan is too close to the situation to analyze it objectively. For years, Trystan has believed that his siblings hate him and that his father doesn’t care about him. However, from a single meeting with each of them, Evie can tell that Trystan’s father loves him and that both of his siblings look up to him. The pain of Trystan’s past keeps him from understanding these things just as effectively as Evie’s father keeps his daughters from seeing the truth. These parallel dynamics demonstrate that internal misconceptions and barriers can be just as damaging as the ones that others use.
Evie also reveals the truth of her brother’s accidental death due to her mother’s newly awakened magic, which delves into the strained relationship she has with her family. Though she loves and cares for her father and sister, Evie also feels burdened by them. Since her mother’s tragic mishap and subsequent departure, Evie has been the soul supporter for her family, pushing aside her own desires in favor of prioritizing others’ needs, and this pattern has left her feeling as though her own desires do not matter. Dancing with Trystan makes her feel like she matters to him and helps to undo some of the damage of her past. In truth, Evie doesn’t need Trystan to regain her self-worth, but his belief in her helps her to find the confidence she needs to believe in herself. Furthermore, their growing relationship lets both of them acknowledge how the other has changed them for the better.
