The Young Elites

What's inside (9 sections)

1. Fever marks and a father who counts coins
2. The Reaper in the square
3. How to lie so well the skin believes
4. Teren, Giulietta, and the sister Adelina hides
5. A city that starts to burn
6. The duel, the mistake, and the ship out
7. Where it shines and where it sags
8. Key takeaways
9. FAQ

I came to this one straight from the Legend books, and I wanted to see what Marie Lu would do with fantasy after three books of drones and plagues. A friend told me the pitch in one line. It is about the villain as a teenager, before she decides to stay bad. That sold me. Marie Lu published The Young Elites in 2014 with G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, and it runs 368 pages in the hardcover. It is the first book in The Young Elites series. What follows is the whole story, with the ending, plus where it dragged for me.

The hook is mean in a good way. Most fantasy about gifted kids asks you to root for the brave outsider who learns to be kind. This one asks you to sit close to a girl who learns to enjoy hurting people back. She has reasons. The book never pretends she does not.

Fever marks and a father who counts coins

Ten years before the story starts, the blood fever moves through Kenettra. It kills most adults who catch it. Children who live through it come out marked. The word for them is malfetto. Some have a streak of white in the hair. Some have a bent limb or a strange eye color. They are shut out of jobs and marriages and blamed for bad luck.

Adelina Amouteru is sixteen and lives in Dalia, in her merchant father's house. The fever took her mother. It left Adelina with silver hair where black hair used to be, pale lashes, and a scarred socket where her left eye was. Her younger sister Violetta caught the same fever and came out unmarked and pretty, which their father never lets Adelina forget.

Their father is not a cartoon monster in every scene, which makes him worse. He keeps ledgers. He toasts guests with good wine while Adelina eats apart. He tells Violetta she is his fortune and tells Adelina she is his debt. He tried for years to find out if Adelina had the secret gifts people whisper about, the powers some malfettos are said to carry. When nothing showed, he made another plan. He agrees to hand Adelina over to an older man as a mistress to clear what he owes. Violetta cries. Adelina hears the deal through a door and decides to run that night.

She does not get far. Her father catches her in the dark with a hand on her dress and anger in his voice. Fear spikes in her chest, cold and loud. The street bends. Shadows pull into shapes with teeth. Her father screams at things only he can see and stumbles back. He falls and dies. Adelina stands there shaking, one eye wide, with no clear memory of choosing to do it.

That is her power showing for the first time. She can weave illusions that touch sight and sound and skin. They feed on fear, hers and other people's. The stronger the dread around her, the more solid her copies become. Later she learns to make a double of herself that breathes, to fill a hall with smoke and soldiers that are not there, to plant a pain in a man's chest that his body believes. At the start she only knows that she wished her father would stop and then he stopped forever.

The Inquisition Axis arrests her fast. This is Teren Santoro's force, young men in white and gold who hunt malfettos and burn the worst cases in public. Teren himself is nineteen and famous for it. Pale eyes, neat voice, absolute certainty. He calls malfettos a rot in the nation. Adelina is chained and set for burning in the square as an example. She expects to die angry and small.

The Reaper in the square

The rescue is loud. Fire cuts her chains when the flames should have killed her. A masked man with blood red hair pulls her through smoke while the crowd yells and soldiers push. People call him the Reaper. His real name is Enzo Valenciano, and he was once the crown prince of Kenettra.

Enzo takes her north to Estenzia, the port capital, through back roads and safe rooms. He tells her plainly that he did not save her out of mercy alone. He leads the Dagger Society, a hidden band of Young Elites. That is their word for malfettos whose fever marks came with true powers. Enzo can call and throw fire. He wants others like him before the Axis finds and burns them. He also wants the throne back.

His history comes out in pieces. Enzo is malfetto, so after his parents died his younger sister Giulietta took the crown, married a duke who became king, and had Enzo struck from the line. The palace now pays Teren to cleanse the city. Enzo plans to remove Giulietta and her husband and take Kenettra with Elite strength and allies from outside. He needs fighters. If Adelina can learn control, she can join. If she cannot, she knows too much to let go.

He hides her in a high end brothel called La Felice, run for cover and gossip both. That is where she meets Raffaele Laurent Bessette. Raffaele is beautiful and calm and tired in the way people get when they always listen. He is second in the Dagger Society and he works there as a consort. His gift lets him sense the gifts in others and read the pull of their feelings. He can press calm into a racing heart. He tests Adelina by touching her wrist and going quiet, then tells Enzo she burns hot with old hurt. He votes against keeping her.

I liked Raffaele right away, more than Enzo at first. He speaks softly and means it. He warns Adelina that Elite power answers to strong feeling, and that hers answers most to spite and fright. He is not cruel about it. He says it the way a doctor names a fever.

The rest of the Daggers filter in. Dante, big and scarred, who can walk through stone and steel for short bursts. Michel, quick and funny, who can shape paper and cloth and knives into birds and blades that obey him. Gemma, kind, who can command animals. Lucent, sharp eyed, who can turn unseen except for her own marks. They spar on roofs and in cellars. They tease. They check doors twice. They have all lost someone to the Axis, and it shows in how they sleep light.

How to lie so well the skin believes

Training takes up a large middle of the book, and it is where I settled in. Adelina cannot start with big tricks. She has to learn the thread first. Raffaele teaches her to find fear in herself without drowning in it. Enzo teaches her to strike while the fear is high. The rule is simple to say and hard to live. Joy makes her illusions thin. Anger makes them sharp. Terror makes them solid enough to cut.

Her early tries fail. She tries to hide a cup and hides the table instead. She sweats through her shirt while the Daggers laugh, then help.

Then it clicks. She learns to pull dread into light. She makes a second Adelina who smiles wrong. She fills a stair with faceless soldiers. She plants a false burn that a man slaps at. Each time her hands shake after and her scar aches. Raffaele watches with worry he does not hide.

Her bond with Enzo grows as he trains her in a stone yard by the sea. He shows her how he holds fire, wrist loose, mind fixed. He does not flatter her. He calls her raw and dangerous and possibly useful, which feels like praise after years of being called ruined.

There is a soft scene I remember well. Night on a balcony above the water. Enzo without the mask. Adelina without the act. They talk about being stared at as children. For a page it feels like two tired kids, not a prince and a weapon.

The romance stays light compared with Legend. A few touches. A near kiss cut off by duty. Long looks during drills. It never takes over, which suits this book. Adelina wants a place more than she wants a boy. Enzo wants a soldier more than he wants a lover. Both confuse those wants sometimes.

Teren, Giulietta, and the sister Adelina hides

The palace side of the plot runs cold next to the warm cellar scenes. Queen Giulietta is young and controlled and always polite in public. In private she signs orders that let the Axis drag malfettos from shops and set their stalls alight. Her husband the king says little and nods along. The true force is Teren.

Teren believes his work is holy. He prays before raids. He writes letters to dead friends. He tells his men that mercy to Elites is cruelty to the nation. He also hides something even his men do not know. He is malfetto himself. His marks are hidden where no one looks, and his gift is a healing that knits his skin after wounds that should kill. He hates his own blood so much that he burns others to prove he is clean. The book gives him prayers and nightmares and a habit of pressing his thumb into his palm until it bleeds. He is awful and human at once.

Teren finds his hold fast. He takes Violetta. Adelina had left her sister behind with a neighbor and money, hoping distance would protect her. The Axis traces the sister anyway. Teren does not threaten loudly. He invites Adelina to talk in a chapel with white banners and tells her Violetta will live if Adelina reports what the Daggers plan. If she refuses, Violetta burns as a malfetto lover. Adelina, who loves her sister with a guilt that never sleeps, agrees.

Violetta matters more than the early chapters suggest. She is gentle where Adelina is barbed. She plays music. She remembers their mother in small details, a song while shelling beans, a comb with one missing tooth. She has always soothed Adelina just by sitting near. Late in the book we learn Violetta has a gift too, a rare one. She can still the powers of other Elites when she is close and willing. She can make fire gutter and illusions thin to smoke. Neither sister knew. When Violetta steps into a room full of tricks, the tricks die.

Adelina starts passing notes. Meeting times. A safe house street. The name of a ship Enzo hopes will bring foreign swords. She tells herself she gives only small things. She tells herself she protects both sides. Teren smiles and asks for more. He has her write what Enzo fears. She writes it and hates her hand for moving.

At the same time Enzo moves his own plan. The Daggers will strike during a court week when the king and queen show themselves. The aim is to kill Teren's hold on the city, free jailed malfettos, and force the palace to name Enzo. Raffaele argues for a slower path, more allies, fewer bodies. Enzo overrules him. Dante backs force. Michel worries but follows. Adelina nods along while her stomach turns, because she has already told Teren the outline.

A city that starts to burn

The middle break is messy on purpose, and it hurt to read. The Daggers hit an Axis store of records and coin to fund the rising. It should be quick. Teren is waiting in part because Adelina warned him, in part because he reads Enzo well. Steel rings in a narrow street. Dante phases through a gate to open it from inside and takes a bolt meant for Michel. Gemma sends gulls screaming into archers' faces. Lucent slips unseen to cut ropes. Adelina throws illusions of extra fighters, and for a minute the Axis line wavers.

Then Dante turns on her. He has watched her slip away at odd hours. He accuses her to her face of selling them. Adelina panics and lashes out with the exact skill she trained, a false pain sunk deep in his chest. She means to stop him, to shut his mouth for a minute. Her fear is too high and her control too fresh. The false pain grips his heart and does not let go. Dante dies choking on an injury that is not there. The Daggers stare. Raffaele feels the shape of what she did and goes pale.

I had to put the book down here. Not because it is gory. It is not. It is because Adelina knows at once what she chose. She tries to say it was reflex. Raffaele answers quietly that reflex shows training. Enzo looks at her like a blade that cut the wrong way. They do not kill her. They need her for the arena plan the next day, and Enzo still thinks he can aim her. Trust, though, is gone. Michel stops joking with her. Gemma will not meet her eyes.

That night Teren tightens the cord. He tells Adelina the king is dead, poisoned in the unrest, and blames Elite poison. Whether his men did it or Enzo's allies did is left cloudy in the rush. Teren uses the death to claim full power over the city guard. He orders malfetto shops shut and malfettos out by gates. Fires start along the market street. Families carry bundles past soldiers who laugh or look away. Adelina walks through it with Violetta's face in her mind and understands that both sides now feed on the same smoke.

She meets Violetta in a church alcove, brief and fierce. Violetta is alive and thin and furious at being used as a leash. She tells Adelina she knows about the notes. She tells her to stop. Adelina promises what she cannot promise. They hold hands until a bell rings and guards pass. It is the truest love in the book, stronger than anything between Adelina and Enzo, and Lu writes it plainly without dressing it up.

The duel, the mistake, and the ship out

Enzo forces the endgame. With Raffaele seized and set for public execution, Enzo offers Teren a formal duel in the arena, masked as the Reaper, winner takes the city story. Teren accepts before the court, sure his healing makes him unbeatable and sure the crowd will love a holy victory. The stands fill with nobles and merchants and malfettos held in pens to watch.

The plan needs Adelina. She and Violetta will stand veiled in the crowd. Violetta will damp Teren's healing at key instants. Adelina will wrap Enzo in false armor and fill Teren's sight with smoke and false strikes. Gemma will cut Raffaele free in the noise. Lucent will open the gate. On paper it could work.

It almost does. Enzo enters in black with fire crawling up his arms. Teren enters in white with a sword blessed by priests. They circle. Fire meets steel. Adelina feeds terror into the air until the arena smells of ash that is not there. Violetta holds Teren's gift down until her nose bleeds. Raffaele slips his bonds as Gemma reaches him. For a breath the Daggers are winning.

Then fear takes Adelina past the edge. Teren turns toward her veil and smiles like he knows her. Old panic floods her, her father's hands, the stake, Dante's face. She throws a wave meant to crush Teren with pain. Violetta falters at the same instant under strain, and Teren's healing snaps back while Enzo lunges inside Adelina's strike zone. The illusion lands wrong. It wraps Enzo instead of Teren. He staggers inside his own false fire and clutches his chest. Teren drives his sword in clean. The crowd roars because it thinks good has won.

Enzo dies in the dust with his mask cracked. Adelina screams and breaks cover. She tries to pour more tricks into Teren, wild and sloppy. Raffaele stops her, not with force but with a hand and a look. Enough, that look says. You have done enough. The Daggers pull back through smoke and screaming. They lose the day and their leader in one stroke.

What Raffaele does next is just. He banishes Adelina and Violetta both. He tells Adelina she chose fear over the group twice and that Dante and Enzo paid for it. He tells Violetta he is sorry but he cannot keep a power that can unmake them all while grief is fresh. He does not shout. That makes it land harder. Michel cries. Gemma turns away. Adelina begs once, then stops when she sees no door open.

She leaves Kenettra by ship with Violetta, silver hair cut short with a knife, coins sewn in her hem, hate steady in her chest. She vows to find Elites of her own across the sea and come back with force. The last pages do not ask you to forgive her. They ask you to see how she got here, step by step, and to feel uneasy that you followed her most of the way.

Where it shines and where it sags

The strength is the point of view. A villain lead who stays vain and hungry and scared is rare in books aimed at teens, and Lu commits. Adelina lies to herself on the page. She nurses slights. She enjoys frightening a guard who once spat at her. She also braids Violetta's hair with shaking hands and shares bread when she is hungry herself. That mix kept me reading past midnight. Enzo works for the same reason. He is charming and used to being obeyed, and his plan needs bodies. Teren is the surprise. His faith reads as real, not as a mask, and his secret self hate explains his cruelty without excusing it.

The craft around powers is clear. Each gift has a price and a tell. Adelina needs strong feeling close by. Enzo tires when he throws big. Raffaele cannot fix what will not be calmed. Violetta bleeds when she holds too many gifts down. Fights stay readable because of those limits. I always knew what could fail.

Now the fair knocks, because there are some. The training middle runs long. Drills and sparring and balcony talks repeat the same beat, Adelina doubts, Enzo steadies, Raffaele warns, Adelina doubts again. I started skimming those warnings around page two hundred. The side Daggers get thin treatment. Gemma and Lucent read as kind outlines rather than people, and Dante flips from mentor to accuser fast to serve the break. The palace politics stay simple too. Giulietta schemes offstage. The king barely registers. The foreign alliance Enzo courts is named more than shown.

Adelina's self talk can grate. She circles the same fears about being unlovable and passed over, often in the same words. That repetition is honest for a hurt sixteen year old, but on the page it slows scenes that should snap. Readers who want a hero to admire will bounce off hard. She betrays friends, kills one by choice shaped as accident, and ends the book planning revenge. If you need growth toward kindness, wait for book two.

Who should pick it up. If you liked Legend but wished June had sharper edges, try this. If you enjoy X-Men style gifts with costs, court plots, and a romance that does not fix anyone, try this. If you want cozy fantasy or a clean moral, skip it for now. At 368 pages it moves fast once the Daggers form, and the last hundred pages run like fire down a hall. I finished angry at Adelina and worried for Violetta and curious enough to want the next book, which for a first volume about becoming bad feels about right.

FAQ

When was The Young Elites published?

G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers published it in 2014. The hardcover runs 368 pages and the ISBN is 9780399167836.

Is The Young Elites part of a series?

Yes. It is book one of The Young Elites trilogy, followed by The Rose Society and The Midnight Star.

Who are the main characters in The Young Elites?

Adelina Amouteru, Enzo Valenciano, Raffaele, Violetta Amouteru, Teren Santoro and Queen Giulietta.