The Devouring Gray(24)

“They die like Frank Anders, don’t they?” Violet’s voice was grim. She swiped her hair out of her face, leaving a smear of the cat’s blood across her forehead.

Justin swallowed his surprise. She clearly knew far more than Augusta had claimed she did. “Yes.”

A hollow, tinny noise rushed through his skull; a soft whistle that might’ve been a laugh. He whipped around on instinct, shuddering, but there was nothing there.

“Did you hear that, too?” Violet whispered.

He nodded.

“We need to get out of here.” She gestured toward something at the edge of the trees; a place where the Gray was starting to shimmer.

As the shimmering began to shape itself into a vaguely humanoid form, Justin remembered the bodies.

The bleached eyes. The bite marks on their limbs. The agony on their bloated faces.

Terror thrummed through him, so tangible that he could almost reach out and touch it. This was it—the death he’d escaped after his ritual. It had finally come to claim him.

But the form that appeared at the edge of the trees was not the Beast.

It was Isaac, arms outstretched, hands shimmering with energy. There was a jagged rip in the Gray starting at his fingertips, a hole in the world. Behind him stretched the waving branches of Four Paths’ chestnut oaks.

Justin had never been so grateful to see him.

“Are you both just going to stare?” Isaac called out. “I can’t hold this for long.” His sweaty curls were slicked against his forehead, shoulders heaving with the effort of keeping the Gray at bay.

Violet rushed toward the door Justin’s friend had made. But as Justin started to follow her, the noise whistled through his head again; louder this time, insistent, demanding.

It was a voice.

A strange leadenness stole through Justin as he contemplated weaving his way through the trees, being hunted, being killed.

You disappointed your family. You’re disappointing the town. Even Isaac would be glad to see you gone—one less thing to worry about.

“Shit,” he muttered. This was what the Beast did—it got inside your head. It told you you were worthless, you were nothing. “You’re wrong.”

Am I? The voice sounded almost amused. You’ve lied to everyone, Justin Hawthorne. But you can’t lie to me. Not about her.

And suddenly Justin was there again, by the lake, Harper behind him, his mother in front of him, her mastiffs growling at her sides. The panic on her face.

He had chosen his family that day, not Harper, because that was what Hawthornes did. They put one another first.

But no matter how hard Justin tried, he couldn’t bury that guilt.

Yes, you betrayed her, said the Beast. And you deserve to be punished for it.

An arm snaked itself beneath his shoulders and yanked him to his feet.

It took Justin a moment to orient himself, to realize that he was still in the Gray, he was still alive, still standing. Violet hadn’t left him after all.

“I need…your help,” he panted, leaning on her bony shoulder. She was stronger than she looked.

“Hey!” called out Isaac. “What are you doing, admiring the scenery?”

There they were; the Five of Bones, the Eight of Branches, and the Three of Daggers, side by side. Just like May had said they would be.

Violet snorted. “Yeah, I noticed.”

They staggered out of the Gray together, one agonizing step at a time, until they collapsed into the lush green embrace of Four Paths once more.

And Justin pushed down the voice, the guilt, and the sinking feeling, deep in his gut, that all the Beast had done was tell him the truth.





The blood and grime on Violet’s body made a rust-colored swirl around the Hawthornes’ shower drain. She’d done her best to scrub the horror of the past few hours off her skin, but even when the water ran clear, the truth could not be washed away.

She had raised the dead.

She had returned to the Gray.

And it was only through the efforts of a boy who’d shown her nothing but hostility that she had gotten back out.

Violet pulled on some ill-fitting white jeans, courtesy of Justin’s sister—May, that was her name—and an oversize Four Paths track sweatshirt that reeked of campfire smoke and Axe. The smell made Violet’s nose wrinkle. But her own clothes were soiled.

She couldn’t stop thinking of that moment in the Gray when Justin had faltered.

She could have abandoned him, left him to fade into those dark, ashen trees. Harper had told her not to trust the Hawthornes. But Violet had decided, when she pulled Justin out of the Gray, to make up her own mind about her allegiances.

Because there was one intoxicating thought that had been burning through her from the moment Orpheus began to walk again.

If Violet could bring back a cat, what was stopping her from bringing back Rosie?

She was not going to miss the opportunity to learn how to fix all her problems just because of a single warning. So she had let Justin and Isaac lead her back to the Hawthornes’ house, and she had agreed to hear them out.

The Hawthorne siblings had told her to go to their reading room once she was done cleaning up. But when she pushed open the door, they weren’t there. Violet took in the space—although it was called the reading room, she saw no books. Shelves along the walls were stacked with knickknacks, placed in such a way that she could tell they were valuable. A petrified branch sat beside an incredibly realistic sculpture of a rabbit. A broken dagger lay next to a dusty card that gleamed silver in the dim light, a dejected-looking jester etched on the front with two words engraved at the bottom: the Fool.