The Devouring Gray(33)

And before Violet could take another breath, move another muscle, her world went black.



Violet woke to something soft and cold nuzzling against her cheek. When her eyes fluttered open and met a pair of slitted yellow ones, she immediately thought of the cruel, intelligent eyes she’d seen on that card in the Hawthornes’ reading room.

But then she saw Orpheus’s ears twitch as he brushed his tail against her arm, and she let out a panicked breath that had yet to fully balloon inside her chest.

“Oh,” she said hoarsely, reaching out to stroke Orpheus’s neck. “It’s you.”

Violet knew the wooden ceiling stretching above her head. The row of boxes along the wall marked ROSIE.

She’d blacked out again. But at least this time, she’d woken up in her bedroom.

Orpheus let out a reproachful meow as she ran a finger down the divot in his neck where his spine had snapped. Although his body had stitched itself back together, a gap between his vertebrae still remained.

“I hope that doesn’t hurt,” she said softly.

He nuzzled against her palm, as if to reassure her, and she felt that tether between them again, a rush of energy that tied them together.

He looked like a cat. He felt like a cat.

But his body was far too cold. And when she cautiously petted his stomach, she felt no sign of a heartbeat. The fact that he let her touch his belly without scratching her proved that he was no longer an ordinary cat.

Not alive, not exactly. Yet he could still glare judgmentally at her as she sat up, bracing her hands against her comforter, a wave of nausea running through her.

Justin, May, and Isaac had told her that, until she did her ritual, her powers wouldn’t be under her control. Were these blackouts a symptom of that? Or were they something else?

She could ask them. They had promised to help her.

But as the red yarn on Orpheus’s ear shone in the light streaming through the window, Violet realized there was still someone in this house who could possibly answer her questions.

So Violet swung her feet from the bed and padded down the hallway, to Daria’s room.

“Hello?” she called, knocking. “Aunt Daria? Are you in there?”

Violet’s aunt often sequestered herself in strange corners of the Saunders manor, but her room seemed as good a place as any to start looking. When the door creaked open a few seconds later to reveal Daria, clad in another hand-knitted dress, Violet felt rather gratified that she had guessed correctly.

“I have a few questions,” she said. “About our family. If you’re in the mood to answer them.”

Daria scratched absently at her graying hair. She was only a few years older than Juniper, but time had not been kind to her. Her face looked as if it had been crumpled into a ball and smoothed out again.

“Maybe,” she said, sounding hesitant. But she opened the door wider and gestured for Violet to come in.

Violet had never been in Daria’s room before, but it was more or less what she’d expected. Yarn, cat toys, and stacks of strange curios covered every surface. Dried flowers adorned the walls, and a large window looked out on the garden. Violet felt as if she were standing in the lair of a washed-up witch.

After what she’d learned these past few days, maybe she really was.

Violet perched uncomfortably on a purple velvet ottoman as Daria bustled about the room, grabbing strange objects, turning them over, and tossing them onto the floor.

“I’ve been talking to the Hawthornes,” she said, trying to steer Daria back to earth. “They say we’ve got powers, but we don’t get them until we do a ritual.”

“The Hawthornes love to act like they’re better than us.” Daria lifted a block of amber containing a spider to her nose, sniffed it, and tossed it on the bed. “Their roots grow everywhere, twining around everyone’s lives. They should let us grow on our own. That’s what we always did.”

“We? Do you mean the Saunders family?”

But Daria didn’t even seem to hear her. “That Hawthorne boy. You should warn him. Tell him the Crusader’s coming back here to die, at long last. He always does, you know. Everyone always comes back.”

“Sure,” said Violet slowly, trying to push back to when the conversation had made sense. “Do you know anything about us? What our ritual is?”

Daria stopped rifling through her items. “I used to know. I should know that.” Her face went distant and frightened, almost childlike.

Violet’s frustration turned immediately to concern. She had pushed her aunt too far. She could see that now.

“It’s okay that you don’t remember,” she said quickly. “I’ll figure it out.”

Daria pinched a strand of the yarn woven into her dress and tugged, hard. “No, it’s not,” she said. “You should talk to the Carlisles.”

Violet remembered their name on the map. Harper’s warning. And risked another question. “Why?”

“Because we trusted one another,” said Daria. “Go. And take the cat with you—the ungrateful little creature. He likes you better now, since you brought him back to life. Since you made him your companion.”

Violet gaped at Daria. Orpheus mewled reproachfully from his seat beside the ottoman.

“You can tell he’s…different?”