The Devouring Gray(37)

Isaac tugged at his backpack strap. “It’s a nice apartment.”

“Yeah, but…” Violet remembered the blacked-out part of the map marked Sullivan Territory. The outline of a house she’d seen underneath it. “You live there by yourself?”

“Why do you care?” He shot her a grin. “Trying to get invited upstairs?”

Violet flushed. “I’m trying to do research. And you’re getting in my way.”

“There’s much more to Four Paths than some old paintings of town mayors,” Isaac said disdainfully. “Do you really think all the answers are just sitting out in the open? Our help means something. And you turned it down.”

Violet stepped away from him, her fingers curling around the bracelet at her wrist. She didn’t regret telling the Hawthornes to leave her alone. Harper’s story had told her all she needed to know about them. There was no room in her life for disloyal, cowardly snakes—or anyone who chose to follow them.

“You didn’t help me at all,” she said.

“I got you out of the Gray, didn’t I?”

“No, you got Justin out of the Gray.” Violet had seen the bond between them. There was nobody left alive who cared about her like that. There was nobody left to save her. “I just happened to be there, too.”

“You’re alive, though, aren’t you?”

“Is that your definition of helped?” Violet snapped. “Alive?”

Isaac’s mouth twitched, and for a moment she felt uncomfortably seen. He was watching her like he’d watched her in the Diner, in homeroom, like he was waiting for her to lash out at him. Like he’d enjoy every moment of it if she did.

“Maybe I didn’t help you, then.” His voice bounced off the stone walls, echoing like the first roll of thunder before a storm. “But there are parts of the town hall that might actually have answers in them. They’re just not accessible to the general public.”

“Great,” Violet drawled. “Thanks.”

“I’m not done.” He fumbled in his backpack for a moment and held up a ring of keys. “I am not the general public.”

It was tempting. She had to admit it. But still, she hesitated.

Isaac huffed and shot her a look that Violet tried to pretend was not pity. “Listen, if you run into trouble, and you don’t come out, Justin will be inconsolable.” He paused. “He’s annoying when he’s sad.”

He was trying to be kind to her. Violet decided that if he could do that, she could try to let him help her.

So she nodded.

Isaac led Violet up a flight of stairs to a significantly less fancy door, protected by a brass dead bolt. Isaac unlocked it with his ring of keys.

“This floor is where the Four Paths archives are stored,” he said, guiding her down a dingy, dimly lit hallway. “All the records of our town history are here. This is where Justin and May would’ve taken you if you didn’t, you know, grievously insult them.”

Violet would’ve been more concerned if he hadn’t said it like he was amused instead of wounded. Although maybe those were the same thing with Isaac. “You don’t seem that mad about it.”

“It was kind of funny.” Isaac shrugged. “People don’t really say no to the Hawthornes. It’s good for them to remember they’re not invincible.”

There were no pictures in this hallway, just wallpaper that smelled slightly of mildew and floorboards that creaked beneath Violet’s boots. Violet couldn’t quite believe they were still in the same building. She followed Isaac through another sagging wooden door, wincing as the mildew smell intensified.

Violet made out several dented metal filing cabinets and shelves piled high with books and papers, silhouetted by the light streaming in through the windows on the far wall. A strip of fluorescent lights flickered to life, casting the archive room in a sickly green glow.

Violet’s eyes landed on a familiar face.

“Aunt Daria?” she whispered, then flushed, embarrassed, as she realized she was staring at a portrait on the wall, not a person. Although there was a distinct resemblance in the jut of their chins and the set of their eyes, this woman was not her aunt. She wore a high-necked dress that clearly wasn’t from this century, a red medallion at her breast, and a live ermine draped around her shoulders.

Something about the painting looked a shade too alive—Violet almost expected her dark, heavy-lidded eyes to blink.

“These are the original founders,” said Isaac dryly, from beside her. “They used to be downstairs, but people complained. Said they felt watched.”

“Has anyone ever had a power that could do that?”

“No,” said Isaac. “But the rest of the town doesn’t know that.”

“What does the town know about us, exactly?”

“They know we saved them,” said Isaac. “They know we have powers. And they know about the monster.”

Violet moved across the room, her eyes scanning the four paintings that hung on the wall.

On the left was Thomas Carlisle, a burly man with curls tied back in a ponytail and a wide, easy grin on his face. Laid across his upturned palms was a red-brown sword. Beside him was Hetty Hawthorne, sleek and blond and smug, a card held between two fingers, and on Hetty’s right was Richard Sullivan.