The Devouring Gray(56)

But she could also see who this information was really hurting.

“I don’t think I’m the one you owe an apology.”

If Justin had looked annoyed beforehand, he looked alarmed now. “I know. It’s just…with Harper…it’s complicated.”

Beside him, May picked at her nail polish, her coral-colored lips pursed with disapproval. “It’s a giant mess.”

Violet wasn’t sure she wanted to wade into whatever star-crossed bullshit Harper and Justin were clearly going through, but she needed to know if she could trust the Hawthornes or not. “She said you both ignored her when she failed her ritual. Is that true?”

Justin had been nothing but kind to her since she’d arrived in Four Paths. It was hard to match that image with the boy who’d given up on Harper the second she proved she wasn’t powerful, and harder still now that she knew Justin had no powers, either.

“Our mother made us,” Justin said, his voice raw and hoarse. “She said there was no use in wasting our time on someone who couldn’t help protect the town. We were so young, and I thought she knew everything, and I was scared.”

“Scared of what?”

May looked up from her nails, her blue eyes deadly serious. “You’ve never seen Augusta when she’s angry.”

“My ritual wasn’t until last year,” added Justin. “So I didn’t know I was powerless for a long time. Most people still have no idea.”

Violet listened as he went on. May shifted uncomfortably beside her when Justin told her about how he was being asked to leave Four Paths, about his desperate wish to stay.

She knew the bitterness in his voice like it was her own. How it felt to have a parent who was so far away from you, you had no idea who they really were. Who put themselves before their children, no matter how much they hurt their kids by doing so.

Violet swallowed, hard. “So you’ve stopped trusting her.”

Justin nodded. “I always thought she was right, but the older I get, the more I realize that my mom doesn’t always make the right call. I can’t fix what I did to Harper. But I hope I can help you.”

“We both do,” said May quietly.

Violet believed the earnestness she saw on both of their faces.

“Thank you,” she said, surprised by how much she meant it. “Okay. Now I’m actually ready to talk to all of you.”

Violet did her best to look intimidating as they filed into the room. “You can only stay if you promise to refrain from murdering one another while I talk.”

“I’ll do my best.” Harper sighed, plopping onto the bed beside her.

“Yeah, all right,” muttered Justin.

Violet looked around at them—May examining her nails, Isaac leaning against the wall, Harper and Justin trying very hard to pretend they weren’t watching each other—and realized that she hadn’t felt this way since Rosie’s death.

There were people who would show up for her, then stay, even when she was angry. Even when it was hard.

“I think I did something,” she said. “Something terrible.”

And then she told them. About the body she’d felt that strange connection with. What had happened to Daria.

How powerless she felt. How scared.

But when she was done, they didn’t just stare at her. And they didn’t leave.

They started talking, all at once, their voices overlapping, yet all bursting with the same caring intensity.

“I want to see this journal,” said May, tugging on the medallion around her neck. “You’re sure you have no idea where the other half of it is?”

“You should tell us if you black out again,” said Harper softly, squeezing her hand as Orpheus pressed next to Violet’s other side, his yellow eyes glinting.

“Or if you see any more signs of this resurrected body,” added Isaac, frowning. “Justin, do you think there’s anything about that in the patrol records?”

“A body would be tough to find in Four Paths,” said Justin, and Violet remembered the mausoleum. Of course a town where people could raise the dead would have a way of dealing with that. “If there’s anything in the records about this, we’ll find it.”

“We’ll figure this out,” said Harper, leaning against her shoulder.

And Violet, despite everything, smiled back.



The day of Justin’s next cross-country meet, the Friday before the equinox, dawned cloudy and hazy. Justin felt hazy himself as he walked to the starting line of his race, surrounded by a crowd of chattering runners. Tendrils of mist obscured the tops of the trees behind the athletic field, and for a moment the sight made him tense, reminded him of the Gray.

The past few days had been quiet and routine, but Justin knew it was an illusory calm. A thousand different troubles were suspended in the air around him, like juggling pins falling in slow motion.

They didn’t just need to find Violet’s ritual anymore. They needed to figure out what was going on with the body she had resurrected. There was a chance Augusta knew the truth, but Justin wasn’t sure how to ask her without giving away the fact that he was working with Violet.

Then there was Harper. Who had spent the past few days doing a great job of acting like he didn’t exist.

As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, tomorrow was Founders’ Day—and the equinox. One of the most dangerous nights of the year. He paced back and forth on the starting line of the track, trying not to think about how there was nothing he could do to help the town when the Gray was at its strongest.