The Devouring Gray(80)

“Are you sure?” he said softly, starting toward her, gripping her remaining hand in both of his. “Because, Harper, if I tell you this, there is no turning back from the Church. Our mission is of the utmost importance.”

Harper swallowed, hard. She thought of Justin, waiting for her with her siblings. Of Nora, terrified in the woods. Of Violet’s lost memories. Of Daria Saunders.

“I understand,” she said. “Now tell me about the Church’s mission.”

The dim light of the workshop spread the shadows of his smile across her father’s face. “It’s very simple, really,” he said. “The founders imprisoned the Beast because they wanted its power. So we’re going to set it free.”

It took everything Harper had not to react to her father’s words.

The Beast still killed people. The founders had imprisoned it because it was dangerous, and it had cost them their lives. Everyone knew that. So to hear her own father, a founder, a Carlisle, insist that their ancestors’ sacrifice had been wrong—it was horrifying. It was blasphemous.

“Set the Beast free,” Harper echoed. “I see. And how exactly are you planning to do that?”

But she wasn’t lying as well as she’d been lying before. There was a wobble in her voice.

Suspicion stole across her father’s face. His grip tightened on Harper’s hand, and for the first time, true fright stirred in her.

She sized him up, not as her father, but as an opponent. One who had an arm and at least eighty pounds on her.

He’d believed in the Church of the Four Deities enough to strand Nora in the woods.

She didn’t know what he was capable of. She didn’t know him at all.

“Harper,” he said, a tinge of something ugly creeping into his voice, “do you doubt our mission?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m just…I’m just trying to understand….”

“But if you really believed that the founders were wrong,” he said slowly, “you would understand.”

“Well, I do,” she said quickly. “But this is all so new to me. Surely, you had doubts at first? There are so many questions I still have.”

“Of course you do,” he said. “Please. Allow me to dismiss your doubts.”

Harper’s throat went dry. She had to make him see what he was doing led nowhere good. “What will you accomplish, Dad?” she said. “After the Beast is freed—what are you hoping to gain?”

His eyes went slightly glassy. “It has told our leader that it will reward us,” he whispered. “With power—real power, beyond the founders’ wildest dreams. Don’t you want that, Harper?”

Harper felt a rush of relief. His suspicion was ebbing away.

And it all might have been fine—if Isaac Sullivan’s loud, angry voice hadn’t drifted through the workshop door at that very moment.

“You need backup,” he said. “You can’t just keep running off without me—” His voice abruptly dropped in volume, but it was too late.

“You didn’t come here to pledge your loyalty,” her father breathed, his eyes glimmering with fury. His grip on her fingers tightened until it hurt. “You’ve betrayed us.” One of his hands slipped away from hers, and Harper realized a moment before she saw the familiar glint of steel what he was reaching for.

His dagger.

“Dad,” she said, her voice breaking with panic as she struggled to pull her hand away. “Dad, what are you doing?”

“I’ve told you too much,” he hissed, panting softly. The point of his dagger glittered wickedly; his hand trembled, but still, he pointed it toward her. “The Hawthornes—they can’t know. Not when we’re so close.”

The change in his behavior was terrifying, as if something else had shrugged on her father’s skin.

But this wasn’t like what had happened to Violet.

Harper recognized her father’s posture, his body language, the way he carried himself.

This was her father. And he was going to hurt her, maybe kill her.

Harper broke out of Maurice Carlisle’s grasp a second before he lunged for her. She reacted purely on instinct, bolting for the wall behind her, yanking down one of the swords, and whirling toward her father.

The length of shining steel in her hand was enough to keep his weapon at bay—at least, for now.

“Harper, think about what you’re doing,” said her father. “That’s not a toy.”

Harper’s hand was shaking, anger and fear rushing through her in equal measure. Pain surged through her left arm. “Neither is your dagger.”

This didn’t feel real, none of it: the shadowy interior of the shed, the watching eyes of the sentinels, the ugly rage spreading across her father’s face.

“Please,” Harper whispered. “Don’t come any closer.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Are you really threatening me?”

And then he lunged for her, for real this time.

Harper’s training kicked in. She ducked beneath his outstretched arm, pivoted, and swung her blade around in a perfect strike, knocking the dagger from his hand.

It skittered across the floor in a flash of silver.

Harper swung her sword up to her father’s chest as he made to dive after it, the tip of the blade quivering at the edge of his shirt. A torn strip of fabric peeled away from the tip of her blade, revealing his bare chest.