“I have to go home.” Harper sounded calm, but Violet saw the urgency in her movements as she rose to her feet and went for the door. “He could be in danger.”
“Won’t your siblings be patrolling?”
“That doesn’t mean they’ll be enough to handle it, if what just happened in your attic is any indication.”
Violet nodded. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No. You need to keep an eye on the attic.”
Violet understood. This was her home. Her turf to defend, just as the lake was Harper’s.
“Be careful,” she said fiercely.
Harper’s smile was sharp around the edges. “You too,” she said, and then she was gone.
In her absence, Violet paced back and forth in the living room, restless and uneasy. Her mother was watching the spire, had asked Violet to rest, but she had never felt less like relaxing. Dread squirmed in her stomach as she peered out the window—she could see a trail of smoke rising above the trees in the direction of the Carlisle cottage. Orpheus wound around her legs, his too-cold body somehow still comforting.
And then a knock sounded on the front door.
Violet didn’t know who she was expecting. Isaac, maybe. Certainly not Augusta Hawthorne, flanked by her two giant dogs.
“Uh,” she said. “I’ll get my mom—”
“I’m here.” Juniper appeared beside her a moment later, looking utterly exhausted. “August, I thought you were at your place—”
“June.” Augusta’s voice was utterly defeated. “The airborne corruption has begun to spread. We have to activate the emergency protocol.”
Her mother’s face collapsed, and Violet stared between the two of them, uncomprehending.
“What do you mean, emergency protocol?”
“She means it’s time for the founders’ last resort,” Juniper said. “We’ve failed to protect this town. Which means we need to evacuate Four Paths.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Harper followed the smoke rising above the trees, winding her way through a route she knew by heart: one that would take her home to her lake. She knew the corruption had spread again, but she was still unprepared for what she might find there. The horrors she’d seen in the Gray were merging with Four Paths in her mind the same way the Beast’s face had merged with Justin’s.
Justin.
The moment she’d heard the phone call cut out, something sharp and painful had crystallized in her chest. She’d remembered dropping that cheap wooden sword at his feet. The way his hair felt when she curled her fingers into it at his party. The conversation she’d had with Violet about how she didn’t have to save him.
Harper knew how he felt about her. She had known for a long time. And in that moment, she was tired of pretending she did not feel the same way, tired of pushing him away from her when all she wanted to do was pull him closer. There were no more lies between them; their history was laid out neatly now, the betrayal on both sides, the hurt, the years of distance and quiet rage.
She needed to find him, and she needed to tell him. But as she reached the trees that ringed the lake, Harper could not quell the fear that she had waited too long.
Just as he had said on the phone, it was changing.
Trees bent low over the water, their buds unfurled. They looked even more like hands than Harper remembered, fleshy and gray, five fingers twitching in time with the pulsating bark. Each emitted an endless stream of gray smoke, glimmering with iridescent flecks. Corruption was spreading steadily through the lake, the same iridescent liquid she’d seen in the Gray polluting the clear water.
Harper’s heartbeat sped up. She stepped forward, her hand automatically reaching for her sword—and then she saw the body.
He was lying halfway in the lake, an arm limply outstretched, as if trying to crawl back to land. Water had soaked through his clothes, leaving them wet and clinging. His blond hair was darkened by red-brown dirt; his face was turned away from her. Roots from the nearest tree twined around his outstretched hand, crawling steadily down his arm.
“Justin!”
To her immense relief, he stirred. But her voice seemed to have sped up the encroaching trees. Harper’s entire body went cold as one of the nearby buds swiveled, the branch bending toward his face. She knew the founders were immune to the corruption, but that didn’t mean the forest couldn’t hurt them.
She didn’t think—instead she charged forward, each step a small eternity, and caught the branch in midair.
She had helped Violet inside the spire. She could do this again. Red-brown stone spread from her fingertips and engulfed the branch, freezing it in place. Harper forced the stone to spread as far as she could manage, but it was physically difficult—like pushing a boulder up a hill. The corruption was strong and unwieldy; it tugged at the limits of her power. It was all she could do to turn that single tree to stone, but at least for the moment, it was not trying to hurt him anymore.
Harper knelt beside Justin, her breathing ragged, and peeled the stone root away from his arm. It disintegrated beneath her fingers as easily as dust, leaving behind a slimy residue on his skin. His eyes were locked on her, his lips slightly parted. He was staring at her with unabashed awe, and it kindled a great warmth inside her, made her forget that they were in the middle of a disaster, made her forget that the entire world was falling apart around them.
“Harper,” he breathed.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I found you.”
His hand cupped her cheek, and he grinned. “It’s really you. Not the Gray.”
“Of course it’s me.”
“I wasn’t sure.” He hesitated. “I didn’t know if you would care enough to come help me.”
The words hurt her more than she could say, because she understood exactly why he’d think them.
“Yes, I care enough,” she said. “I care about you too much, Justin. That’s always been my problem. Because I spent years trying to let you go, and I just… couldn’t.”
Something in his gaze changed, and for a moment Harper tensed with panic. But then he spoke.
“I couldn’t let you go, either,” he said softly. “I wanted you even when I wanted to forget you. I know I fucked it up. I know I didn’t deserve all the chances I got. And maybe we’ve both been hurt too many times for this to ever work, you and me. But that hasn’t made my feelings go away.”
The moment after this seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Everything around them faded out—the smoke clouding the air around them, the corrupted trees at the edge of the lake, even the gentle sound of the lapping waves. All Harper could hear was her heartbeat ratcheting up in her chest, and all she saw was the look on Justin’s face—fear and determination and desire all at once.
“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way,” Justin said, and Harper realized that she had waited too long to speak. “Seriously, Harper, I just needed to tell you—”
“I know,” Harper said.
And then she kissed him.
It was a rough, impatient kiss that had been a long time in the making, and Justin’s surprise only lasted for a moment before he wrapped an arm around her waist and brought her closer to him. His shirt was wet and cold. She slid her hand beneath the clinging fabric, heat flooding through her as he braced one hand against her back and used the other to carefully brush her curls away from her neck. His lips moved down her jawline, lingering at the edges of her collarbone, and when he reached her shoulder, she gasped and dragged her nails down his spine.