May saw it suddenly, like a vision. The three founders’ bodies melting into the ground and winding together. The way the forest felt like one great, gigantic organism to her, the way it was alive not just as all nature was, but a step beyond that. The hair and flesh on the trees. The roots burrowing beneath people’s skin. All of it now made a sick sort of sense to May.
Violet had been right. The founders had made this monster, and their descendants were still paying for it. She was still paying for it.
Because of the ritual she’d done as a child, May’s powers came from the Beast the same way the original founders had gotten their powers from the forest. Her strength had brought back the corruption they’d created, started this whole nightmare over again.
All this time, she’d believed that her father had seen something special in her. Now she knew that all he’d seen was the promise of death and destruction for his own personal gain.
“But why do you kill people, then?” May asked slowly, thinking of the body count the Beast left in its wake. “If you were created to protect the Gray from Richard…”
Blood is needed to keep the corruption from spreading further, to keep me strong. We have kept it at bay by taking from the town. But most people do not satiate us for long. It is founder blood we crave, founder blood we need.
May flipped the fourth card over, her stomach clenching.
A boy knelt in the center of a clearing, three swords hanging over his head. He was on his knees, arms outstretched; but he did not look like he was pleading. He looked defiant. He looked furious.
“Isaac,” May breathed, understanding at last. “Is that why the Sullivans kill each other? Because Richard didn’t die like the other founders?”
Yes, the voice hissed.
“That is so messed up,” May mumbled. “That’s why you tried to possess Violet—you wanted more.”
Yes. The word coursed through her, laced with such need, May almost agreed with it—and then she pulled her mind back. The Beast might be trying to help her, but it was still dangerous. It was a monster that hadn’t asked to be a monster, and May did not know what to do about that or how to fix it. And there was only one card left.
“There has to be a way to stop this,” May said. “A way where you don’t kill more people. A way where the corruption stops.”
We thought so too, long ago, sang the voices in her ear. She knew who they belonged to now: Thomas Carlisle, Lydia Saunders, Hetty Hawthorne. But Richard killed us before we could change anything.
“So how do I stop him?”
You are stronger now, the voices mused. And we are dying. You could destroy us and take the power he wants for yourself, if you wish. But that will not stop the corruption.
“So if you die, the corruption spreads,” May said slowly. “And if you live, I find some way to halt the corruption, and I defeat my dad, you’ll still exist. You’ll still kill people, because you need our deaths to keep going.”
It is… not ideal. Augusta gestured toward the final card.
May flipped it over and stared into the cruel yellow eyes of the Beast, and she watched, her stomach sinking, as the bloodstained spires of the crown shifted before her eyes. The deck was changing to fit this nightmare she was living in, a threat—no, a warning. There were people on each of the spires now—people she recognized. Justin and Isaac and Harper and Violet, each of them dead. The sight made her want to vomit, want to cry.
“No,” she whispered. “I won’t let that happen.”
You may not have a choice.
The roots below her shriveled and shrank, revealing the stone of the founders’ seal. May saw a gap in the very center of the circle; light shone through it, a keyhole, an idea. And then the branches swam around her, and everything disintegrated into blackness once again.
But when May opened her eyes, she was no longer in her vision—or the Gray. Instead, she had somehow been transported back to Four Paths. She sat in the center of Main Street, on the real-life founders’ seal that had been placed in the center of the town square. Trees surrounded her in a pulsating circle, their branches snarled and knotted together. The sky was open and screaming above her, gray and white bleeding together. And all around her, blanketing the ground, were iridescent bits of ash.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Justin’s idea was utterly ridiculous, which Isaac suspected meant it might actually work.
“This is all too much,” Violet said. They were in the lobby of the town hall, pulling down the storm shutters on the windows. Harper and Justin were doing the same in his apartment. Before they could do anything, Isaac wanted to be sure they were as safe as possible. But the town hall was a large building, and it was taking longer than he had anticipated to check everything. “How are you feeling about all of this? If what Justin’s saying about his father is true…”
“Then he’s my ancestor. Yeah, I know.” Isaac slammed down a storm shutter with slightly more force than necessary as he thought of Richard Sullivan’s burial slot in the mausoleum. Of the portrait hanging in the archives. Lies, all of it, and Isaac didn’t know why that even surprised him anymore. “I mean, clearly he’s some kind of founder. And my family always has been a bunch of assholes. Seems fitting that the guy responsible for all our problems would be one of us.”
The only silver lining of all of this, Isaac reflected bitterly, was that the Sullivan bloodline was gigantic. All those disappearances had led to a vast, disconnected family network, which meant that he and Justin were probably only about as distantly related as anybody else in Four Paths. He’d dealt with enough tonight; finding out he’d once had a long-term crush on his cousin would have been the last straw.
“That doesn’t seem like an entirely fair judgment,” Violet said softly. “I mean, there’s you, there’s Gabriel…”
“Gabriel left.”
Violet stared at him, her eyes wide. “What?”
“He ran away from this fight. Just like he ran before.”
Isaac hadn’t realized how much it was hurting him until he’d said it aloud.
“Shit,” Violet said. “You’re right. Most of your family are assholes.”
Isaac couldn’t help it—he laughed, and after a moment she joined in, both of them sounding slightly hysterical over the wind battering the storm shutters behind them.
“I can’t believe any of this is happening,” he confessed, tugging the latch closed on the window and turning toward her. “I can’t believe Four Paths has turned into this. I can’t believe we’re stuck in here. And I can’t believe the single real idea we have rests on the only one of us without any powers.”
“Ah, Four Paths.” Violet sighed. “Always finding new ways to ruin our lives.”
“As if we can’t do that all by ourselves.”
Violet shook her head, still grinning. Her sweater had slid down over one of her shoulders. Isaac couldn’t help but notice the smooth curve of her collarbone, the light of the candle she held aloft flickering across her exposed skin. There was a strange, heady feeling building inside him.
“What?” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s just surreal to me that it’s only been a few months since you moved here.”