“Yes, you invited him here,” Augusta said. “But you only did so because I didn’t know how to tell you the truth. There are some burdens I hoped you’d never have to bear. But I see now that keeping them from you has only hurt us both.” She hesitated. “Remember what I told you before, May? About your father’s interest in Four Paths? From the moment you were born, it was always centered on you and Justin. He explained to me that he had a theory about how to re-create the original ritual the founders did to imprison the Beast, but this time, the ritual would kill it. But there was a catch: It would require a different bonding process. And you two would be, effectively, his first experiments.”
“So you knew about the ritual?” May’s head swam. “Did you know that I actually did it?”
“No,” Augusta said. “I was so horrified by the idea that I threw him out. But somehow, he always found a way back in. He’d send you two presents, or he’d make some ridiculous grand gesture, and I would relent.”
May’s stomach churned. She could remember Ezra flittering in and out of their lives, could remember the toys he’d bought them. She had always thought of Augusta as the harsh one for continuing to kick him out.
“You never told me any of this. Why?”
“Because you loved him,” Augusta said simply. “Because he’s your father, and even if our relationship wasn’t going to work out, I thought you deserved to have one with him. And up until a few weeks ago, when you came to me with questions about changing the future, I thought he hadn’t gone through with it.”
“But you haven’t let him back in for the last seven years,” May said slowly. “What changed?”
Augusta’s face paled.
“Something happened the day he left. We had a fight… but it went too far.”
And May remembered then, that old memory swimming back into her brain. The screaming. Don’t go downstairs, May. Justin standing in front of her, shielding her, and when she’d rushed into the front hallway—
There had been a red mark on her mother’s cheek.
Nausea coursed through her.
“He hit you,” she whispered.
Augusta blanched. “I thought you didn’t see.”
“I didn’t.” May’s mind knitted it together then. She’d heard it happening. Justin had run up the stairs and told her not to go down there, and when she had, Ezra had been storming for the door, his bag in his hand. She couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been, after that, for her mother to watch her rush after him, to beg her dad to take her with him. “But I should have figured it out. Of course you didn’t want him to come back after that. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry—” Her voice broke, and then there was nothing left but tears.
She was breaking, sliding into oblivion, struggling to reckon with a family that was stitched together by nothing more than the ways they’d hurt one another. No wonder Justin had chased her into the forest. He’d kept this secret all these years alongside her mother.
“You didn’t know,” Augusta whispered. May collapsed into her, and Augusta held her like she was a child again, stroking her hair as she sobbed.
“It doesn’t matter,” she choked out, clinging to her mother for dear life. “He won.”
“No, he didn’t.” Augusta drew away from her, and May stared at her mother, her eyes wide. “He made a crucial mistake. He thought he could beat you down until you’d follow him anywhere. But that’s not what happened, is it?”
For the first time, May did not see her mother as an obstacle or an enemy. She saw her for who she was. Selfish and corrupt, frightened and angry, yet still fighting with every breath she had to protect the people she loved.
May’s father had been wrong about Augusta and Justin. Maybe he was wrong about her, too.
“No,” she whispered. “It isn’t.”
“I’ve got a plan to end this,” Augusta said gently. “All you have to do is listen to me.”
Unease pricked at May’s chest. Part of her wanted nothing more than to fold herself back into her mother’s embrace and nod. But all that would do would be going from being one parent’s tool to the other’s. Her mother might not have been a monster, but May knew she couldn’t fully be trusted.
“I’m the only one who’s seen Dad in action these last few weeks,” May said, “and I’m the only one strong enough to beat him. I need you to listen to me if we’re going to take him down, okay?”
Her whole life she’d looked to someone else to give her validation, be it Augusta or Richard or the rest of Four Paths. But all that really mattered was that she knew what she was capable of.
She had the power to break this vicious cycle for good. She’d known that was true, but now at last she let herself believe it. Let herself trust that her own voice was enough, that she didn’t need someone else to tell her so.
Augusta stared at her, and May stared back, unbroken, unbending.
“Okay, then,” her mother said at last, the respect in her voice as sweet to May as honey. “What did you have in mind?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They quarantined Justin in Isaac’s bedroom. It was brutal work, and he writhed and wailed as roots pulsed down his back.
He didn’t attack them as Violet had feared he might, but she was still worried enough about his mental state to remove everything from the room he could possibly use to hurt either himself or others. When they were done, there was hardly anything left besides the mattress he was lying on, wincing at the ceiling.
“It’s not… going so well,” he murmured. He was drifting in and out—sometimes it was the Beast in there, sometimes it was Justin. Violet was all too familiar with the feeling.
“You have to fight it,” she said. “You’re still you. It’s still your mind. I promise.”
“I’m… sorry,” he croaked, locking eyes with her. “Wanted… to change things. But not like this.”
“I know,” Violet said. And she did know. “You saved me when the Church kidnapped me. Now we’re going to save you, okay?”
Outside the room, she found herself pacing back and forth in the kitchen, wrecked with exhaustion. Orpheus rubbed against her legs in a futile attempt to comfort her, but she was far beyond that.
Things had moved so fast, she’d had very little time to process what Juniper had told her—or to worry about her. Now she let it all surge through her, utterly overwhelmed by its harshness. She had no idea where her mother was or if she was all right. And their last moments together before they’d been separated by the corruption had been a fight.
Violet was sad that Juniper hadn’t told her the truth earlier, but she also understood the rationale behind her mother’s lie. She had to believe for her own sanity that soon they’d get the chance to talk all this out in person.
For now, she had to focus. Justin was sick, and Richard had May in his clutches. They knew how to save them both, but the battle to come would not be easy.
She had the feeling that, one way or another, this fight would be her last.
Harper did not know how to say goodbye. She’d asked for a few minutes alone in the quarantine room, and it felt pathetic to spend them clutching her sword and choking back tears next to her not-quite-boyfriend. But the sight of him wincing with pain on Isaac’s bare mattress was too much for her to bear. It had occurred to her many times that their lives were in danger. But never before had it felt so immediate. They were so fragile, all of them, and Harper hated that the feeling she’d had at the lake had come to pass. That she hadn’t been able to save him after all.