“It’s like what we did on Founders’ Day.” Violet’s voice was soft. “When they crowned us.”
“You’re right,” May said, her eyes snapping up to the girl’s disturbed expression. They had playacted this every year, she realized, glorifying something they did not understand. But they knew now.
Each of them sat in their place—May to the south, for the Hawthornes; Isaac to the west; Violet beside him at the north, still visibly shaky; and Harper in the final spot, in the east. The place where their ancestors had died. Where they would complete the ritual they had failed to finish all those years ago.
An iridescent liquid soaked through May’s jeans. The cauldron bubbled and smoked between them as she pressed her hands to the cool stone, exhaling. A presence whistled through the air, a voice in the clearing, tinny and hollow.
Well done, Seven of Branches.
May could hear the voices twined together in it, now that she knew who they belonged to. They were the voices of three people who had found magic in the world and used it to make themselves stronger. They had twisted it and broken it until it could not survive on its own anymore, and all that remained was their blood, their legacy, their ugly, mutated sacrifice.
It was time at last for the monster they had become to find peace.
“If this works, our powers are gone,” May said, staring around at all of them. “Are you sure that’s really what you want?”
“Of course it is,” Isaac said immediately.
“I didn’t even know I could have these abilities until a few months ago,” Violet said, shrugging. “I think I’ll be okay.”
Harper hesitated, though.
“It’s the only way I can ever be free of this place,” she said finally, locking eyes with May. “What about you? Are you ready?”
May nodded.
“All right,” Harper said. “We know the song. You’ll figure it out, I think—join in.”
And she began, the tune as familiar to May as her own heartbeat. It was the “Founders’ Lullaby” as she had never heard it sung before, and yet after only a few lines, she felt the forest’s presence rushing through her. All their voices joined together, chanting the lines over and over again. It was a song and a promise and a story all in one.
Seekers in the woods, they say,
Found a forest, strange and gray,
Saw its power, found a way
To take it for their own.
Now we wish to give it back—
It was never ours to have.
Heed our plea, we beg, we pray:
Branches and stones, daggers and bones,
We wish it all away.
As they sang, May reached inside herself and pushed, surrendering her magic to the tree, energy moving through her and into the seal. And as she glanced around at the others, she saw that they were doing the same.
It was working, she realized. The ground beneath them was beginning to shake, the iridescent trees shivering, their fingerlike branches moving in an unseen wind.
And then a noise sounded through the clearing, a scream that seemed to tear through the fabric of reality itself. A figure appeared at the edge of the clearing, his hands braced against two dissolving tree trunks.
“Nice try,” Richard Sullivan spat, stepping into the clearing. His coat was tattered, his hair windswept and wild, and blood and grime were smeared across his face. But he was here, and he was standing, and that alone was enough to make May’s arms prickle with gooseflesh. “But this ends now.”
Before any of them could move, he spread out his hands. The roots untwined from the ground again, easily incapacitating Isaac, Harper, and Violet. They were all yanked back, their arms and legs pinioned together by branches. They struggled and screamed, but he was too strong. The fight was over in mere moments, leaving only May to face Richard.
She rose slowly to her feet, her father’s gaze tracking her every movement.
But he could not track her thoughts.
Are you there? she asked.
Yes. The voice was faint, but clear. You’ve almost done it. Just one more push… just one more time…
I’ll do it. May set her jaw.
“Dad,” she said. She couldn’t think about whether or not he’d left bodies in his wake, and yet she couldn’t imagine a world where the other founders let him pass while they could still move. But she could worry about that later; right now, this was all that mattered. The man before her and the ritual she’d promised to finish.
Richard looked at her, and she did not for a moment believe the regret she saw on his face. “It didn’t need to come to this, May. If you’d only just cooperated…”
“Is that what you told the other founders?” May snapped. “Your friends?”
“I’m not here to argue about morality.” Richard’s voice was hollow. “I am here to take the powers I was promised when I made my sacrifice. There’s still room for you to take that power, too. Do you understand that if you go through with this, all you’ve worked for will just… disappear? You’re so talented, May. What a shame to throw that away.”
May took a deep breath and tried to focus. Richard had raised her to believe that she was meant to be useful, not loved. That no one would notice her or care for her if she was ordinary.
But May knew better now.
She was more than her power. More than the Deck of Omens, more than the Gray. Strong enough to make a monster listen, and strong enough to know it wasn’t right to command it at all. It was time to end this now, make it so that no child would have to go through this ever again. She would not let Four Paths do this to anyone else.
She’d come here to give all of this up, and she was not about to let her father stop her.
“But it isn’t your power,” May said, reaching for the roots in her mind. “It’s never belonged to any of us.”
As she exhaled, she let the hawthorn’s endless pathways spiral through her. Her mind spun, visions dancing behind her eyes, and in that moment it was as if she held the entire forest inside her, as if she was at the heart of the whole town. Her mind spun as she felt the collective pain of all of those who had died here, their horror, their sadness and fear in their final moments.
She collapsed to the ground, her hands twining in the roots, and pushed.
The effect was instantaneous. The roots around her friends uncoiled, releasing them; they tumbled onto their sides, gasping for air, as the founders’ symbol began to shake beneath them.
“Give it your power!” she called out to them. “Finish this.”
Wordlessly, they pressed their hands to the roots as she had; May felt the collective hum of their power as it joined hers.
“What is this?” Richard snarled, stretching out his own hands. But nothing moved.
“You’re too late to stop the ritual,” May said, tipping her head up to meet his eyes. “I am not your tool. And you will never make another sacrifice.”
As she spoke, gray mist poured out of the cracks in the founders’ symbol. It hung in the air, coiling and uncoiling, and from it, three figures emerged.
At the sight of them, Richard blanched, and May gasped.
“You betrayed us,” Lydia Saunders whispered. She was ethereal in gray, her braid dissolving into smoke at the ends.
“You destroyed us,” Thomas Carlisle said, his eyes dark pits of despair.