The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,122
at adulthood, grasping at something they were never quite going to be ready for. He’d left his collar open deliberately, the slash of his scar worn not proudly, but honestly.
“Are you sure?” Isaac asked, the words echoing off the walls. His hands no longer sparked with power now, and although he’d expected to feel nothing but relief when it was gone, the truth was that he missed it a little. But it had been worth giving it up for this, for peace. It was the only good sacrifice his family had ever made.
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, handing him the small, unmarked urn that contained their mother’s ashes. “I’m sure.”
The decision to take Maya Sullivan off life support had not been an easy one. But it had been easier to make in the aftermath of all of this, with the full knowledge that no one would ever have to suffer the same way she had again. The truth was, she had died on Isaac’s ritual day, but only now was he ready or able to admit that to himself. It hadn’t been her in that hospital bed anymore, nor was it truly her inside that urn, and yet Isaac still grieved anyway.
One more loss for him to bear. But at least he did not need to bear it alone.
Isaac swallowed hard and lifted Maya’s urn into the drawer beside his brothers, then slid it carefully shut. A shiny new plaque winked beside Caleb’s and Isaiah’s.
MAYA SULLIVAN
He’d wondered if it was right, burying her here, but it felt good to know they were all next to each other in some way. His eyes slid to the top of the mausoleum, where they’d removed Richard Sullivan’s plaque.
“What an asshole,” he muttered, staring at it.
“Tell me about it,” Gabriel said grimly. Isaac had only found out after the dust had settled that Richard was the one behind Gabriel’s sudden need to run away. He’d cornered him at the Pathways Inn and told him that Juniper and Augusta were lying about the truth behind Four Paths, that there was no way to fix the corruption. Gabriel, panicked, had listened?—he’d recognized Richard as Justin and May’s father and figured he knew the truth. Isaac understood why Gabriel had bolted. Growth was hard. What mattered was that he’d come back.
It was Richard’s bloodthirst that had started all of this. Isaac knew that now. But against all odds, they had ended it.
“I miss her.” It was the only eulogy he could muster. “I miss all of them.”
“So do I,” Gabriel said. “But I think they’d be proud of us.”
His brother’s arm slid around his shoulder, and as they stood together, inside a monument to false gods and imaginary monsters, Isaac felt a bone-deep sense of relief.
All four of them were waiting for Isaac and Gabriel in his apartment. Harper nosing through his books, May organizing his kitchen, and Justin and Violet sitting on the couch, clearly in the middle of some kind of argument as he swung open the door.
“I told you this wasn’t necessary,” Isaac protested weakly, unsure which of them he was talking to. They’d understood when he explained that he just wanted the funeral to be him and Gabriel, but all of them had insisted they help out afterward, and they knew Isaac too well for him to effectively disagree. It was highly annoying.
“We’re your friends,” May said acridly, sticking her head out of the kitchen. “Now come on. We’re kidnapping you both.”
“I’m not sure it’s kidnapping if you tell someone you’re doing it first,” Harper said mildly. “Or if they agreed to it beforehand.”
“Also,” Violet said, jabbing a thumb at Gabriel, “I’m pretty sure he could take all of us if he wanted to.”
“Hey!” Justin said, while Gabriel simultaneously said, “I absolutely could.”
“Semantics,” May said, marching past them all and flinging open the door.
It was freezing cold outside?—December in upstate New York was not exactly beach weather?—but the exercise made it a little easier to bear. Perhaps it was overkill, to destroy the altar his family had kept in their backyard. But Isaac did not care. First they crushed it with a sledgehammer, smashing it one by one as the others cheered until there was nothing left but bits of crumbled stone. To celebrate, they carted over some kindling from the formerly corrupted trees and made a bonfire in the ashes of his family home. It was undoubtedly dangerous, but Isaac couldn’t find it in him to be concerned.