The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,37

know.”

Once she started talking, it was surprisingly easy to let the words spill out. About the ritual she and Isaac had done about a week and a half ago. How the corruption had clearly emerged from that, how it was her fault again that the entire town was in trouble.

“So I think it’s us,” she finished. “I think we started it, and I feel so useless, because my power can’t even help this time.”

And when she was done, May said the last thing she was expecting.

“You didn’t start the corruption,” she said softly.

Violet’s head spun. All she could manage was “What?”

“Maybe you spread it, that I don’t know,” May said. “But you didn’t start it. Justin and I found the corruption around two weeks ago. When Augusta came back to look at it with her deputies, she insisted it was gone, and she wouldn’t take it seriously. But now it’s back. Which means you couldn’t have summoned it.”

Her relief was immense, titanic; she did not know how to say thank you, and so she settled for a smile instead?—one that faded as May’s story sank in.

“You didn’t tell us about it,” Harper said slowly.

May shrugged. “We weren’t really getting along at the time. It’s not as if Violet told us, either.”

“That’s true.” Violet stared at the trees, distress prickling in her chest as she realized that while this absolved her of culpability, it didn’t actually solve anything.

She stepped forward, eyeing the hair growing from the trees with disgust.

“Get back!” Harper’s voice rang out a moment too late as a branch fell from the drooping tree. Pain tore down Violet’s shoulder, throwing her off-balance. She could feel where the branch had gouged through her jacket, biting into her flesh.

Her body hit the ground a moment later with a thud that sent tremors running through her injured shoulder. Her wound throbbed; she could feel a root wriggling beneath the skin and dissolving. It was an awful feeling, like a tiny ball of fire extinguishing inside her arm.

“Are you okay?” Harper was there, kneeling beside her. May joined her a moment later.

Violet forced herself to catch her breath. “Yeah. It hurt my shoulder, though.”

May helped her to her feet. “We should look at the wound.”

Violet nodded, still feeling disoriented as she shrugged her arm out of her jacket. She didn’t think she was corrupted, but she could feel something different all the same.

A feeling was unfolding in the back of her mind, in the same place the Beast permanently resided. A tether, spinning out from her and… into the trees. Was this how the possession started? It hadn’t felt like this when she was dealing with Rosie’s apparition, but she felt a stab of panic anyway.

“You’re okay,” Harper said as May shone a flashlight on the wound. “The gray is already almost gone.”

“So we really are immune,” Violet murmured.

“I’m still disinfecting it, even if it looks fine.” May riffled around in her small white backpack and pulled out a first-aid kit, ignoring Violet’s protests and curses as she swabbed the wound with peroxide.

“That hurt almost as much as the corruption did,” Violet said, scowling as she shrugged her coat back on.

“Don’t be a baby,” May shot back.

“Hey!” Harper’s voice was alarmed. Violet turned her flashlight beam and saw that the branches above them were moving again, coiling and uncoiling above their heads. That tether unfurled in her mind once more?—a tugging, a connection. Just like the one she felt from Orpheus. “We need to get out of here.”

“Wait,” Violet whispered. She had an idea. A terrible idea. She grabbed that tether in her mind and yanked on it.

“Stop,” she said slowly, extending her hands.

The effect was immediate. The branches around them began to slow. Violet could feel them in her mind, strings that she could coil around her hands and yank in whatever direction she wanted.

“Stop,” she murmured again, pulling them taut. And just like that, the branches did as she had asked. She knew this wasn’t the same kind of control she had over Orpheus, but when she was right here, when she was focused?—they would listen to her, at least a little bit.

Not possession, then. Not possession at all.

“How did you do that?” Harper’s voice was about an octave too high.

Violet’s words came out shaky. “I have no idea.”

“Your power raises and bonds with the dead.” May’s voice rang through the clearing, laced with a new respect. “I suppose that’s extended to the trees, somehow?—perhaps the way the corruption is changing