The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,38

them has turned them into something you can control.”

“It isn’t perfect,” Violet said slowly. She could already feel the tethers unwinding; grasping for a new connection wasn’t working. “We still need to go?—I won’t be able to hold them for too long.”

“But you can train it,” Harper said. “You can use this to help us. We’re both weapons now, Violet.”

The truth of those words coursed through Violet as they retreated back into the night.

Four Paths might be dying. But Violet had seen death before, let it engulf her, let it transform her. And she was ready to use everything she’d learned to keep that death from spreading any further.

She didn’t know if any of them could be the hero Four Paths seemed to want so desperately, now that they knew it could not be Justin Hawthorne. But at least she could do something to slow the spread of the corruption.

At least it wasn’t her fault.

May sat on a bench, her stomach churning. She’d just come from the clinic, where the three victims of the corruption lay still and suffering on their cots. The nurses who normally staffed it were back, but Gabriel Sullivan had stayed, too, monitoring their vitals with his powers alongside the nurses who did the same with their machines.

They weren’t getting worse, at least. After the disease’s initial infection, it seemed to slow down, keeping its victims’ bodies trapped in torment without destroying them. But they weren’t getting better, either. Their minds were not their own?—instead, they were in thrall to the Beast, flat eyes tracking her every move and hissing whispers following her around the room.

For now, Four Paths actually seemed to trust the founders?—the ones with powers, anyway. Gabriel returning to town and assisting with the clinic was helping stave off questions, but it wouldn’t last forever. May knew they weren’t beating back the corruption fast enough. Violet’s powers had helped a little bit, but May’s initial rush of hope that she could be a serious asset was mostly quashed. She could not reverse the corruption, only override the trees’ instincts to attack for small, precious allotments of time, while Harper couldn’t get control of her abilities at all. Isaac had been trying to disintegrate the damage, but it was growing faster than he could destroy it.

This corruption was a match that would light the pile of tinder her family had built, and if they could not stop it, soon enough they would all burn. Which was why she was so anxious to talk to her father about how they might put an end to it.

Ezra Bishop had been off on a research trip for the last few days, gathering his old study materials from his office in Syracuse and transporting them to the motel room he’d booked in Four Paths. Now that he was back in town, he and May had arranged to meet again.

She was hoping that he’d found something in his research materials that could help them, because May herself was at a loss. Usually it was enough to work through ideas in her own mind, but this problem felt bigger than her. She was starting to understand that this was part of why she’d contacted her father: because, as much as she hated to admit it, she was lonely.

She’d had friends who weren’t founders when she was younger, but they had all faded out the older she became, the more she realized how different her life would have to be from theirs. Yet even among the other founders, May knew she was the odd one out. Seth and Mitzi Carlisle kept to themselves, insular and careful, while Violet and Harper had found each other almost instantly. They’d only been friends for a few months, but their bond seemed inevitable and unbreakable in a way May had never felt in her own life. And although Justin and Isaac had made her feel included for a little while, she’d soon understood that she was merely tagging along, always a step behind, never their first priority.

Ezra was the only person who’d ever put May first. Who’d seen what she was capable of. Who actually listened to her. Which was why she was waiting for him behind the library while her mother was holding a deputy meeting at the sheriff’s station.

He appeared, eyes crinkled as he gazed into the sun. The disquiet in May’s chest shrank to a dull murmur as he adjusted his glasses and peered at her.

“I’ve found something,” he said matter-of-factly, not