bothering with greetings. “It’s not ideal. Destruction looms.”
“You sound like an ancient prophet or something,” May said, frowning at him.
Ezra’s face tightened for a moment, but the expression was gone before May could ask about it, replaced by a gentle chuckle. “I’m a college professor, May. Forgive my occasional grandiosity.”
“It’s fine,” May said. “But what discovery is this?”
“I need to show you,” Ezra said, twisting his hands together. “Are you up for a walk in the forest?”
“Of course.”
“Splendid.”
“Where are we going?” May asked as she rose to her feet.
“The Sullivan ruins,” Ezra answered mildly as they walked into the woods together. May hadn’t been there in years, since the house had mysteriously collapsed in the dead of night. Nobody said anything, but everybody knew it was Isaac. “The family’s small now, I’ve heard, but also quite powerful. Especially the youngest boy.”
“Isaac’s powerful, sure, but it tortures him.” The words came out harsh, but May didn’t care. Even here, she couldn’t get away from the other founders. “He hates what he can do.”
“That’s a price often paid for strength,” Ezra said. “I believe it takes an exceptionally sound mind to manage the burden the Beast places upon you when you draw on its power.”
“It’s not a burden,” May said sharply. “It’s an honor.”
“You can be honest, May. I watched your mother struggle for years. I know that your powers can be both at once.”
May hesitated. “Maybe sometimes they feel like a burden. But it’s a burden I’m happy to carry, as long as I can help keep Four Paths safe.”
“Of course,” Ezra said as they stepped deeper into the trees. They were in a part of the forest that the corruption had yet to really touch, but even without the familiar smell and sights of the disease, May was still on edge.
Soon, they’d reached the edge of the Sullivan ruins. Nobody was foolish enough to venture here?—a few had come to gawk in the early days after its destruction, but Isaac had made sure they were too frightened to ever return. Ezra didn’t know about any of this, of course, so he led them toward what had once been the backyard with no hesitation.
“Here it is,” he said grimly, as the familiar smell of decay washed over them. He grabbed a bandanna from inside his coat and tied it around the lower half of his face. May was glad to see he was protecting himself?—the corruption couldn’t hurt her, but it could hurt him.
“I heard reports of strange smoke trails rising over the trees and came to investigate. This is what I found.” His voice was muffled through the fabric.
May’s heart stuttered in her chest as she struggled to process the sight in front of her. Cracked in half and sloped diagonally along the ground was a red-brown slab of stone, far away from the rest of the ruins. Twining around it were roots, dozens of them, iridescent veins shining. She knew where they were: at the Sullivans’ ritual site. But the altar, an ugly reminder of that family’s history, did not distress her nearly as much as the trees that loomed around it.
Hair hung from their branches in matted gray clumps, like the corrupted trees she’d seen on patrol with Harper and Violet. But there was something new about these. Something descended from the branches, buds made of strange gray petals that each folded inward to a glimmering, iridescent point. They were large and ungainly, each one at least six inches long, and the petals were long and skinny, twined together in a way that felt grotesquely familiar.
May stepped closer, nausea welling up in her as she realized what they reminded her of: human hands, the five fingers elongated and fused together. Her eyes roamed across the clearing, counting?—there were nearly a dozen.
“What are they?” she whispered, turning around.
“Some sort of growth,” Ezra said, his voice muffled through the bandanna. He gestured to the tree closest to the altar. May watched, horrified, as a wisp of gray smoke leaked out of the tip and dissipated into the air, iridescent flecks swirling in the autumn sunshine.
“It’s spreading the corruption,” she gasped.
Ezra nodded grimly. “I believe so. While doing my research, I discovered more oblique references to the corruption we’re dealing with now. It would seem that what the founders trapped in the Gray was not just the Beast?—it was the powers it possessed when it was roaming Four Paths, and those powers are leaking outward through the Gray and into town,