sacred places in the town. About the corruption’s spread. All that thinking had led to an idea. A dangerous idea, but Harper had a feeling it would actually work.
“I can’t believe you got me up this early.” Violet’s red hair was sticking up in the back, her eyes swollen with sleep. She clutched her coffee thermos like it was made of gold.
“I told you that you could stay home.”
“You knew I wouldn’t.”
“I did.” Harper hesitated. There was one thing hanging between them that she wanted to fix. It had been bothering her since their patrol. “The corruption. I didn’t realize you were blaming yourself for it. I… I wish you’d told me what you and Isaac did a little earlier.”
Violet flinched, then seemed to deflate slightly, her head bowing. “I wanted to tell you,” she said. “But you didn’t seem to care what me and Isaac were up to. And with all you have going on, I felt like I couldn’t ask you for help?—like I had to handle this one by myself.”
“We’re friends,” Harper said. “I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me about something, or ask me for help. You don’t have to keep secrets from me.”
Violet’s eyes widened. Harper couldn’t read the expression on her face.
“It’s easy to say that, but we all have secrets,” she said. “And I’m so scared of hurting any more people. When I thought the corruption was my fault, I couldn’t handle the guilt. I still feel it?—this sense that I got to Four Paths and everything went off the rails.”
Harper hadn’t known Violet for all that long, but she understood implicitly the deep fear that lurked within her. She’d seen it before when Violet talked about her father, her aunt, her sister. Harper had never lost someone she cared about the way Violet had. But she saw in that moment how it could make Violet worry that any mistake might cost her someone else.
“Four Paths was off the rails long before you got here,” Harper said. “The Church of the Four Deities wasn’t your fault. Neither was Augusta’s bullshit. All you did was take all the messed-up stuff and yank it out into the open, and honestly, I like it better there. It means people can’t hide anymore.”
“You won’t like it quite as much when we all get eviscerated by the Beast,” Violet said, but her tone was much lighter.
Harper tried to sound nonchalant. “Saves me the trouble of eviscerating Justin myself.”
A smile tugged at the corner of Violet’s mouth. “That’s a strange way of saying flirting.”
Harper’s stomach twisted. “He gave me my memories back. Did you know that?”
“I know. I—I knew.” The words were loaded, and Harper understood. We all have secrets.
“You didn’t tell me,” she whispered.
“No.” Violet’s words were careful. Harper could tell she’d put a lot of thought into this. “I told Justin that if he didn’t give you the memories back, I would. He asked me to give him a chance to right the wrong of betraying you?—so I did.”
“Of course he wanted to do it himself,” Harper said, overwhelmed. “Look, you talk about us, and you say we’re flirting, but?—is that even what we’re doing? He makes these ridiculous grand gestures that are really complicated, and it makes it impossible for me to think about him normally.”
“None of our lives are normal,” Violet said. “Potential dating lives included, I guess.”
Harper hesitated. Justin was one of the things that tethered her here most?—a loose end that she had no idea how to resolve. Her siblings could be protected, but this?—this was something else entirely. “I’m worried that I’m almost obligated to see our romantic relationship through because of everything that’s happened to us.”
“You’re not obligated to feel anything,” Violet said sharply.
“I know that,” Harper said. “But I also know that he’s chosen to tell the town the truth about his powers at least partially because of me. He’s trying so hard to grow up?—he’s doing everything that I thought he wasn’t capable of.”
“It’s great that he’s trying to be better, but you should only date him if you want to. Not because you feel that you need to help him, or change him, or save him. You come first, okay?”
Harper opened her mouth, then shut it. “That was pretty nuanced dating advice for someone who’s never dated anybody and was forced to wake up at five a.m.”
“I’m an excellent friend. Cherish me.”
Harper snorted and elbowed her, sloshing Violet’s coffee thermos and earning a