The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,43

much had been cleared away. The chestnut oaks were everywhere. In the middle of the street, on either side of the town hall, their branches twining above the gravestones, roots snaking across the dirt road.

She watched the dark, oily tree trunks pulsate, shuddering slightly as she realized that they were all moving in rhythm with one another like a great, grotesque heartbeat.

From the way Violet had talked about the Gray, from her own fragmented memories of the time she’d spent there, Harper had thought it would be a hostile place. Instead it simply felt empty, like a dollhouse whose owner had grown out of it.

Well, fine. Harper was looking for trouble. And if it wouldn’t come to her, she would find it all by herself. She pulled the sword out of her scabbard and set off into the thick of the woods, letting her lifetime in Four Paths guide her through this strange terrain.

Her first sign that something was off was the smell. It reminded her of burnt hair and spoiled meat, harsh and unnervingly sweet, the same rotting stench that emanated from the corrupted trees in Four Paths.

Harper’s heartbeat sped up, and she kept walking, the ground softening beneath her sneakers. When she glanced down at the ground, she saw shimmering pools of iridescence waiting for her. She threaded her way through them, following them until she broke through the tree line to the Carlisle lake.

And gasped.

Instead of water, it was filled to the brim with that same gray, oily, iridescent liquid. It was not a still thing, this shadow lake; it rippled and shivered, creating waves that crested and sloshed at the edge of the lakebed, mere inches away from Harper’s sneakers. This close, the smell of it was overpowering. Harper pulled the neck of her sweatshirt over the bottom half of her face and tried not to gag.

The trees around the lake had changed, too. They had grown together, braided branches and trunks, like a massive fence. And they were dying. The trunks were paper-thin and shot through with veins, iridescent and shiny. Buds shaped like bunched fingers hung from their branches, wisps of smoke drifting aimlessly from their tips. Harper’s stomach churned as the smell hit her, so strong it was almost a tangible thing.

She had been right. The corruption had worsened at the heart of Sullivan territory, and it was disastrous here, too, at her family’s ritual site. She needed to map this farther, check out the Saunders manor and the Hawthorne tree.

The thinning bark of the tree nearest to her shifted, the side bulging out for a moment, as if the tree were an egg about to hatch. One of the buds brushed against her arm, soft and tender as her own flesh. Harper gasped and stumbled away from the branch. She could see the outline of hands pressing against the insides of the mutated tree trunk. Fear stirred in her chest, and a voice stirred with it, tinny and hollow.

Two of Stones, it whispered, thin and fragile as a fleeting breeze. Interesting.

She turned away from the tree.

And there, at the edge of the Carlisle lake, was Justin Hawthorne.

Justin couldn’t be here. This was not a place for him, without powers, without the strength she knew she’d always possessed. Yet here he was, smiling and blond, dressed in the same jeans and T-shirt she’d last seen him in.

And then she met his eyes?—flat and lifeless?—and she understood. Something stirred in her chest that throbbed like a heartbeat and ached like a wound. She blinked, gray filling her vision, then let the tear roll down her cheek. She should’ve been scared. But she had never feared anything more than not knowing, and now she knew. Now she saw.

It didn’t look much like a monster. But maybe that was the point.

“You’re the Beast,” she said, brandishing her sword?—for whatever good that would do her. The words rang out a moment later, a little shakier than she was proud of.

Its smile widened. It looked wrong on Justin’s face?—hard-edged and cruel, the smile of the boy she’d wanted him to be because it would make him easier to hate instead of the boy he really was, well-meaning but malleable, torn miserably between whatever he’d convinced himself he owed to her and his duty to his family.

The Beast had taunted Violet with Rosie. Now it was taunting her with him.

Very good, it said, its lips moving, although the words still rang out inside Harper’s head. You shouldn’t be here,