The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,6

no one was watching her. The town’s eyes had made her cautious, because she knew that in many ways what happened next would be a kind of first impression. And the Hawthornes’ attention had made her most cautious of all.

“You’re right. I just don’t know how to make the Hawthornes see me as anything but a threat. And we both know what they do to threats.”

Violet paused. “I’m not entirely sure it’s true that the Hawthornes do see you as a threat. Not all of them, anyway.”

“Sure they don’t.”

“No, seriously.” Violet hesitated, as if considering something, then exhaled and continued. “You remember when I had my memories taken away by Augusta?”

Harper nodded, unease stirring in her gut. “Of course.”

“Well, May’s the reason I got them back.”

Harper gaped at her. “That’s not possible.”

May Hawthorne was a perfect blond automaton, an extension of Augusta with shiny teeth and an endless supply of pastel bomber jackets. She was the last person Harper would expect to defy her mother.

But if what Violet was saying was true, then she had, in a major way.

“I know how impossible it sounds,” Violet said. “But it’s true. There’s… more going on there than you might think.”

On the nightstand, Harper’s phone had finally come back to life. Blinking on the screen were dozens of unread texts. She didn’t have to look at the number to know who most of them were from.

“Maybe you’re right.” She turned away from Violet to stare at it more closely. If her friend was telling the truth about May, surely it stood to reason that Justin couldn’t be as mad at her as she’d imagined. Surely there was some way to work all of this out. “I… I need to make a call.”

* * *

Violet met Isaac Sullivan in the foyer of the town hall that evening, as planned. The familiar echo of her feet on the marble floors agitated her. This was the third time they’d met in the past week, all with the same goal in mind, and she had no reason to believe this excursion would be any more successful than the others.

Unfortunately, the only other idea she’d brought up had just gone to shit.

“The hair’s new,” Isaac said, detaching himself from the shadowy corners of the foyer like a lanky wraith. He was fond of making dramatic entrances, although he’d been careful to avoid startling Violet after she’d cursed him out the first time he emerged unexpectedly from a dark hallway. “Is it part of an early Halloween costume or something? Because you know Four Paths doesn’t celebrate that.”

The hair was indeed new. It had taken Violet all afternoon to get from her natural color?—a brown so dark it was almost black?—to this new one. Bleach, toner, box dye, and one blow-dry later, though, she was finally done.

The result was a bob the bright crimson of a founders’ medallion. Of an open wound. Of a rose.

“I’m going to kill a monster,” Violet had whispered at her new reflection, letting the words echo through the bathroom, and in that moment, she could almost believe they were true.

Now, staring at Isaac, she felt a little foolish.

“I know,” Violet said tersely. The Halloween thing was another Church of the Four Deities holdover?—nobody dressed up or trick-or-treated, since it wasn’t considered safe. “I just… wanted a change, okay?”

“Fair enough.” Isaac frowned into the darkness behind her. “Did you invite Harper?”

“I tried,” Violet said, the words sour in her mouth. “She’s not interested. The Hawthornes are a bigger problem than the Beast right now, as far as she’s concerned.”

Violet knew firsthand how dangerous the Beast was. Fighting it was bigger than all their petty disagreements?—but she couldn’t force Harper to see that. Her friend had already been through enough.

“We could’ve used another founder’s help,” Isaac said. Violet nodded. She followed him up the stairs at the back of the foyer and to the locked door in the hallway behind it, one Isaac had somehow managed to get a key to. It led to the founders’ archives?—the best store of information either of them had been able to find on the history of Four Paths. They’d been meeting here regularly since Isaac had agreed to help her try to kill the Beast.

Violet was grateful that she didn’t have to search for answers alone. But it was hard to keep her emotions toward Isaac contained at grateful. She hated that she’d wanted some kind of reaction from him?—about the hair, about anything. When she’d first moved to