The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,68

he’d always felt he had nowhere else to go. And it had left him afraid to fall?—afraid deep down that if no one caught him, he’d crumble into ash just as easily as the trees. But Isaac was finally ready to look head-on at the thing he was most afraid of. Not Justin, not his mother, not his brother, not his powers. Himself.

“I don’t know if I’m actually different,” he said to Justin. “But I’m trying to be.”

“So am I,” Justin said. It struck Isaac how absolutely exhausted he looked. Dark circles, greasy blond hair, a cluster of zits budding on his nose. Justin had gone from Four Paths’ de facto choice for future prom king to a total pariah because of a secret he had chosen to tell the whole town. And yet he still hadn’t reached out to Isaac for help, or to whine. He’d respected his boundaries. He had only tried to come back into Isaac’s life when he’d seen him falling apart.

Maybe the people they were turning into could be friends. Maybe the only way to find out was to give it a chance. But Isaac didn’t know how to say any of that, so he settled for something easier.

“I know why you actually want to be friends again,” he said aloud. “You just want me to do your homework.”

Justin shot him a tired smile. “You got me.”

“Unfortunately for you, I’m not doing my homework anymore either.”

“Perfect,” Justin said. “We can fail senior year together. Get held back.”

Isaac snorted. “We can’t graduate with May. She’ll never let us live it down.”

“You’re right,” Justin said, swinging down from the bed and sidling over to the dresser. He picked up their history textbook and swung it open, the spine cracking in a way that suggested he had never actually done so before. “Guess we’d better get started.”

Isaac didn’t leave the Hawthorne house for another two hours, and although the textbook was open between them that entire time, they didn’t read a single word.

Harper had not been home in a long time. She’d known that this would hurt, but seeing the Carlisle cottage come into view for the first time in weeks was still unbearably painful. The sloping red-brown walls had once held her entire life inside them. Now they held far too many memories for comfort. Her eyes moved to the workshop behind the house, where her father’s hands had closed around her throat, and she froze. Again, she felt that swell of phantom pain from her residual limb.

Maybe she wasn’t ready for this. Maybe she would never be.

“Steady,” Violet murmured gently from beside her. “You’ve got this.”

It was enough to keep Harper walking. She forced her legs back into action, and together, they rounded the edge of the lake. Corruption laced through the trees around it, but it had yet to sink into the water the way it had in the Gray, and there were no buds on the trees like the ones extending from the hawthorn or hanging in the Sullivan ruins. Harper was grateful for that small mercy as they approached the statue garden in front of the house.

“Those are terrifying.” May gestured at the watchful eyes of dozens of half-crumbled stone animals. She looked extraordinarily out of place in her fuzzy pink jacket and her shiny platform sneakers, like a flamingo that had wandered into a herd of geese.

“They’re heirlooms,” Harper said. True Carlisles were supposed to be able to control those animals, but Harper couldn’t control anything. Maybe nobody would ever make them move again. She sighed and led the way up the front steps, her hand skimming the splintered wooden railing. A few of Nora’s and Brett’s toys were scattered across the porch.

The moment she knocked, she heard the familiar thump of running feet, and she knew who would be waiting for her when she pulled the door open. Not the father she had fled, but the siblings she had left behind.

“Harper!” Nora didn’t wait for a hello before she rushed at her, wrapping her spindly arms around Harper’s knees. Harper knelt in the front hallway and hugged Nora back, fighting down a sob. Her sister was so achingly familiar?—the way she smelled like Play-Doh and soap, her wispy red pigtails, the freckles etched across her nose.

“Hey, kid,” she said softly. “I missed you.”

“Mom said you were sick,” Brett piped up from beside her. It was her turn to hug him then. Harper was pretty sure he’d grown taller in the last