The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,78
unfurling one by one.
And Isaac’s newfound hope slipped away from him just as easily as the strands of smoke billowed from the flowers, iridescent flecks glimmering, and rose above the trees.
Violet was on watch in the spire when the attack came. She had been fretting about the letter she’d found, turning it over and over again in her mind as she tapped aimlessly at her phone. But a sudden noise made her bolt upright, her phone sliding carelessly off her lap and onto the attic floor. Beside her, Orpheus rose to his feet, mewling urgently. The red string around his ear twitched.
“Yeah, I know,” Violet said, staring at the same place he was.
Roots surged from inside the circle a moment later, destroying the founders’ symbol that had been painted inside.
She’d known this attack would come, but she hadn’t anticipated it being such an aggressive assault. The roots wriggled across the floorboards more quickly than Violet could blink. Several strands clawed for purchase against the walls, tugging down the velvet curtains that shielded the windows. In the center of the circle, the roots grew, saplings sprouting from them that were utterly laden with those disgusting handlike buds. The smell made Violet’s eyes water.
“Gross,” Violet muttered as her sneaker made contact with a puddle of silver goo leaking from the roots. She knelt down and pressed her palm against the iridescence, bracing herself as a familiar tether opened in the back of her mind.
“Don’t even try it,” she said, her hands outstretched, staring at the copse of trees attempting to invade her attic. Her home. Orpheus brushed reassuringly against her legs, hissing at the saplings as they shrank back against the wall.
The tether in her mind shivered and whined. Violet had noticed the sound before, but for the first time, she heard something else behind it. A voice, murmuring words she could not understand. But it wasn’t the words that mattered; it was the tone. It was unmistakably human.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. The saplings shifted and writhed, and for a split second she saw human bodies in the creases of their strange gray bark, arms and necks and torsos twisted in agony. The whining in the back of her mind intensified, shrill and panicked, and a tear brimmed in the corner of her eye. Violet knew it would be iridescent, just like the corruption.
Why was this happening so quickly? What had changed? Violet struggled to claw back her panic as the buds began to unfurl, smoke drifting from them and swirling together into a tiny tornado in the center of the spire.
Violet breathed in deeply, felt the rush of her power coursing through her. She tugged on this tether that she had not asked for, these powers she still did not fully understand, and with everything she had, she willed it all to stop.
That was how Juniper and Harper found her: arms outstretched, breathing heavily, sweat dripping from her brow as she held the corruption in place.
“It isn’t going to work,” she told them both, her mind spinning, the trees moving in and out of focus. The voices were growing; first there had been one, then three, and now there was an entire chorus, whimpering like dying animals in the back of her head. “When I stop…”
“It’ll spread,” Juniper finished gently. “But you can’t hold it forever, Violet. You have to let it go.”
“No.”
“I can help.” Harper appeared beside her. There was a ferocious look on her face. She knelt down, exhaled, and reached into the circle, closing her hand around a root.
Immediately, stone spread from her fingers. It snaked along the roots and up the saplings that had sprouted from them, petrifying the open buds into a dozen tiny, grotesque statues. When she stepped back, the entire thing was still and the screaming tether in Violet’s head had shrunk to a whisper.
“Thank you,” Violet said hoarsely, relief coursing through her as she collapsed to her knees, shuddering. The buds had released gray mist into the room, but it was already dissipating. Violet hoped their founder immunity would hold against this new development of the disease.
“No, thank you,” Harper said. “You held it back.”
“You stopped it.” Violet grinned at her. “You got control of your powers!”
But Harper wasn’t smiling back. “Not forever.”
Already, Violet could see silver veins beginning to appear beneath the coating of red-brown stone.
“Oh,” she whispered, dread coursing through her. “Oh no.”
“It’ll hold for at least a day, I think,” Harper said. “But it’s just temporary. The spire…”