The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,83

Or what it made me feel, anyway.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Violet said. “I wanted to play it one last time before I said goodbye. I guess I got carried away.”

“About that.” Isaac hesitated. “You should’ve been at the town hall by now. I was, um…”

“You were worried about me.” Violet’s mouth quirked upward at the corners, and he wondered if her smile had always looked like that, like they’d just shared a secret. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” He hovered awkwardly at the edge of the bench. “I mean, your attic is kind of decaying. And you weren’t answering your texts.…”

“I can’t believe people are scared of you,” she said, a teasing edge in her voice. “You’re soft, Sullivan.”

“Yes, I think soft is the first word I’d use for someone trying to make sure everyone around them stays alive.”

Violet snorted with laughter. “Fair enough,” she said, rising from the piano bench and gesturing to a comically overstuffed duffel bag that sat on the couch. “Well, I guess I’d better get this loaded into the car.”

“It’ll take you hours to drive to the center of town,” Isaac said grimly. “The roads are packed.”

“Oh, joy.” Violet paused, and then a smile lit up her face, far more mischievous than the one she’d been wearing before. “Well, since you’re being so considerate today, how do you feel about carrying my stuff to the town hall?”

Isaac had no idea what Violet had packed, but it was obscenely, ridiculously heavy. He was sweating in the chilly November air long before the town square came into view. It was even busier now than it had been before he left, cars crowded everywhere. Augusta Hawthorne paced back and forth in front of the town seal, gesturing at the small army of deputies and volunteers in front of her. The seal itself looked completely free of corruption, at least for now. A sign that maybe they could turn all this around, if only they could figure out what the hell was causing the disease.

Isaac hated the feeling that they had half the puzzle put together. He knew they were missing something, he just wasn’t sure what. And they were running out of time to solve the mystery.

“Did you know Augusta’s calling this in as a flood warning?” Violet asked as Isaac heaved her bag through the town hall’s back door and up the stairs to his apartment. The steps were absolute murder on his back, but at last he made it to his living room and set the duffel down. Isaac wasn’t entirely certain how he’d wound up agreeing to let Violet and Harper crash in his apartment until further notice, but it had happened anyway. Saunders and Carlisle territory wasn’t safe anymore. Neither was the Hawthorne house, but Isaac was utterly unsurprised by the family’s refusal to leave their home behind. May had been born there, and it seemed like she had every intention of dying there too if necessary.

“You’re welcome,” he said, gesturing at the duffel. “I’m pretty sure that was my workout for the week. And no, I didn’t. How do you know that?”

“Thanks for carrying it,” Violet said, swinging her satchel-style backpack off her shoulder and setting it gently beside the duffel. Her cat jumped on Isaac’s secondhand couch and surveyed his new territory, his whiskers twitching. “And I know because Augusta and Juniper were up till five a.m. holding a strategy meeting in the Pathways Inn. Talking about how to get the people who are sick into a hospital, how to cover all this up. Basically, they spent a million hours figuring out how to convincingly lie to the state of New York about the supernatural hellscape we live in.”

“So she and your mom are still getting along?” Isaac had seen Violet’s mother in passing on their way into the town hall. She’d been standing close to Augusta, tapping furiously away on a tablet.

“Mom’s staying with the Hawthornes, so yeah, I guess so. She tried to get me to leave town, you know. As part of the evacuation.”

Isaac turned his head sharply. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Only been here a few months, responsible parenting, protection, blah blah blah.”

“And?”

Violet looked at him incredulously. “Are you kidding me? I can help fight this. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good.” His voice was a little too raw for his liking.

A knock sounded at his door, and he went to swing it open, half expecting Harper asking him to carry something heavy, too. But it was Gabriel instead, far more