his face was turning blue, swelling. She could see the veins in his neck bulging out, the panic in his eyes.
Something unfurled in the back of her mind, the same doorway that opened whenever she did a reading. The voice was faint and hoarse, the quietest it had ever been, but she heard it anyway.
Drink, it said. Drink and I will help you.
May had nothing left to lose. Maybe this would kill her. Maybe it would make her Richard’s puppet. But maybe?—just maybe?—the Beast was telling her the truth.
She lifted her head and made eye contact with her father.
“You win,” she said, her stomach churning. “Let him go, and I’ll drink.”
He grinned, and immediately the vines around Justin’s neck unfurled. For a moment, he remained dazed, his head drooping, and then he breathed deeply, his eyes locking on hers once more. May sagged with relief as Justin coughed and raised himself up.
“Good,” she said, trying to force her voice not to shake. “Now promise me you’ll let him leave unharmed.”
Richard frowned at her. “I did not agree to that.”
“Please,” May said. “He’s your son. I know you care about him, at least a little.”
“You’re wrong,” said Richard. “I don’t care about him.” May’s heart sank. “But… I care about you.”
He turned to Justin. “Run, before I change my mind.”
But Justin hesitated, and May knew why.
“Don’t try to free me,” she whispered.
“May—”
“Don’t,” she repeated. “He’ll kill you. You need to go.”
Justin looked at her one last time?—and bolted. May sighed with relief as he disappeared from view. She hoped he could get out of the Gray on his own.
“Now, then,” Richard said slowly. “Your end of the bargain. Or I could hunt him down and dispose of him right now, if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary,” May said. “You can release me. I won’t run?—I give you my word.”
“You can’t run,” he said lazily, but he waved a hand and obliged. May rose on her own two feet and closed the remaining distance between herself and the bubbling liquid.
Up close, the smell was overpowering. May gagged, shuddering, as her eyes traced the patterns left in the iridescent liquid. She swore that if she looked closely enough she could see entire stories playing out, figures living and dying in an endless cycle, an entire world inside this cauldron in the rotting, dying remnants of her home. It was harder than May liked to wrench her focus away.
“Drink,” Richard said as the fumes made her eyes water, as the patterns swirled before her again and again. He dipped his own hands in the liquid and pulled them out, grinning, liquid pooling between his palms. “Go on.”
May reached inside the stump and scooped out a handful of liquid, warm and steaming in her fingers, then held it reluctantly to her mouth. The liquid poured down her throat, thick and viscous. She gagged, coughing?—but it was too late. She could feel it coursing through her, hot and strange.
Her body convulsed, and the door at the back of her mind swung wide open. A voice swirled around her, but it was three voices, not one, and she saw visions of skulls and daggers and melting trees dancing around her, hazy and iridescent.
Come home, the voices whispered. Come home, Seven of Branches.
And then there was nothing.
PART FOUR
THE BEAST
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Harper’s sword had never looked better. It was polished and buffed to perfection, the steel gleaming in the glow of Isaac’s living room lamp.
“You really are always ready to fight, aren’t you?”
Harper looked up to see Isaac standing in his bedroom door, his arms crossed, his mouth a thin line of unease.
“What?” Harper smiled at him. “Scared?”
He rolled his eyes. “Just keep your weapons away from my books.”
Harper was well aware that polishing her weapons in the middle of Isaac Sullivan’s apartment intimidated him. It was why she had absolutely no intention of stopping.
Crashing here hadn’t exactly been her first choice, but she wasn’t emotionally prepared to stay with her siblings at the Carlisle cottage?—or Justin at the Hawthorne house. So Harper had chosen to join Violet at the town hall instead, even though it meant she had to be on Isaac’s turf.
She had lost herself in the familiar rhythms of preparing for a fight when a knock sounded on the apartment door.
“Are you there?” Justin’s voice drifted through the room, ragged and upset. “Isaac, open up?—”
Harper and Isaac both rushed for the door. The surprise on Justin’s face when he saw them standing beside each other was quickly