Isaac turned around, trying to push down the steady pulse of panic in his chest as he stared at the only brother he had left. Gabriel had towered over Isaac when he’d left four years ago, but a growth spurt had evened the gap between them. They were about the same height now, although Isaac was lanky where Gabriel was broad-shouldered and muscular. Tattoos spilled out from beneath his brother’s sleeves and across his forearms, covering the scars Isaac knew lurked beneath them. Isaac studied the ink on the hand closest to him: a skull with a dagger stabbed through the eye socket.
His own scar, a line drawn across his neck, began to throb beneath his high-necked sweater. A souvenir from the last time he and Gabriel had been together.
“You wanted me to meet you here,” he said softly, the words echoing off the marble walls. “We didn’t have to do this in front of the dead.”
“You’re wrong,” Gabriel said evenly. “This is a family affair.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Isaac asked angrily. “To make me join them?”
Gabriel sighed. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“I find that very difficult to believe.”
Looking at Gabriel was like glimpsing a portal to the past. It had happened the first time Isaac had seen his brother a week ago, too, at the Sullivan ruins. Isaac hadn’t said a word. His strength to speak had been gone, replaced by the sharp, insistent press of fear. He’d bolted instead, the scenery blurring with a memory he’d pushed down a long time ago, the memory of his fourteenth birthday, the night his family had taken him into the woods behind their home and tried to slit his throat.
He’d run that day, too, staggering through the trees. Crimson had followed in his wake, falling in dark, uneven splotches on the yellow leaves.
Follow the blood, he had grown up hearing. Follow the blood, and you will find the Sullivans.
And at last, too late, he had understood why.
He’d lived through that day somehow. And for the past few years, he’d convinced himself he was safe. But now Isaac understood just how wrong he’d been. He’d agreed to meet with Gabriel because he was tired of running. Because at least now he could face his brother, not in chains, but with the full might of their family’s power in his blood. But so far, Gabriel hadn’t tried to attack him. He genuinely seemed to want to talk. Which was almost worse, because Isaac had made a terrible mistake all those years ago and he deserved to be punished for it.
“Listen,” Gabriel said, his voice even. “I’m not here to hurt you. You’re my brother. I’m here about Mom.”
Isaac stiffened. “What about her?”
Maya Sullivan was in a vegetative state at the nearest hospital. Had been for the last three years. Isaac was the only Sullivan who visited her because he was the only one left to do so.
“I don’t know if you know this,” Gabriel said, “but I’ve been getting updates of her medical records while I’ve been gone—”
“I’ve seen her medical records, too,” Isaac said sharply. “And I’ve seen her. Have you ever bothered to visit?”
The shame on his brother’s face was answer enough. Isaac felt a sharp twinge of smugness.
“That’s not the point,” Gabriel said evenly. “Her condition’s worsened lately. The doctors recommend that we take her off life support.”
Isaac glared at him. “She didn’t sign a DNR.”
“I know,” Gabriel said. “But do you really think she’d want to live like this?”
Isaac flinched. Maybe Gabriel was right, but his mother was the only family he had left who still loved him. It was hard not to hope that as long as she drew breath, there was a chance of her coming back.
Love had always been painful for him, a weapon held to his throat that his family and friends had used to control him. It was an unanswered question, a constant ache in his chest, the distant echoes of memories he wished he could forget. Yet none of that could quash the hope he carried that, one day, he’d be able to care for the people around him and have it feel like victory instead of surrender. That his emotional bonds would make it easier, not harder, to be human.
“You don’t know what she would have wanted,” he said. “Neither of us do.”
“And we’ll never find out,” Gabriel said. “Which means we need to make the best decision we can with the information we have. We’re both legal adults now—we share the power of medical attorney for her. They’re not going to do anything without both of our consent.”
“Good.” Isaac felt his power surging through his veins, building with his anger. His palms itched the way they always did in the moments before an outburst. “Because I say no, and I’m not changing my mind.”
“Isaac…” Gabriel’s voice was thick with warning. “You’re not a child anymore. You know these kinds of decisions aren’t ever easy, but they’re necessary. At least promise me you’ll think about it.”
Isaac raised a hand in response. The air around him had begun to shimmer, purple and red light collecting around his palm. Gabriel stepped backward slowly.
“You’re right,” Isaac whispered. “I’m not a kid anymore. Now leave me alone.”
He turned away from his brother, his hand closing into a fist, terrified that the tears collecting behind his eyelids would show if he looked at him for a moment longer. When he turned around again, Gabriel was gone, and Isaac’s phone was buzzing in his pocket.
He scowled and fished it out, waiting for some kind of manipulative text. But it wasn’t from Gabriel—it was from May.
“Oh no,” he muttered, staring at the words on the screen. Reluctantly, he typed a response.
A few minutes later, May appeared in the doorway of the mausoleum. She wore her usual disdainful expression and a large amount of pink, but there was something slightly unraveled in the way her nails tapped anxiously against her thigh as she surveyed the vaults of founder remains.
Looking at her was painful, too, but in a different way. She bore too close of a resemblance to her older brother for comfort.
“You were just hanging out… here?” she asked him dubiously as she stepped inside, her heeled boots clicking on the marble floor.
Isaac shrugged. He didn’t want to explain Gabriel to her, or to anyone. “You know. Paying my respects.”
“Uh-huh.” May sat down on the mausoleum’s lone bench and gestured for Isaac to join her. “Well, it’s private, at least.”
Isaac sat beside her, staring at the engraving of the founders’ seal carved into the center of the floor. It was a circle with four lines cutting through it, almost but not quite meeting in the middle. Visitors would have thought it was a cross; Isaac knew better.
This town lived in fear of a very different kind of god. Something more monstrous than holy, although for the founders they had been the same thing. Power was power and people would always want it, whether it was dressed up with pretty words and careful manipulation or stripped down to teeth and claws.
“Well?” he said, a little more sharply than he intended. He was still thinking about Gabriel. But he hadn’t wanted to wait—with the Hawthornes, he’d learned, it was best to move quickly. “What did you want to talk about?”
“I need your help.” May launched into the story of the diseased tree she’d seen and its potential link to the Gray. “We need to get rid of this problem before the rest of the town finds out about it.”
But as May continued to speak, Isaac’s own voice rang through his head, broken and hoarse, the words he’d said to Justin just a few weeks ago. I’ll do whatever you want because your happiness trumps my misery.
It had been incredibly difficult for him to confess his feelings to Justin when he knew they were unrequited. But that was the only way Isaac could think of to cut himself off.
For too long, Isaac had thought it better—safer—to follow the Hawthornes instead of carve out his own path. He knew now that it was a toxic pattern, one that he was trying hard to break. But it wasn’t proving easy.
All Isaa
c had done by answering May’s text so quickly was give in to temptation. It didn’t matter that he was in the middle of handling his own problems. The instinct to push them aside for the Hawthornes was too strong to ignore.
But Isaac had his own plans now. His research with Violet. His troubles with Gabriel. All of them belonged to him, and they were his story. He would not abandon them just to protect another family—a family that had always asked for far too much.
“I’m sorry,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’m not doing damage control for you. Not this time.”
May gaped at him. “What? But, Isaac, this could be incredibly dangerous.”
“Then your family will handle it,” he said roughly. “That’s your job, right?”
It felt good to say no. To walk away and push open the doors to the mausoleum, to squint in the afternoon sunlight as he walked across the town square toward his home. It felt like freedom.
CHAPTER FOUR
Harper’s first breath of fresh, clean forest air was a revelation. She’d been cooped up for so long in the musty interior of the Saunders manor, she’d almost forgotten what the outside world felt like. A knot in her chest loosened as the spires of the house disappeared behind the trees, orange leaves drifting from the latticework of branches above her head.
She was as ready for this as she was ever going to be. She’d chosen her outfit carefully: comfortable boots, a denim jacket with the left sleeve tied under her residual limb, and a midi-length skirt. Her sword was tucked in a scabbard at her waist. Plus, her eyeliner was perfect. All of it felt like armor.
And none of it mattered the moment she stepped onto the track behind Four Paths High School.
The asphalt below her feet was coated in dead leaves that had yet to be swept away. School was out for the day and cross-country didn’t have practice that day, but Justin Hawthorne had stuck around anyway.
Mostly, kids used the rusty bleachers beside the track for the space under them—to gossip or hook up or smoke. Today, though, Justin sat alone, a half-drunk water bottle beside him. Strands of blond hair clung to his forehead; his posture was hunched and frustrated. It had taken them a few days to arrange this meeting; Justin was being watched now, and so was she. This was the only time they’d both been able to manage.
Harper saw him notice her, his eyes widening with something a bit like fear and a bit like hope. There was no point in saying hello. They were far beyond pleasantries.
“I know what you did to me,” she said, the words ringing out across the field. Again, she thought of his betrayal the night she’d lost her powers, grabbed that rage in her mind and held it as tightly as she could. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I never wanted you to forget.” He stood up, closed most of the distance between them in a few long strides. They stood at the exact spot where the forest met the track, roots bubbling beneath the asphalt. “But I hope you know that as soon as I could, Harper, I found a way for you to remember. I hope that counts for something.”
“I—what?” Harper said, frowning at him. “It was Violet. Violet gave me my memories back.”
Justin’s face fell. “I assumed… When you asked to meet, I thought that meant you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“It was me.” Justin’s voice trembled, but his face was utterly resolute. Bile rose in Harper’s throat.
Justin was a very good liar, but she didn’t think he was lying. Not this time.
She’d never once considered Justin was the one behind this, because her memories of him were damning. Memories where he ruined her life. There was no way he’d want her to have those back; no sense in him making it possible. Harper thought about his behavior over the past few weeks. His guilt, the way he’d apologized for hurting her all those years ago. She’d thought it was all an act, a way to hurt her more than he already had.
The Hawthornes had tried to keep her in the dark because they had been frightened of what she could do. Made her a prisoner in her own mind for three years, taken advantage of her inability to see the truth in order to spread their lies. But if Justin was telling the truth, then he had turned on his own family—the one thing she’d never truly believed he could do—to help her.
“You should’ve told me,” she whispered. The world was wobbly and new, as if it had been reborn around her. She felt guilty, and then felt furious that Justin had managed to make her feel guilty at all. He had saved her and damned her; he had hurt her and healed her. Harper felt the collective weight of those things all at once, an onslaught of emotion that made her want to weep from sheer frustration. It wasn’t fair that all her best and worst moments should come from the same person.
“I know.” Justin kicked at the asphalt with the toe of his sneaker. “I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to help you sooner. I’m sorry I listened to Augusta so much. I’m sorry you had to spend years alone, believing you were powerless. You deserved better.”
Harper was suddenly, dangerously close to tears. “Thank you.”
“I know you’ll never forgive me,” Justin continued. “And I know you have no reason to believe I’m not still hiding things from you.”
But Harper did believe him. Because she could remember that night now. What had really happened. She’d been terrified when Augusta Hawthorne had attacked her, and she’d lashed out, not understanding her powers. Justin had acted to protect his mother. And she hadn’t forgiven him, that much was true, but she understood why he’d pushed her into the lake, into the Gray. He hadn’t known how badly it would hurt her. He hadn’t known what she would have done to his mother.
Harper didn’t know what she would have done, either. She knew now what it was like to feel Augusta’s flesh begin to harden beneath her grasp, to see the fear rising in the sheriff’s eyes. It had been terrifying. But it had felt necessary, too. People like Augusta Hawthorne did not listen to reason—they only yielded to fear.
And Augusta Hawthorne had been afraid of her, a fourteen-year-old girl. She still was. Harper wondered what scared Augusta more: the fact that she was more powerful than her, or the fact that, despite all she’d done to keep him away, her son wouldn’t leave Harper alone. The thought sent a thrill running through her chest. All Harper had wanted for the past three years was to be powerful, and now she was.
She had come here to use that power.
She wanted her own life again, one that wasn’t spent hiding inside the Saunders manor. Justin could help her do that. She just had to play this right.
“You hurt me,” she said evenly. “I’m not pretending you didn’t. And I’m not promising forgiveness. But I know that what I did to your family’s tree wasn’t fair. I want to find a way to work all of this out without anybody else getting hurt.”
“Perfect.” The voice did not belong to Justin. It was smooth and crisp, each syllable carefully enunciated. “You’re willing to cooperate, then.”
May Hawthorne stepped out from the forest behind her brother, the Deck of Omens clutched in one hand. The sunlight turned her ash-blond hair nearly white, illuminated the medallion that hung at the neck beneath her champagne-colored silken blazer.
“May?” Justin’s voice was raw. “What are you doing here?”
Betrayal surged through Harper, hot and sharp. She’d been a fool to think that she could arrange a meeting with a Hawthorne. She stumbled backward, into the safety of the trees.
“You promised to come alone,” she said, swiveling her head to glare at Justin.
“I did.” He looked helplessly at May, then at Harper. “Please, you have to believe me, I didn’t know she was there.”
Harper hesitated. Justin looked genuinely distraught. But then, she’d just been thinking about what a good liar he was. “So you expect me to believe she was spying on us?”
“Yeah! Because she was!”
“With good reason, apparently.” May shook her head, eyeing Harper with visible mistrust. “You attacked our tree. A direct provocation isn�
��t something we can just ignore. You’re lucky we haven’t formally declared war.”
“May,” Justin said. “You can’t just throw around a word like war—”
“She already did,” Harper said. “Look, May, you should just leave. Justin and I were doing a fine job of figuring this out on our own. You’re only making things worse.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” May crossed her arms. “Justin’s not very good at critical thinking when it comes to you.”
“Hey!” Justin glared at her.
But Harper, staring at May, realized that she was the one with the upper hand here. Because Violet might not have told her about Justin, but she still knew May had turned on her mother, too.
“I know what you did to help Violet,” she said softly, enjoying the unease flickering across May’s face. “You’re not the perfect Hawthorne they all think you are.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” May said roughly.
“I know your family made my life a living hell for years. And I know that I was still willing to try to compromise with you—but since you clearly think so little of me, I’m not so willing anymore.”
May advanced toward her, that unease morphing into rage. Justin grabbed her arm, but she shrugged it away.
“Hey,” he said uselessly. “You really shouldn’t fight each other—”
But it was a bit late for that.
Harper had only seconds left before May would be upon her. The weight of her scabbard was comforting, made her glad she’d come here ready for a fight. But the truth was, she didn’t need a sword anymore to make someone regret attacking her.
She reached for the tree nearest to her, laid her palm flat against it, and pushed with all of her collective rage.
The stone spread across the trunk immediately, stiffening the wood and turning it red-brown. But it didn’t stop there. Birds scattered, alarmed, as the stone spread across the forest floor, rustling beneath the leaves and snaking up the trees nearby. Harper could feel her power radiating through all of her, not just her hand; she was suddenly dizzy with it, her stomach churning with the knowledge that this was her; she was doing this. She tried to remove her hand from the trunk, satisfied by the sight of May frozen to the spot, staring apprehensively at the stone spreading toward her. But her palm was glued to the tree.
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