“Things in town are worsening,” Augusta Hawthorne said grimly from across the table. “We understand why trusting us is a difficult proposition. But if you formally become part of our patrol roster, you would strengthen our forces. You would save lives.”
“The sheriff lies.” Juniper’s voice, from the opposite end of the table, was sharp. “She lied about your memories, to both you and your family. We’re perfectly capable of training you, too, and if you lend your power to us, we can change the problems plaguing Four Paths for good. We can protect the town far better than Augusta has.”
Augusta’s nostrils flared, her gloved hand clenching her coffee cup, but she said nothing.
They were all sucking up to her, Harper realized. It was absurd. Two months ago, the Hawthornes didn’t care if she lived or died, and now they were begging for her help. She imagined Justin on his knees and felt a pleasant twinge of satisfaction. She could make him do that, if she wanted. She could make them grovel for her—and maybe she should.
“What about the hawthorn tree?” she asked softly. “May seemed pretty upset about it.”
Augusta’s face twitched. “She is, and so I thought it best that May not be included in this discussion, due to her… rash actions the other day. But I assume that, should we become your allies, you will join us in our quest to preserve our power by restoring the tree—and we, of course, would be willing to forgive such an indiscretion if you prove your dedication to assisting us.”
“You can’t trust them,” Juniper said, her eyes narrowing.
Augusta stared at her. “This is a civil affair, June.”
“I am being civil, August.”
Harper did not know what to say to either of them. All she knew was that she didn’t want to let Four Paths twist her the way it had so clearly twisted both of them. It had turned her own father into a monster, turned her friends’ parents bitter and angry.
She wanted to believe it wasn’t too late for her, but she worried it already was. She’d attacked the Hawthornes. She’d estranged herself from her family. And now here she sat at a crossroads, unable to find her own voice even as the others around her grew louder and more agitated.
“Mother.” Justin’s tone was pointed. “You promised to stay calm.”
Augusta shot her son a glare. “Don’t push me.”
“You’re not listening to me either, Mom,” Violet said quietly, from the other side of the table. “We’re trying to prevent a war here, not start one.”
“We have always been at war with one another, Violet.” Juniper looked deeply sad as she stared Augusta down. “Our powers aren’t meant to be shared.”
Violet groaned. “You’re all missing the point.”
“And what point is that?” Augusta asked. “That you sheltered a fugitive?”
Violet didn’t miss a beat. “That you lied to our entire town?”
“Enough!”
The voice came from somewhere deep inside her—the same place her powers surged from, the same place that had helped her wake up before dawn each morning to practice swordplay, the same place that had allowed her to spend four days in the Gray and survive.
It stopped the rest of them midsentence, turned all eyes to her. Harper pushed back her chair and stood up, her heart thumping in her chest.
She knew now what she wanted: the same thing she’d wanted before she’d gotten her powers back. Before her dad had ensnared her in his reckless plot. Before Justin Hawthorne had wormed his way back into her life.
She wanted to get out of this town and never look back.
But it was not as simple as running away. Her siblings—Seth and Mitzi, Brett and Nora, her baby brother Olly—all of them deserved to grow up somewhere safe. So she would have to make it that way, a town that would never hurt her family the way it had hurt her. If she left Four Paths with no loose ends, it would never have any reason to pull her back.
“I choose both of you,” Harper said calmly. “And I also choose neither of you. Sheriff Hawthorne, I want your training. You took my memories and sent me into the Gray because you knew I was powerful. So teach me how to use that power, but know that I’ll only use it for the town—not for you. And Juniper, if you’ll have me, I’d like to keep staying here for now and train with you as well. You both have things to teach me, and you both have reasons to use me—which means I might as well use you back. I want to help keep this town safe. I want to fix the hawthorn tree. But I’m not fighting for either of you—I’m fighting for myself.”
The two women looked at each other, both still frowning. But Harper didn’t care about them. She cared about the small nod Violet shot her across the table. And she cared about the smile stealing across Justin’s face, like a secret he knew he shouldn’t be telling.
“I think,” Justin said, trying and failing to contain his grin, “Harper makes an excellent point.”
“I agree,” Violet said primly.
Juniper’s lips twitched. “I suppose it is your choice.”
Augusta’s mouth was a hard-edged line, but when Justin nudged her with his elbow, she spoke. “Fine.”
And Harper felt victory course through her as Justin herded his mother away from the table and toward the Saunders manor’s front door.
Ezra Bishop hadn’t changed at all in the seven years since May had seen him last. He had the same graying blond hair, curling gently where it met his ears. The same dusting of stubble on his cheeks. The same lupine, sharply angled face, which was now turned toward her, assessing her like a puzzle he’d been trying to solve from behind his wire-rimmed glasses.
They’d exchanged awkward hellos at the entrance to the restaurant—a pizza place May had found a thirty-minute drive away from Four Paths, far enough that nobody would recognize either of them. Since then, they’d attempted small talk that had lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, May stirring too many sugar packets into her coffee, Ezra simply watching her. She wasn’t sure what either of them was waiting for. She was starting to wonder with every second that passed if this had all been a terrible idea.
“I’ll confess, I’m not quite sure how to do this,” he said at last, from across the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”
His words were casual, but May could feel the undercurrent of despair in them.
“Funny,” she said. “Since the last time I saw you, you promised to come back.”
He winced. “I know. And I assure you, I had every intention of keeping that promise.”
“So what changed?”
Ezra wrapped a large, square hand around his own coffee cup, looking uncomfortable. “I was told that if I came back, I wouldn’t be wanted.”
May didn’t have to ask who had told him such a thing.
“Of course she said that to you,” she said sharply. “Why on earth did you believe it?”
The words rang out a bit too loudly across the mostly empty restaurant. The only other patrons—an older couple with matching baseball caps—turned their heads.
“You and Justin were very young when I left,” Ezra said, lowering his voice. “It was painful, but I knew that when I was around your mother, we brought out the worst in each other. It didn’t seem healthy for you both to see us acting like that. So as the years passed, I grew convinced it would be best for us all if I left the three of you alone.”
“You mean you gave up,” May said hollowly. This wasn’t the father she remembered—this sad, quiet man who was looking at her now with shame in his eyes.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “I suppose I did.”
May hadn’t anticipated this, but it made a strange sort of sense. Ezra had left town for good because Augusta had finally driven him away. But Augusta had made a critical mistake: She hadn’t considered how May would feel, or what she’d want.
May reached into her purse and pulled out one of the old photographs she’d kept in her box. It was the only one she had of just the two of them. She was maybe
four or five, wearing pink overalls and a gap-toothed grin. Ezra’s hands were wrapped around her waist, lifting her up so she could grasp the bottom branches of the hawthorn tree.
She slid the picture onto the table and tapped her father’s smiling face.
“Maybe you gave up,” she said. “But I didn’t.”
For a moment, there was silence. Ezra stared at the photograph, and May did not let herself breathe, did not let herself hope. Then Ezra smiled in a way that May had almost forgotten—teeth bared and wide, a smile identical to Justin’s creasing in his cheeks.
It was a smile that meant the man she’d come here to find was still in there.
“You said you needed my help,” he said slowly, and May nodded, hope flaring in her chest.
She had contacted Ezra for reasons beyond simply wanting to reconnect. He’d been a PhD student at Syracuse University, doing research for a dissertation on local theological movements, when he’d met Augusta Hawthorne during her undergrad years. She didn’t know how he’d wormed the truth about Four Paths out of her mother, only that he’d become just as fascinated with the town as the founders were. One of her most prominent childhood memories was Ezra’s multiyear attempt to catalog the founders’ archives in the town hall.
“I don’t know if you abandoned your research when you left,” she said. “But there’s something dangerous happening in Four Paths, and if you’re willing to brave Mom’s wrath, I think you might be able to help me stop it.”
Ezra leaned forward as she explained the corruption she’d seen to him, detailing the strangeness of it, the way it had disappeared, and her determination to get to the bottom of it. His face was alight with interest.
“I know you’re scared to come back,” she finished. “But I really do need help. So what do you say?”
Their waitress appeared at the table, sliding two slices of pizza toward them before silently backing away. Ezra eyed the half-congealed cheese before him with distrust before meeting her gaze. His gaze was thoughtful and solemn.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
May nodded, satisfaction flickering through her. “Good.”
She tried not to think about the other reason she wanted him to come back. The secret she’d kept for a long time, about just how much Ezra had uncovered during his research. He could help her understand exactly what she’d done beneath the hawthorn tree. He could help her figure out this new dimension to her power.
Her palms itched again as she thought of her long-healed scars, of blood and bark and the scent of earth. She lifted her coffee cup to her mouth and downed the sludgy, sickly sweet liquid inside.
PART TWO
THE THREE OF DAGGERS
CHAPTER SEVEN
Isaac couldn’t stop thinking about his family. The Sullivans always haunted him, but seeing the Beast imitate his mother had dredged up an endless well of memories. Her image had reminded him of the way she’d protected him on his ritual day, the sacrifices she had made to try to keep him safe. It was why Gabriel’s insistence that they let her go had offended him so much—she’d done everything in her power to save his life. He would do the same for her. His focus drifted as he floated through another day at Four Paths High School, distracting him even further from the backlog of homework piling up in his room and the tests he’d forgotten to study for.
His teachers generally went pretty easy on the founder kids—it was the only possible explanation for Justin’s solid B average, considering Isaac had never seen him crack a textbook—but Isaac could feel himself slipping even by their lenient standards.
There was also the issue of the whispers. People had stared at Isaac a lot over the last few years thanks to all the rumors his ritual had set in motion, but lately those stares had been… pointed. Isaac was used to the town acting hostile toward him. This felt different—he just didn’t understand how.
He was determined to focus, to put his family out of his mind. And that was going just fine until he walked into the high school courtyard during lunch and saw Gabriel leaning against the concrete wall, scrolling through his phone.
Isaac’s stomach lurched. He wanted it to be the Beast again, or his own imagination. But he knew it wasn’t.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, closing the distance between them. His gaze darted to the other students milling around. He didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to this, but surely someone would figure out what was going on before long. And if news of another Sullivan in town got around, well… Isaac didn’t know what would happen, but he knew he wouldn’t like it.
Gabriel looked up from his phone, his face utterly impassive. “I am an alumnus, you know.”
Isaac scowled at him. “You’re still trespassing.”
“I have a visitor pass,” Gabriel said mildly. He slid his phone into his pocket. The tattoo on his inner forearm—a wolf—bared its teeth at Isaac. “Also, people have been reporting suspicious activity in a woods clearing where a recent police investigation took place. The people at the Pathways Inn had a lot to say about it last night. There are quite a lot of rumors about us founders now, did you know that?”
Isaac froze, his heart thumping in his chest. So this was why Gabriel was here: to talk to him about the ritual he and Violet had tried to do.
“I…” he began, unsure what to even say. “I was trying…”
“I told you not to come out here.” The voice was so loud, Isaac was sure it was addressing him. But when he turned he saw that Cal Gonzales, one of Justin’s track friends, was standing at the other end of the courtyard, speaking very loudly.
Beside him, the clear target of his ire, was Justin Hawthorne.
Isaac had walked through many hallways with Justin over the years. He knew how people reacted to his friend: a mixture of awe and friendship that he’d never managed to earn for himself. Today though, Cal was staring at Justin with obvious disdain. Isaac looked around at the rest of the courtyard: Their expressions matched his.
Unease coursed through his stomach. He’d known things had worsened at school for Justin after the truth about his lack of powers had spread, but he hadn’t realized it had gotten this bad.
“Hey.” Justin’s voice sounded strained. Isaac had never seen him alone like this: no friends beside him, no powers to shield him, just a backpack and a feigned smile. “Just trying to eat lunch, man.”
“Not with us.” Cal gestured to the people clustering behind him—the rest of the cross-country team. People Isaac had heard his friend talk about for years with so much respect, so much care.
Justin’s gaze flicked across the courtyard, meeting Isaac’s, then widening a bit as it caught on Gabriel. But he said nothing to them. The expression on Justin’s face hit Isaac like a bullet. Not because he looked angry, but because he looked resigned.
Isaac’s temper roared in his ears. He could make everyone in this courtyard kneel if he wanted to—force them to apologize. Force them to admit that they had no idea the pressure the founders were under, the lengths Justin had gone to in order to protect them. His power was already tugging at him, begging him to use it. It would be so easy to let it loose.
But Gabriel was watching. Everyone was watching. So he used his words instead.
“Cal,” he said. The boy turned toward him, the disdain on his face changing into something else entirely. That same look Isaac had been noticing more and more often. “He’s eating with me.”
The track team murmured uncomfortably. Cal stepped back, raised his hands slightly.
“If you say so,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble. Not with you.”
Justin walked over to him reluctantly, shoulders tense, jaw clenched. Isaac caught his eye, and they walked out of the courtyard together, Gabriel trailing behind.
“Why—” he began softly, but Justin shook his head.
“Don’t.” His voice was gruff and low. “They used to listen to me. Now they listen to you.”
H
e stalked off then, and Isaac sagged backward in the hallway, struggling to remember how to breathe.
He wished he hadn’t understood Justin’s words. But he did. He had assumed that after news of Justin’s deception got out, the rest of the town would automatically distrust all the other founders alongside him. But that wasn’t true. They were punishing Justin, and that look they were giving Isaac—that look was respect.
It was a look that terrified him, because he knew he’d done nothing to deserve it. If the person the town felt safest turning to was a Sullivan, they really were all in trouble.
“Things sure have changed around here,” Gabriel said, and Isaac jolted. He’d half forgotten that his brother was behind them, but at least Gabriel looked distressed, too. “What happened while I was gone? Why are they being so hard on the Hawthornes?”
“He doesn’t have powers. The town found out,” Isaac said shortly. His breath was still coming a shade too quickly. “Honestly, the founders’ track record just isn’t what it used to be.”
Gabriel’s brow furrowed. And then he said the last thing Isaac expected.
“So let me help,” he said. “I’m a founder, too. I know you’re involved with whatever happened in the forest—”
“No.” The word flew out of Isaac’s mouth before he could even think about it.
He couldn’t trust Gabriel. Not with his failures, not with anything.
Because every time Isaac looked at Gabriel, he saw his older brother standing over his chained-up body, holding a knife to his neck, ambivalence in his eyes.
Harper stood beneath the tree she had turned to stone, guilt churning through her stomach. It was a cloudy fall afternoon, but the sun still shone brightly enough to illuminate the stiff, unmoving branches. It was red-brown stone all the way from the top of the tree’s gnarled branches to the place where the trunk sank into the soil.
She knew exactly why Augusta Hawthorne had arranged for her to come here for her first training session. It was meant to destabilize her, to give Augusta justification for whatever she was about to put Harper through. Harper was determined not to let it get to her.
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