Page 103 of Foresyth Conservatory
“I feel the same,” I said, mimicking the sickly sweetness of the flowers around us.
He gave me a polite nod and then exited my station. I caught Aspen’s eye across the room, next to the fireplace. But what stole my breath were the sculptures surrounding him. He was like Poseidon, in a sea of his own beauty. Vases erupted around him, various sizes and heights, all in that deep Prussian blue, the same as I had seen in his workshop. He smiled, catching my stare.
“God, I could gag from that smell. Did they really have to bring in that many flowers?” Nina said next to me.
Her station was right next to mine. She was also dressed in black, but with the addition of a large fur shrug which seemed to almost swallow her up. Next to her she had produced a collection of taxidermy entitled “Earth-bound,”showing all types of birds with their wings torn off and replaced with stones and twigs and moss. She made a model of the Tramping Ground and lined up her creations around the miniature mound.
I almost asked her what it all meant but then thought better of it. Some art was better experienced than explained.
Sequoia’s display was hidden behind the central tree in the room, but I could hear her song drifting across the room, a beautiful Gaelic rhythm. Leone’s installation was next to hers and I peeked my head around to catch the very edge of it. Exquisitely marked maps adorned his poster board, gilded edges in gold and bronze. It was a beautifully wrought depiction of Dante’s nine circles of hell.
All these art pieces, endless hours of toil, all wrought in the name of a vain God, the demiurge, and the opportunity to access Sophia’s power. I hoped the students could see how powerful they already were without her. I was about to reply to Nina when my thoughts were interrupted.
“May I?” the Al-Ahmar appeared next to my station, her deep-crimson cloak obscuring the small station I inhabited from the rest of the room.
I looked up to meet her gaze and my pulse started to thrum in my ears. Her eyes looked so familiar, I could almost place them. That deep, rich brown that looked like upturned soil. Her red hood billowed behind her, obscuring the top of her head, but when she turned to my display, I caught sight of her reddish-black curls. The truth rippled through me like a stone skidding across a pond.
“You’re Julian’s mother,” I said. My hand instinctively went to my belt and reached for the hilt of my knife.
Her glance skittered back to mine, her eyes opening wide. “How did you . . .” she said, but it was too late. I was holding the knife to her abdomen. Her layers of cloaks concealed the fact well, so nothing looked out of place to the others around us. I inched closer to whisper in her ear.
“You destroyed my father . . . you killed all of those people.” I knew it was rash, what I was doing. It could very well destroy the plans I had for tonight, for ending the elemental ceremony. But my anger was raging. She was the one who robbed me of my father. He might have been around me physically, unlike he had been for Julian, but he had been haunted because ofher.
“You don’t want to do that,” she said in a low voice, exuding too much calm for someone in her position. I jabbed the knife closer to her, feeling the rip in her cloak widen.
“Why not?” I said through gritted teeth.
“I know you’re hurting—both of you were, and it was because of me. For that, I will be eternally sorry.” Her eyes softened, and for a moment I saw Julian staring back at me, not the Al-Ahmar. “I loved your father more than anything, but the magick consumed me, burned away at me. Your father was stronger than I was to resist it.”
“Your power, your status on the Council, it’s all because of that disgusting Book—and Khorvyn’s lies. You’ve been feeding them to the students, getting them to make an ultimate sacrifice just so you could hold on to it.”
Her face contorted at my words, and a look of confusion took over her features. “I have long said my goodbyes to blood magick. It’s true I practiced it for a few years after your father left, but without the Book, the magick dwindled. TheHouse was collapsing on itself with all the unstable magick, we were forced to abandon it or be buried with it.”
Her words were like cold flecks of water against my raging fire, only momentarily reducing the height of my flames. “You killed Elizabeth, and all the others.”
“We only targeted those who were close to dying—the sick or on death row. Weneverplanned on students dying. I never went through with the elemental ceremony.” She lowered her voice. “I have paid dearly for my crimes.” Her eyes began to glisten. “I tried to hide our research. I buried it all those years ago when we banned the practice of blood magick at Foresyth.”
My grip on the dagger almost slipped at her words. “Banned?” The Council forbade blood magick, and yet it had still been practiced for so many years?
She looked away, down to the knife I still held at her. “It was too dangerous. No matter what it promised on the other side, it would only lead to more death.”
“You don’t know what’s going on at Foresyth, do you?” My mind was so warped with all the layers of secrets and lies, it was hard to discern what was true and what was false. But I tried regardless. “The Meister, he’s been practicing the elemental ceremony every year. Dozens of students have died or disappeared because of it. He’s had Council members cover it up, citing false grounds for ‘dismissal’ for students who are never heard from again.”
Her eyes closed and her expression turned solemn. “I knew students were leaving Foresyth at a higher attrition rate . . . but I didn’t think he would be so soulless. When Julian died, I forced the Council to require him to hire a detective, but I had no idea it would be you—Daniel’sdaughter.” She grabbed the hand that was holding the knife and squeezed it. “Dahlia, I’m so sorry. For all of this.”
“That’s not it.” I could have almost laughed at the tragedy of it all. “The Book, he has it at Foresyth. It was stolen from my father, by Julian. That’s why both of them died. I thought my father had killed himself, but I think he died at the Meister’s hand, somehow. And Julian . . . he sacrificed himself before the Meister could complete the ceremony with all five elements.”
The Al-Ahmar had seemed to be a thing of majestic power that night in the Council room when I had come to request the Skorn deck. When she had read my cards, sealing my Fate at Foresyth as an Initiate. But now, standing in front of me, I saw her as the woman my father fell in love with—as Julian’s mother. The hard lines in her face, her stoic and knowing eyes, the lips that curved into a bow. The lips my father had kissed. Did I owe this woman mercy by proxy of my father?
“My son,” she said, sadness overtaking her. She raised a hand to her mouth to stifle her cry. But in the next moment, she flicked off the tears and her expression became stone-like. “He’ll die for this.”
“Why didn’t he tell you?” I asked.
Her brows knitted, pain blinking across her face. “Julian and I were estranged for much of his adulthood. Undoubtedly, that’s why he didn’t tell me about the Book or what has been happening at the school.”
I finally lowered the knife. I might not trust her, but the Meister had killed her son. I could trust her motives were not in opposition of mine. I could trust her grief.
“I have a plan. For tonight,” I said, conceding my last secret. If secrets were currency like Aspen has said, then I was laying out all of mine on a bet. I’d either find myself cashing in tonight or losing it all.
