Page 35 of Foresyth Conservatory
“Your cup was empty, and Aspen wasn’t filling you in the ways you needed. You were seeking validation in another. You looked away from Aspen to new lands.” I pointed to the image of a figure perched on a cliffside, watching a distant horizon. If there was a perfect card for infidelity in the deck, this was it. I worked my way up to the tip of the dagger spread. I flipped another card, and the familiar Hanged Man appeared. A shiver curled down my spine, but I ignored the coincidence and went on. I was getting closer and couldn’t falter.
“It was Julian—you developed affection for him. For his gentle nature, his passion for his work, which wasn’t an obsession but a calling. He was obsessed, instead, with you.” I read between the cards, tracing the lines on Sequoia’s face, searching for what rang true and what didn’t. Her features softened slightly, and I rephrased. “Or was it you who was obsessed with him? Was it unrequited?”
“It’s true, we were close. All three of us were, at some point. Julian . . . he was kind and compassionate. He said nice things about my work. And he loved me, but it wasn’t like that.”
I held her gaze as I traced the edge of the next card, feeling a spark at my fingertips. “Your discontent with Aspen began long ago, but it only solidified recently. Something happened that made you doubt your connection to him, and it’s represented by”—I flipped the card —“death.” My heart nearly skipped a beat.
Could this really be? I stared at the skeletal figure riding a white horse, holding the flower of death in his left arm. A black dahlia.
Sequoia gasped and her lip began to quiver. “No, no . . . it couldn’t be,” she whispered. I steadied my concentration. This was the moment I had been waiting for—the crack, the break. Every reading had one. A moment when the person’s facade began to fracture. The perfect moment to strike, to uncover the truth.
“Aspen was involved in Julian’s death,” I said. “He was jealous of the attention you gave Julian, suspecting that you favored him romantically. And he couldn’t handle his favorite toy being handled by another.” I winced at the harshness of my tone. But it was necessary to get to the heart of the matter.
Sequoia whimpered, tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, no . . . he couldn’t have . . .” She covered her face with her hands. This was my chance to find out what happened that night. But as I watched her, sobbing into her hands, my heart softened. I was breaking this poor girl.
“What happened that night, Sequoia?” I whispered. My resolve weakened with her cries, but not enough to stop pressing. It was now or never.
“Nothing—I mean, I don’t know.” She looked up at me and started speaking between gulps of air. “Julian and Iwere working on a paper together; he was relying on me for Gaelic. There were a lot of long nights, you know how it goes. But nothing ever happened . . .reallyhappened, I mean.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “One night, while we were working on the paper, it was late, and we were sleep deprived. I think we were just trying to stay awake. I kissed him. Or he kissed me. I don’t remember. But we both agreed afterward that it was a bad idea, and nothing came of it.”
“But Aspen knew.”
She nodded. “Somehow, he found out. I don’t know how, but he has a way of seeing things. He told me I should stop spending time with Julian, that he was holding me back. Maybe he was jealous, I don’t know. I honestly couldn’t wait until we turned in the paper, so Aspen could let it go. So, we could all let it go. But then that night at Circle almost a year ago . . .” She hesitated.
“What happened then, Sequoia?”
“I . . . I shouldn’t tell you this. You haven’t been Initiated.”
“Initiated?”
When she didn’t answer, I pressed on. “Is that what you were doing that night? Practicing magick?”
“Oh, Dahlia,” she said weakly.
I reached over, folding my hand over hers. I hardened myself. “I can only help you if I know the truth.”
She was silent for a long moment, then finally began to speak again. “We were performing a ceremony. We drank an herbal concoction that made everything hazy; it made us more receptive to the magick. We were all fine the next morning, except Julian. I didn’t know what happened that night—I suspected but didn’t know. But when we woke up, Julian was tethered to the tree in that horrible position. AndAspen . . .” She broke into a sob. “Gods, he looked so pale. He looked as if he knew something none of us did. I always thought he was beautiful, but in that moment, he looked so broken.”
Blood pumped behind my ears at an alarming rate, but I steadied my breath. I let the facts settle over me before speaking again. “You didn’t see Aspen do anything to Julian?”
“No, no, I didn’t. Like I said, everything about that night is so hazy. But we all drank the same tea, and none of us died. So, it couldn’t have been the tea, could it? Gods, I feel so awful, like I was the one who hung him myself.” Sequoia was red all over, tears and snot running down her face. Had Aspen given me the same tea on my first morning?
I had broken her, but I finally had more information about that night than I’d gathered since coming here. I had a motive, but I still didn’t have any physical evidence. I had deduced earlier that Julian likely hung himself to leave a message pointing to his murderer and that he died from poison, not hanging.
“Did anyone else have access to the tea you made?”
“I guess everyone did. I assembled the herbs, but we were all there, close to the hearth.”Damn. Any of these students could have been responsible. But how had everyone survived, except Julian?
“We all drank it—I poured it from the same kettle. That’s why, when they ruled it as a suicide, I figured they were probably right. He hung himself that night, after all. But to think Aspen was somehow involved, that he said something to Julian about me—” She reached for my arm. “You have to help me—tell me how I can break free from him.”
I looked down at the cards in front of us. There was only one left to turn over. The pommel, the resolution.
“Sequoia, I promise I’ll help you. You just have to trust me and wait for the right time.” If I could gather enough evidence against Aspen, I could make a case for his conviction.
I flipped the last card, hoping to seal my resolution. I grimaced when I saw the image of two figures leaping from a tower engulfed in flames, trading one horror for another.
“What . . . what is it?” Sequoia asked through her tears.
“It’s going to be a lot harder than I thought.”
