Page 47 of Foresyth Conservatory
I watched in shock as she plunged the point deeper into her hand, breaking skin. Rivulets of blood began pouringdown her wrist and she guided her hand toward the inside of the barren circle.
“Nina!” I called, my voice catching in my throat.
The droplets of blood fell to the land and instantly sizzled on contact with the ground, as if they had been poured directly over a hot stove. All that remained of the blood rose into a trail of hot steam above Nina’s head. I watched in horror and fascination as Nina squeezed her palm, sending thick beads to the ground that instantly evaporated back up as mist.
A few lone drops had fallen outside of the circle before she had directed her palm over it, and those were soaking into the ground, forming inky black spots.
“This isn’t the Devil’s grounds, because it isSophia’s,our Shattered Mother’s,” Nina said. “All material flesh in this circle ascends back to its spiritual realm.” She said this as she traced the skyline with her eyes, resting her gaze at the bright moon.
Nina then pulled her arm away from over the barrier and redressed it with her glove. I stared up at her, completely frozen.
Sophia. The name was familiar.
I stared at the inky droplets of blood that were left outside of the circle. All those times when I had read for other people—when I had hammered into them steadily until I created a fracture—I never knew what it was like on the other side.
Until now.
Something fissured—not in the ritual, but in me. A hairline split in the façade I had always trusted as reality. Magick was no longer theoretical. It had becomephysicalas soon as Nina’s blood disappeared.
I shook my head, stunned, but the image refused to vanish—Nina’s blood, disappearing the instant it touched the circle. I opened my mouth to speak, to demand an explanation, but no words came. Only silence, thick and unyielding, pressed at the edges of my thoughts.
“Come on Dahlia. Didn’t I tell you it would beamazing?”
Nina’s arm came around me and pulled me up to my feet. My legs were numb, my muscles weak. Without her, I’d have sat like that all night, staring at the dried droplets outside of the circle contrasted by the land within—barren and bloodless.
*
I didn’t know exactly how I had made it back to the House, but I must have walked back because my Oxfords were caked in mud. I slipped them off at the door and walked to the fireplace in my wet socks, not caring for the imprints I left behind. I plopped myself next to the fire, and slowly, very slowly, began to thaw myself from the outside in.
Nina came into the room at some point, but I didn’t acknowledge her. I was trying to make sense of what I had just witnessed.
It had to be a trick of the eye. It was dark, I was tired . . . the blood must have landed somewhere—soaked into the soil and was lost in the shadows. I clung to these explanations, turning them over in my mind like a rosary. But deep down, beneath the layers of logic and denial, I knew exactly what I had seen. And there was no undoing it.
I had seenmagick. And it had shaken me.
Hours seemed to stretch on before I finally found my voice. Nina was curled up on the chaise, scribbling furiously in her notebook. A cup of tea appeared next to me, and I tookit, letting the warmth ground me. I broke my rule of no tea tonight; I needed to warm my bones. And besides, I was the one asking questions tonight.
“What was that, Nina? You said the Circle was the Devil’s Tramping Ground, and then you amended it toSophia’s. Who is Sophia?” I looked over my cup of steaming hot tea to her.
“I keep forgetting you haven’t been Initiated.”
I frowned. “Sequoia mentioned that. Would Sophia be there at my Initiation?” I sat up from the chair and bore my gaze into her.
Nina chuckled before saying, “No, no. Sophia isn’t a person, she’s an emanation, from the one true Source. The one we pray to for our magick—from where all other powers are derived.” She looked away. “But I’ve already said too much—you should talk to the Meister. I can’t really say more about her until . . .”
“I’ve been Initiated.” I sighed, falling back deeper into the couch. More layers, more dead ends. I was getting annoyed by the lack of answers. Who was this Sophia figure, and why hadn’t I heard of her? If she was connected toThe Book of Skorn, surely, I’d have read about her before.
“So, you all do believe in the same thing,” I said to no one in particular in the room. “I thought this was a rigorous academic institution, but it’s just a cult.” It stung to say the words, but I felt foolish for having believed anything otherwise. I had even teased Gabriel when he had made the assertion. And now I was falling for it too . . .
The students, their intellectual discourse, the fervor with which they studied—it had almost convinced me. Shame permeated through me in red hot streaks. I had been sodesperate for a sense of belonging that I had let myself become convinced that Foresyth was an elite academic institution that had chosen me. So desperate that I allowed myself to let go of logic.
Neither of those things were remotely true—this wasn’t an academic institution, nor had I been chosen. At least, not for the reasons I thought.
“I don’t know why you’re getting so upset. Did you just miss the part where my blood disappeared upon contact with the ground up there?”
“No, I didn’t miss that part. I just . . .” I buried my hands in my face, “I just wish I could figure this out.” It was foolish of me to break down like this in front of Nina—in front of anyone—but my exhaustion started to drown me. Nothing made sense to me anymore.
“I get it. I was overwhelmed when I first got here, too,” Nina said with a reassuring smile. “But you’re doing fine, really. You’re meeting the Council this week—that’s no small thing. It means they’re taking you seriously.”
