Page 62 of Foresyth Conservatory
The truth about Julian was out there. The truth about my father, too. But I didn’t allow myself to dwell on them, not yet. Not when my mind was as tender as my broken body.
When Nina came in to deliver me food, she tried to talk to me. She’d say silly things likeyou’re looking better,orthe weather is so nice.But I would just nod and go back to staring out the window.
I thought about my previous clients a lot. I distantly wondered if Carousel Michelle had ever made that trip up north without her husband. I also thought about Lady Florance’s fat cat and wondered if the timed feeder I had made helped him to lose weight. I thought about my mom,opening and closing the threadbare curtains every day. I thought about Gabriel, sitting in that grassy plot in front of Greenwich Library, eating his lunch alone. I asked Richard every day if any post had come for me, desperate to hear from them.
I thought about everything except Foresyth.
“You know, you did brilliantly,” Nina said one day, bringing me a steaming bowl of soup. She didn’t need to specify what she meant; we both knew she was referencing the Initiation. “I knew you were ready after you accurately helped me pinpoint the Tramping Grounds. I’m glad the Meister finally decided to Initiate you after your debut to the Council. You did so much better than I did.”
I gave Nina a soft smile, but my lips cracked. I tasted blood.
“I vomited the elixir at my Initiation,” she went on. “They almost had my membership revoked for that,” she went on. Then she came to my bedside and took a seat, the bed barely indented with her lightness. “But you—you were ashow. You really earned that theatre concentration. You knew when to put in a fight, and when to give in. Sophia must have been very entertained.”
“I heard her,” I said blankly. I don’t know why I decided to share it, but it felt good doing so. I was tired of secrets, even my own.
“We all did. It was the elixir—it increases your magickal sensitivity,” Nina said, surely excited to not be talking to the brick wall I had been the past few days.
“She said that we all prayed to a false God. Do you know what she was talking about?” I asked. Her wordshad haunted me all these languid days in bed, but I hadn’t wanted to address them. At least, not until now.
Nina’s features sharpened but then became unreadable. “You must have heard wrong; she is our one true God, the emanation from Source,” she said. I almost didn’t recognize her in that next moment, her chiding self all but gone.
Sophia’s voice had felt so real against my ear; I swore I felt her breath against my neck. I felt herpowerover me. It must have been a hallucination—I had been drugged, after all. But despite my reasoning, the Initiation shook me to the core.
Everything I held dear—reason, science, evidence—no longer made any sense.
I was starting to entertain the idea that magick wasreal.
“What was in that elixir?” I asked, my senses finally kicking in. There had to be a logical explanation for everything I’d seen at Foresyth, I couldn’t give up on that. It might not have been poison, but it could have been mind-altering.
“It’s an herbal tonic—myrtle, mugwort, a pinch of four-leaf clover, andsalvia divinorum.”
“The sage of diviners?” I sat up on my wrists and only a dull ache bit back.
“Someone has been studying their Latin,” a smile crept on her features before dropping. “Yes, the same. But with a very low concentration, I made sure of that. Enough to open ourselves spiritually, but not enough to hallucinate.”
“Someone’s learned titration,” I teased back. A wave of relief washed over me. There was an explanation for everything. There had to be.
“It’s jarring—I know. I didn’t come from a magickal background, so this kind of thing didn’t come naturally to me. But once you accept it, as it has accepted you, you gain access to power you could only dream of.”
“I don’t want power,” I said, and it was true. Nothing good came from chasing power. I had always thought knowledge was a much more noble pursuit. Despite the fact that it was proving to be just as deadly.
“Of course you do—we all do. Power islife. And for someone like me, it’s the choice between life or death. Power or despair. Power or death.”
I scrunched my features, trying to discern her words. Nina seemed to have an inherent power, one that radiated outwardly and impinged everything she touched. I couldn’t imagine her any differently. Did she not recognize it herself?
She uttered a soundless laugh. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I was a lot different before I came to Foresyth. I was hungrier—I had to do a lot of things to survive back then, things I’m not proud of. I had been starving for power so long, I didn’t know what it was like to be full.” She looked away from me and at the window. A single crow landed on the windowsill, no doubt searching for his next meal.
“The way my parents died in their accident . . . The roads were slick, and their car went over a bridge.” Her voice softened. I could see the memory flash over her features, reduced back to her childlike self. “I was with them. But I was so small, I managed to pry the door open enough to swim through. My parents did not. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done—leaving them.”
I reached for her hand instinctively. Despite the walls I tried to keep up from everyone at Foresyth, my heartstrained against her words. I hadn’t wanted to share my vulnerability with her, but it was hard not to give in when she shared hers so willingly. Her pain was palpable, I could almost reach out and grab it.
I pressed down on her hand instead. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent,” I said. “It’s like a piece of you dies—your innocence, your childhood. You’re forced to grow up quickly.”
She nodded and two tears slid down her cheeks. She inhaled hard, wiping them away. “I’m sorry, this isn’t about me. It’s about you. I know this place comes with its own challenges, but I just want to tell you, it’s worth it—the knowledge, the power. It doesn’t fill the hole in your heart, but it comes close.”
I thought of my father and his musical laughter. He rarely laughed, but when he did, it brightened the whole room. I tried imagining him laughing here at Foresyth, but the picture in my mind felt too incongruous.
“Do you ever wish you could bring them back?” I asked, the face of my father still freshly imprinted in my mind.
