Page 99 of Foresyth Conservatory
My stomach turned. “What cost?” I breathed out.
But I already knew. I had learned to read my mother’s face long before I had learned to read books. And right now, she was holding back something devastating.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” My voice was barely above a whisper. “Your health.”
She broke my gaze and looked back at the window.
“The reversal helped him,” she admitted. “It stabilized him. He could be a father to you.”
“Atyourexpense. At the cost ofyoubeing a mother tome.” My breath came sharp and uneven.
“We didn’t know the full effects,” she said quickly. “It was a blood exchange. I gave him my clean, unencumbered blood, but I had to take his in return, to help him carry the burden. My deterioration came slowly.”
A slow, burning heat coiled in my chest.
“He made you sick,” I spat, my voice shaking.
“I chose to help him,” she corrected, tucking herself back into the chair, her frame suddenly impossibly small. “As we all make our choices in the end.”
A sharp, hot streak of anger tore through me.
I hated them.
Hamra. Renate. Daniel.
I hated them all.
The heat of it tightened in my stomach, searing up my spine, urging me to run, to tear myself from this room, from the weight of my father’s sins. I stood abruptly. I had come here for answers, and now that I had them, I needed to act.
“Please.” My mother’s voice cracked. “Don’t leave me, too.”
Something inside me fractured. I looked at her, really looked at Estelle: her frail body barely indenting the cushion of the chair she sat on, the hollowness of her cheeks cast by worry, the bright eyes still shining with life. She was the least guilty of them. She didn’t deserve to suffer. For the sake of my mother, I steadied my breath. For so long, I had believed I bore the weight of her illness, of this bookshop. But I hadn’t carried my mother’s burden, I had carried myfather’s.
Who else would continue to suffer under his legacy if I didn’t stop it? There were people at Foresyth I cared about. Sequoia, Aspen, Leone, Nina.
I couldn’t let them carry my father’s burden, too.
I turned to my mother, my voice steadier. “I will not leave you. I will stay with you tonight, but in the morning, I will keep my promises.”
“In the spirit of intellectual rigor and communal discourse, any student holds the right to request an ad hoc Circle. Such gatherings, however, require the Meister’s presence to be deemed legitimate, for the Meister alone embodies the authority and guidance necessary to preside over formal discourse. Any assembly convened in the Meister’s sanctioned absence is considered an act of insubordination—not a mere gathering, but a mutiny against the institution’s principles.”
–Foresyth Student Handbook, 1920 edition
Chapter 32: Circle, Minus One
I returned to Foresyth the following Monday before the Meister could note my absence. I called a Circle—minus one. Technically, any student could call a Circle anytime, but I doubted anyone except Leone and I had read the Foresyth Handbook.
“What the hell, Dahlia? I was in the middle of something,” Nina muttered, entering the sitting room and wiping something green and foul from her hands. I didn’t doubt she’d been busy, but this was the only hour the Meister was guaranteed to be out with a client, according to his schedule book—information I’d uncovered after figuring out the lock on his office door.
“If Dahlia called a Circle, it must mean it’s important,” Sequoia chimed.
Aspen narrowed his eyes, though his voice softened. “What’s going on, Dahl?” I didn’t like the familiarity of his tone or the use of my nickname, but it softened me despite myself.
“I called you here because you deserve the truth—a truth that’s been kept from you. We’re not doing sub-fucking-rosa anymore,” I began. I’d thought speaking plainly would come easily, but the words stuck, my anger getting the best of me. My father had taught me that trusting others with secrets was a weakness, a risk I could ill afford. But I wouldn’t let his fears guide me any longer.
I let anger fuel the truth I was about to reveal. Trust might be dangerous, but it was necessary. And my pursuit oftruth—unlike his—was going to set us free from Foresyth’s magick.
“The Conservatory is killing its students. You’ve been promised power that will never be yours. We’re all sacrifices for a bloodthirsty magickian who’s using you,” I said, looking around. Sequoia’s face went blank, Nina looked annoyed, Aspen’s expression twisted with concern, and Leone remained unreadable. “You’re each an elemental component—water, fire, earth, and air. You’re the intended sacrifices.”
