Page 20 of Foresyth Conservatory
“That’s what I’ve come to discuss with you. I’ve made some developments on the case.” I ignored his gesture and instead walked across the room to where he sat. I took out the case file and laid it down on his desk.
“Here, this is a picture of Julian’s hanged body. We know from the toxicology report that he must have been poisoned. I don’t think he hung himself to die, but to leave a message.” I pulled out another sheet of paper, one on which I had drawn the lion-serpent symbol. “He left this for someone to find. He must’ve realized what had happened—that someone had poisoned him—and he wanted to make sure someone would find it. Do you know what it means?”
I studied his reaction. His eyes scrunched together in thought, and I traced his features for any sign of deception. I didn’t fully trust the Meister, even though he was the one who had hired me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow more involved in Julian’s death than he let on.
“I can’t say what this means,” he said without looking up from the drawing. He adjusted his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose. “But it doesn’t surprise me that Julianwould leave a clue—he studied iconography and thought in puzzles. The boy was sometimes an enigma himself.”
I noted his word choice:can’t say, notdon’t know. Why was the Meister holding back from me?
“That’s lovely for him, but it gets me nowhere. Why couldn’t he just write down the killer’s name?”
A corner of the Meister’s mouth lifted, and my stomach churned. “Ms. Blackburne, if there is one thing you should know about the students of Foresyth, it’s this: when you’re an artist—and all magickians are—everything becomes an art. Even dying.” He read the disgust on my face and added, “They don’t have your direct sensibilities.”
“Can I ask you something?” I paused.
“Certainly.”
“Why mix the two? Art and science, I mean. Are they not diametrically opposed?”
The Meister’s eyes flickered with amusement, as if I’d just told him a joke. “Magick is simply science we’ve yet to understand. And what remains after the experiment—that’s art. That’s why we unite the two at Foresyth. Because art, like magick, grants the soul a means to transcend—to glimpse the universal human experience.”
I furrowed my brow, uncertain of his meaning. In the quiet of my bookshop, the Meister had seemed legible—his intentions sharp beneath the surface. But here, steeped in the shadowed corridors of Foresyth and the weight of its obscure histories, I found his words increasingly opaque. Perhaps it was foolish to chase meaning through the thickets of philosophy. Better, for now, to return to what I knew: the facts.
“How did you come to be the Meister of Foresyth?” I asked, testing him with my directness. He chortled, reclining back in his chair.
I didn’t see what was so funny.
“I was born here, metaphorically speaking. My father was Head Meister, and his father before him. Though we were fairly elected, Foresyth has always been in my blood.”
Legacy. The students had used that word during dinner last night. It meant something special here, to be born into this school through parentage.
“And you like it?” I asked. Perhaps it was childish of me to think that people ought to enjoy their professions. My father hadn’t become a detective because he enjoyed it necessarily, but because it served him a higher moral purpose. Itbenefitedsociety.
“Yes, I do,” he answered. “But not just because it was what my father did.” His tone dropped, as if drawing a parallel between us. “But because it was my own path that I chose, independent of my predecessors.”
I broke my gaze from his, frustrated by how much he knew of me when I knew so little of him. That was enough of him reading me. That’s not why I had come.
“I’d like to see Julian’s things,” I said, changing the subject again. “His research papers and the like. If he studied iconography, maybe I can find the symbol in one of his papers, something that points to who poisoned him.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll see if I can have his personal effects sent to your room with discretion.” He smiled.
“Thank you,” I said and started to turn out of the room.
“Ms. Blackburne, you are not dismissed yet. We have your academics to discuss.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know I’m not here for that. I came to read suspects, not more books.”
“Yes, but it would do you well to try to . . . blend in at the school. You’ve been excused from the first-year prognostication seminar given your background, but I still expect you to produce scholarly research. You wouldn’t want to generate suspicion.” He arched a brow. I thought of the past day—Aspen’s truth serum, Sequoia’s Research Circle, and all of them staring at me expectantly. As if I had an obligation to contribute. As much as I wanted to disagree with the Meister, I couldn’t.
“If I may grant you some advice, Ms. Blackburne: the easiest way to act a scholar is to become one.Esse quam videri.To be, rather than to seem,” the Meister added.
He had a point. Crafting a ruse, even just to feign interest, was taxing. Perhaps it was better to be rather than to seem. If I wanted to track down Julian’s killer, I’d have to make a better attempt at fitting in. I’d have to fully embrace the type of person, the type of scholar, I had always dreamed of being. I had always been fascinated by mysticism, not because I believed in it, but because there was a part of me that was morbidly curious about the darkest parts of humanity, theidto theirego. If I just embraced into my natural curiosity, I could become a natural at Foresyth.
But I needed to toy the edge just right, such that I didn’t get swallowed whole by the very same obsession that had claimed my father, and maybe even Julian.
How difficult could that be?
I smiled, resolution coating my lips, and looked up. “Very well. Let’s talk about Tarot.”
