Page 54 of Foresyth Conservatory
“You idiot! Youdied,” Aspen said.
“I know, I’m sorry. But you two were here for me. The Fates must’ve decided it wasn’t my time yet.” She blinked her giant eyes at both of us and my anger softened.
She risked her life for a research paper?I couldn’t comprehend the absurdity of it.
Only the image of Julian behind my eyes coaxed me out of my stupor. Hadheattempted soul flight as well?
“You could have asked one of us to help you,” I said. I could have tried to talk some sense into the girl.
“I did, but Aspen said no. I don’t think he would’ve liked me asking you . . .” she trailed off.
“If it meant keeping you alive, I don’t care what you have to ask of Dahlia,” he rumbled. “This was not what I meant when I said to berigorouswith your research.”
“Well, I said I’m sorry. But the good news is that I got the proof I needed for my paper,” Sequoia said, propping herself up to the edge of the tub next to Aspen. Her legs dangled long over the edge. She extended a hand to his knee, and his shoulders dropped just slightly, the tension easing.
I couldn’t understand it—how Sequoia had so willingly risked her life, all in the name of research. It defied logic, defied self-preservation. No rational person would go to such lengths just to prove a theory. There was only one explanation.
“You really believe in all of this, don’t you?”
She looked down to her feet, stretching her toes wide. “This is all I have that connects me to my past, that gives me purpose. Power. Of course I had to try it,” she said so casually I thought she could have been talking about the weather.
This only further proved that the students here would go to any length over their research, and in their attempt to feelpowerful. It terrified me to the core. I shook my head, standing up from the floor to grab another towel to dry off my knees. It was then that I noticed a flash of something golden at the bottom of the tub.
The gold shimmered under the water like a coin sunk in a wishing well. I reached for it.
“What is this?” It was rectangular and had a beautiful intricate geometric design, thicker than a piece of paper. One of the corners was soaked through and fraying, but the image of a woman was regal and her power undeniable: the Empress.
Realization dawned on me. I was holding an exact replica of one of the Skorn cards.
“Oh, that?” Sequoia said.
“No. . .” Aspen said. “You used the cards?”
“I used one. Just to help intensify the magick. I didn’t think it was going to work. But then I saw Sophia, and she was chanting in Druidic. And I knew it had worked—I had channeled the Druidic powerthroughthe card.”
“It’s the Empress,” I said blankly, staring at the matriarchal figure imprinted on the golden card before me. In my mind the Empress card toppled—first in a line arranged like dominos, each card falling in turn until they curved inward, closing into a seamless, inescapable circle.
Sequoia was using Skorn magick.
Of course.
“You are all Tarot readers. You’re using the cards in the way the Meister prompted me to at Circle. He wanted me to use the cards to tap into their power, to prove their source of power. But I’m not the first to experiment with them,” I said.
Aspen winced, turning to Sequoia. “How could you be so careless Sequoia?”
“I think it’s stupid that we keep hiding things from her, Aspen, don’t you? If she’s here to help us, then shouldn’t she know that?” Sequoia refuted.
“I suspected that the Meister was keeping something from me. But not this. I’ve been an idiot this whole time.”
“You figured it out quicker than any of us have. We all went through the same process, detangling through the web of secrets before being Initiated,” Sequoia said in between coughs.
“You’re wrong about one thing,” Aspen said. He didn’t look up from the spot on the floor he was staring toward. “We’re not all readers—not ones like you at least—we’re practitioners.”
“Save the semantics for Leone,” I said, almost rolling my eyes.
Something changed in his expression. He became tacit, academic, the version of himself I knew well in Circle. “There is a meaningful difference. We don’t read cards and make predictions. We use the power of the cards toinfluencethepresent.That’s what Advisors do for their patrons,” he said.
I frowned. “I’ve read an excerpt on that inTheBook of Skorn, but I thought it was theory.”
