Tarot Academy 4 - Sarah Piper Page 0,11

been ingesting Fairy’s Breath since her first day on campus,” Doc says. “You said so yourself.”

“Right, but it’s possible she was drugged. Most people can’t smell it.”

“She wasn’t drugged, guys,” Carly says. “My mother came here with an agenda, like I said. She literally showed up the day after Phaines’s disappearance. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Okay, but are you saying that because you truly believe it, or because you’re pissed at her for being such a shitty mother?” I ask.

Doc holds up a hand, attempting to head off a confrontation. “I’m fairly certain Janelle was a willing participant. When I… sat with her earlier, she made a comment in her half-awake state to that effect.”

“What did she say?” Carly asks.

He lowers his eyes, his energy pulsing with something that makes my skin crawl. “That she did it for… for Baz.”

“That bitch.” Carly’s energy spikes with the same kind of creeped-out vibe as Doc’s. But before I can press her on it, Professor Maddox pipes in.

“The good news is if the magick in the jars is still viable, there’s a chance—small, but a chance—we might be able to return it to its rightful owners.”

“Seriously?” I ask. “I thought the damage was permanent.”

“It won’t be easy, and I’m certainly not the expert—Professor Broome would know more about such things. But if we could somehow match the magickal signature to each individual student, and we could come up with a powerful enough spell, we might be able to reverse the process.”

“That’s if we can even get to the jars again,” I say. “Trello may have already notified APOA, or gone back herself to take care of the evidence.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine she’d leave all that stuff there for someone else to find. When she left there tonight, I got the sense she’d either be back, or she’d just report it and make it look like she just discovered everything herself.”

“What a fucking mess.” Doc’s energy shifts again, a wave of anger and frustration so powerful it’s got him jumping to his feet, nearly knocking his chair backward. “What is Trello’s angle here? She all but ordered us to bring Stevie to the Academy and put her to work translating her mother’s prophecies. She called in APOA to investigate the crimes against students. I thought she was on our side, for fuck’s sake. But then the attacks started on campus, and she completely lost her spine. She fought me on putting additional security measures in place—I had to threaten her just to get access to this house. Now we discover she’s involved with the Dark Arcana and the student attacks, not to mention Janelle Kirkpatrick… What the hell is her end game?”

“Maybe she wants the artifacts too,” Nat says. “Maybe she and Phaines have been planning this for years. Decades, even.”

I catch Doc’s eye across the kitchen, and I know at once our minds just jumped to the same place: What if Trello is one of the Dark Arcana?

But something about that idea doesn’t hit the mark, either. All along, we’ve been operating under the assumption that there are four Dark Arcana energies at work right now—the Magician, the Hierophant, the Chariot, and Judgment. One, five, seven, twenty—that’s what my visions have revealed. There’s a chance others will be turned, but that would mean Trello started out as a light Arcana, and that doesn’t feel quite true either.

I see Doc making the same calculations, drawing the same conclusion. Blowing out a breath, he shakes his head, then opens the dishwasher, loading up some of the now-empty mugs.

“If that’s true,” Professor Maddox says, “perhaps that’s why Trello booted the Milans out of the Academy. Melissa must’ve figured out Trello had turned to the dark side—or she at least became suspicious. Perhaps there was a confrontation.”

“Maybe.” I swirl the remaining tea inside the mug. Professor Maddox’s hypothesis is a good one, but still. I don’t buy it.

Something about the whole mess just isn’t adding up. Sure, Trello’s been cold and distant with me, and a completely inadequate leader when it comes to keeping students safe and informed during what’s quickly becoming a worldwide crisis for witches and mages. She’s been evasive, aloof, and her inaction on the security stuff might end up costing lives—and there’s no excuse for that kind of epic failure.

I could even buy that she’s after the artifacts, and that her quest for riches and glory is blinding her to all else.

But evil? Truly evil? The kind of witch who attacks young students