Tarot Academy 4 - Sarah Piper Page 0,18
the woman’s care. They’d found her journals by this point, and after thorough review, turned them over to me. That’s when I learned about the man she’d encountered over winter break. The way she described their encounters, I knew immediately what had happened. Likely he’d been watching us both for many months. He knew exactly how to prey on her vulnerabilities—on her feelings for me.”
“Was he ever caught?”
Doc shifts uncomfortably, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “To quote the authorities, the rambling diaries of a mentally unstable witch obsessed with her professor were not compelling enough evidence to justify an investigation. But no matter.” He lowers his head, shame flooding his energy again. “The mage may have planted those seeds, but I tilled the field. By my action or my inaction, I destroyed that girl’s life.”
I reach for him, fingers skimming his knee. “Doc, no. You—”
“I could’ve stopped it. If I’d set clear boundaries, if I’d maintained a proper distance from the onset, her feelings for me would never have progressed. She would’ve understood that I would never return her affections. She would’ve focused more on her studies and less on her professor. Her mind wouldn’t have been so open to the power of the dark mage’s suggestions—she wouldn’t have wanted to believe it was me. She wouldn’t have been trying to please me. Goddess, sometimes I still can’t believe he bested her like that. Of all my students, she was the strongest. The most clever. I never would’ve thought…”
He trails off, rising from the bed and crossing back to the dresser, staring at his reflection in the mirror.
“I couldn’t bear to be there,” he says. “I had to leave. The headmaster got in touch with Anna Trello, and after some favors promised and exchanged, I was released from my contract in Copenhagen and transferred. And here, I regained control. I dedicated myself to teaching students not how to manipulate through magickal means, but how to defend against it.”
He grips the edges of the dresser mirror and drops his head, the muscles of his back and shoulders rippling as he struggles to contain the darkness inside.
The confession leaves me reeling. It explains so much—why he has so many rules and boundaries, why he’s so afraid to get close. Why he blames himself for Ani.
There’s still so much pain inside him, so much bleakness. Sharing this with me hasn’t unburdened him at all; if anything, it’s made him feel worse, shame and loathing burning hot through his energy.
But no matter how deep his wounds, running beneath the waves of self-loathing is an energy of pure, golden love. Hope. Desire. He wants to be near me, wants me to help him through this.
He wants to allow himself to love me.
Yet still, he fights. He fears.
Slowly, I get to my feet and go to him, standing behind him, waiting for him to meet my eyes in the mirror.
“I’m not Elizabeth,” I begin, but fear chokes off the rest. I can’t find the right words, the right way back to him. Logically, he knows I’m not Elizabeth. He knows our circumstances are completely different. He knows Ani’s condition isn’t his fault.
He’s just punishing himself.
“Doc,” I say. “Cassius, please.”
At the sound of his full name, he finally meets my gaze in the mirror, storms raging in those slate-gray eyes, shadows haunting every plane of his beautiful face, heartache bleeding through his energy, threatening to drown out the rest.
“The day I left Copenhagen,” he says, “I told myself—I swore it on my own magick—I would never, ever let the lines between professor and student blur again. And for nearly fifteen years, I’ve had no problem keeping that oath.”
Until you came along, he means, but he doesn’t say that part out loud.
“Doc, I—”
“Just… just go.” He lowers his eyes, breaking our connection. “I’m sorry I’ve been so unclear about this—that’s on me. But it ends now, Miss Milan.”
“Don’t call me that. Not here.”
“Go,” he says again. “I want to be alone.”
“But—”
“Go!” The dresser rattles with the force of his rage, but it doesn’t scare me.
It fucking ignites me.
In a flash, the sadness and sympathy I felt seconds ago burn away, leaving only a white-hot flame crackling in my chest.
“You know something, Dr. Devane?” I snap. “You’re a goddess-damned liar.”
He meets my eyes in the mirror again, jaw ticking, fresh anger simmering. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. A goddess-damned liar. I’ll let you get away with it tonight, but that’s all you get. One more night. One more night