Tarot Academy 4 - Sarah Piper Page 0,5

ingredient the same magickal powder that allowed Phaines to take possession of her mind and body in the first place.

But it’s not Phaines seeking to control her thoughts tonight. It’s someone much more determined, much more skilled in the fine art of mental manipulation, and much more dangerous to someone like Janelle Kirkpatrick.

Ingredients in place, I stopper the bottle and give it a gentle shake, drawing on the deceptive energy of the reversed Moon card as I recite my spell.

Black rider, void of light

I call upon the Mare of Night

Unleash the darkness in her mind

For evil sown is reaped in kind

Outside, dark clouds float across the moon, bathing us in all-encompassing darkness. The bottle warms in my hand.

“What… what are you doing?” Janelle mumbles.

“I’ve made something for you.” I hold the bottle up before my eyes, barely visible in the shadows.

Nightmare’s Lullaby. A vicious, hallucinogenic potion that’s as black as Death itself, yet sheer as mist, swirling inside the bottle as it senses the call of my magick.

I turn back to Janelle and lean in close, so close I can smell her sour breath.

“Oh, Baz…” She tries to lift her hand to my face, but she’s too weak. Her eyes are half-closed, her mouth slack. “I knew you’d come for me.”

“I’m coming for you, all right.” I uncork the bottle with my teeth, then grab her jaw in a cruel grip, digging my fingers into her flesh and forcing her mouth open. “Bottoms up, you psychotic bitch.”

Her eyes go wide, but she has no strength, no fight. Nightmare’s Lullaby knows exactly where the evil lurks, and it finds its path instantly, filling her mouth and seeping into her lungs, into her bloodstream, into her thoughts.

I watch as the whites of her eyes turn black.

I watch as the poison takes hold inside her mind.

I watch as her body trembles, then goes rigid with abject fear.

And then I close my eyes, call on the power of the dark moon, and conjure up a personal hell so bleak, so vile, it will haunt her the rest of her days.

Four

STEVIE

Professors -

Sorry for sneaking out, but I have urgent business on campus and knew you wouldn’t let me leave on my own.

ALL OF YOU ARE IN GRAVE DANGER.

I’ll be back as soon as I can, but in the meantime, keep everyone inside the house until further notice. I’ll set a cloaking spell on my way out, but you may want to add something stronger. You need all the protection you can get right now.

Do NOT contact anyone at APOA or the Academy.

Do NOT leave the property.

Do NOT let anyone else enter the house aside from your closest allies, Agent Quintana, or myself.

Do NOT let Janelle out of your sight. Re-bind her if necessary, and keep her under lock and key.

I’ll return as soon as I can and will explain everything at that time. For now, I’m asking for your trust—it might just save your lives.

- Casey

I re-read the note, then hand it back to Doc, grateful for something to focus on other than the gulf opening up between us.

We’re sitting at the table in the massive tile-and-steel kitchen, my faux Sex with a Caramel brew long since abandoned on the stove.

Down in the basement, Janelle screams again—a terror drawn from the darkest depths of her psyche, reverberating beneath our feet. Doc assures me this is all to be expected; that coming out of a ritual binding is a slow and painful process. That her screams will eventually stop.

I don’t care. Not after what she did to us.

Besides, I’ll take her screams over Ani’s any day of the week. Those, at least, have subsided—but Professors Maddox and Broome are still hard at work in the bedroom, the door bolted tight.

“Way to be evasive,” I say about the note. “Do you trust her?”

Doc, who hasn’t looked me in the eyes for more than ten seconds since this whole nightmare began, shrugs. “I don’t believe she was in league with Phaines. But I also don’t believe she’s been entirely forthcoming about APOA’s involvement with Trello or the Academy, either.”

“So what do we do?”

“I suppose we wait. Besides, I agree with her—no one should leave this house. Not until we know where Trello is.”

“Kirin and Baz are still on campus,” I say. “Carly too. I haven’t been able to reach any of them. And what about Nat and Isla? I don’t like the idea of them being stuck out there with our psycho headmistress on the loose.”

“I’ve already texted