Tarot Academy 4 - Sarah Piper Page 0,59

freshly poured coffee and handing it over.

“What is this dark potion?” I ask.

“It’s called coffee. Perhaps you’re familiar?”

“Where’s the lightly-whipped foam?” I take a whiff, wrinkling my nose at the bitter assault. “And the honey? And the cinnamon? Kirin would never try to pass off this sludge as coffee.”

“Just black today. Trust me, you’re going to need it.”

On that super fun note, we head into the living room and find seats, Doc taking a chair in front of the huge fireplace, me snuggling in between Isla and Carly on the big leather couch.

Perched in an armchair directly across from me is none other than the gun-waving, hostage-taking, kiss-interrupting Casey Appleton, flanked on either side by Kirin and Agent Quintana, hovering over her like sentries.

I glance up at Kirin, and he smiles softly, as if to tell me everything is okay.

If only it were that easy for me to believe it.

Baz told me the whole story about what happened during the library attack, and I am glad that Kirin’s finally making some inroads with his family. But for me, the wounds are still fresh. Possession or not, I won’t soon forget the image of Casey pointing a gun at Ani’s head. Just thinking about it again now fills me with so much rage, I’m practically making my coffee boil.

“Stevie,” Casey says, offering a pained smile. “Nice to see you again. I’m glad you’re… well.”

Is she serious? Well? Oh, yes. I’m fabulous. We’re trapped in Red Sands, the world is rapidly becoming a total war zone, and one of the men I love is in a magickal coma in the next room—a disastrous link on a long chain of events Casey herself started the night she held a gun to his head.

If she thinks she can make it go away with a fake compliment and a smile, she’s certifiably insane.

“Kirin says you have an update?” I say, keeping the rest of those thoughts to myself.

Casey’s energy flickers with regret, but she nods and gets to her feet, looking at each of us in turn as if she’s about to make some big, epic sales pitch.

Or drop a shit-ton of bad news.

Goddess, Doc was right. I do need black coffee for this meeting. I take a sip and force it down, willing it to work its magick on my bloodstream as quickly as possible.

“I know Baz and Kirin told you all about what happened at the library the other night,” she begins, “including the fact that we can no longer count Agent Eastman among our allies. And you’ve all seen Headmistress Trello’s announcement, yes?”

Baz scoffs. “The one where she put our not-ally Eastman in charge of the Academy?”

“That’s the one.” Casey gestures toward Quintana. “We wanted to give some more background on that, and give you an update on how we—with Anna Trello’s help—plan to proceed. Agent?”

Quintana nods, taking point. “During a security review of the exterior suite camera footage from the Iron and Bone dorms, our satellite computer lab in New York found some anomalies.”

“What kind of anomalies?” Doc asks.

“Without getting too bogged down in technical details… They discovered that some of the footage had been altered. Specifically, the security feed outside Stevie’s suite.”

“But Agent Eastman was the one who set up the new system,” I say. “He showed up at my suite after Trello sent out the security emails, saying he had to update everything. I watched him do it.”

“That’s precisely when he made his move,” Quintana says. “He manipulated the video from your system to make it look like Janelle Kirkpatrick was casting spy runes outside your door.”

“We found Janelle’s lipstick, though,” Baz says. “You’re saying he planted it?”

“No. According to the footage, Janelle did pay Stevie a visit earlier that morning. For what purpose, we have no idea—Stevie didn’t answer the door. But Eastman himself cast the rune. Somehow he transposed the images to make it look like it was Janelle.”

“But why was Eastman spying on my suite?” Alarm shoots through my chest. Baz and Kirin checked everything out after we saw Janelle on the feed, and Baz set up protective crystal grids to counteract any future magick. But still, the whole idea of it leaves me uneasy.

“Fucking perv,” Carly says. “Let’s castrate him.”

I squeeze her knee, grateful for the solidarity, but I’m pretty sure Eastman wasn’t looking for a few post-shower boob shots.

“We don’t believe the suite was his primary objective,” Casey says. “From the looks of things, he didn’t even complete the rune properly. He was likely