Tarot Academy 4 - Sarah Piper Page 0,6
Nat and Isla. They’ve been staying at Isla’s place together lately, but I convinced them to pack up and join us here.”
“You… really?”
“They’ll be heading through Kelly’s portal first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, swallowing past the tightness in my throat. Tears of gratitude threaten to spill, and I force myself to meet his eyes. After avoiding him most of the night, looking into those dark gray depths feels like coming home.
This time, Doc doesn’t look away either.
He smiles at me across the table, though his energy is sad and heavy, weighted with all the things he hasn’t been able to say.
Not since we found Ani.
I want to tell him it’s not his fault, but how can I? He’d only parrot the same words back to me. Neither of us would believe it.
So instead I just sit there, totally transfixed, caught in the storm brewing in his beautiful eyes, the briny scent of the sea carrying me off to some other time, some other place.
“I don’t know how to make this right,” he whispers, his stormy eyes darkening. It feels like a confession—some old, secret shame surfacing from the depths of his memories.
“It’s not your job to make it right,” I say, but he’s already shaking his head. Already breaking the connection. Already retreating back inside himself, shoring up his old walls, locking me outside.
But then, just before I’ve fully lost him, he curses under his breath, then rises and comes to my side of the table, kneeling before me and grabbing my hands in a fierce grip. His energy surges, barreling into me with a ferocity that nearly steals my breath.
Courage and fear in equal measure. Loyalty. Love. Determination. And a deep, all-encompassing regret, the origins of which I can only guess at.
“I can’t lose him, Stevie,” he says. “I can’t lose any of you. It would destroy me. The thought of waking up to a world in which you don’t exist… A world in which any of you are no longer part of my life… I couldn’t bear it.”
He looks up and meets my gaze again, his grip tightening, crushing my fingers.
“You won’t,” I say, not because I’m foolish enough to make such promises, not because I have my mother’s gift of prophecy to back it up. I say it because right now, I just need him to believe it. To stay with me. To keep the faith that somehow, this is all going to turn out okay.
Because that’s the only way I’ll believe it.
“Stevie, there’s… I need to tell you something.” Doc’s grip finally loosens, but he doesn’t release my hands. Not even when his shoulders sag. Not even when his energy grows so dark, so intense, it threatens to drown us both. “About before I came to the Academy. About someone I—”
But before he can make his next confession, the bedroom door creaks open down the hall, and the house itself seems to let out a great sigh of relief.
Doc and I both take in a sharp breath, rising together and turning toward the hallway.
From its dark depths, exhausted and covered in something that looks a lot like blood, Professor Maddox finally emerges.
“I’ve got good news, bad news, and worse news,” she says. “Which would you like to hear first?”
Five
STEVIE
“Ani’s physical condition is stable,” Professor Maddox says, heading to the sink to wash her hands, which I now realize aren’t covered in Ani’s blood, but her own Dragon’s Blood resin.
I blow out a breath and fall back into my chair, my entire body going boneless with the relief I feel. Doc stands behind me, hands firm on my shoulders like he’s trying to keep me from floating away.
“His body seems to be healing,” she continues, “and there haven’t been any new injuries in the last hour. We’ve neutralized the remaining dream potion in his system with a counteracting spell that should also weaken his connection to Judgment. That’s the good news. As for the bad…”
She shuts off the water and dries her hands, then takes the chair across from me, casting a grim look our way.
I can’t help but remember a similar situation five years ago—me sitting at a kitchen table, wrung out and numb, Jessa a pillar of strength behind me as a kind but serious social worker tried to tell me how my parents died.
Do you understand what I’m saying, Miss Milan? Are you okay? Can I get you some water…
“Ani took an extremely high dosage of the dream potion in a