Tarot Academy 4 - Sarah Piper Page 0,92

ear. “Just breathe.”

I relax into his hold, the anger receding just a little, leaving me trembling and anxious. I try to sit down again, but Kirin shakes his head, refusing to let me go.

“I needed Phaines to share information,” Trello continues, as if I didn’t just nearly attack her. “For that, I needed him trust me. As part of our arrangement, I also required him to remain off-campus and avoid all contact with Starla or any other Academy students.”

“And he accepted these terms?” Doc asks.

“With a few caveats—namely, that we appoint Janelle Kirkpatrick as interim librarian in his stead.”

“Motherfucker,” Baz says. “Janelle Kirkpatrick, who was already working as his personal spy.”

“I agreed to it,” Trello says, “but with a counter-caveat of my own.” She nods toward Casey. “I called in APOA, knowing that your presence would help keep students safe and ensure Phaines stayed off campus. Sadly, that didn’t work out as planned. Phaines returned to campus with the help of Agent Eastman, and you all know how the rest of that story unfolded.”

“So after all this wheeling and dealing,” I say, unable to keep the venom from my voice, even as Kirin’s arms tighten around me, “did it work? Did Phaines finally confess all his secret knowledge about the dark mages that killed my parents?”

“Regrettably, he did not.” Trello folds her hands in her lap and sighs again. “I had to kill him before he got that chance. He’d already assaulted you, barely sparing your life. He attacked other students. And then he possessed Casey. Her life was in imminent danger, and I couldn’t let things progress.”

“And you’re telling me you weren’t part of all that too?” I say. “You’re just an innocent bystander in all this?”

“I’ve never claimed to be innocent. But no, Starla. I was never part of Phaines’s plans to harm you and the other students, nor to attempt to steal the Arcana objects for the Dark Magician.”

“Yet all of those things happened during your so-called arrangement with him,” I say. “All because you claim he had information about my parents’ death—a death you couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge by attending the funeral or offering the most meager of condolences.”

At this, her eyes blaze, her energy flooding with anger and indignation. “There is so much more to this story than you could ever imagine.”

“Then I suggest you get to it, Headmistress,” Doc says, coming to stand beside me and Kirin. “Despite your tenure and title—not to mention your masterful manipulation techniques—you’re on our turf now. I think I speak for Stevie and everyone else assembled here when I say, with utmost respect, we are sick and tired of your bullshit. So say your piece, then get the fuck out.”

Inside, my heart leaps with pride, a smile tugging the corners of my mouth. If Kirin didn’t have my arms pinned at my sides, I might just throw myself upon Doc’s mercy, kissing him until we obliterated every last line of professional decorum.

That’s my hot, commanding, control freak of a mental magicks professor, y’all.

Trello, for all her bullshit, doesn’t flinch. She looks me dead in the eyes, and says, “There’s something you need to understand about your origins. Your conception.”

“So this the part where you tell me how close you were to my mother?” I ask. “How she trusted you with her most intimate thoughts? How you cared so deeply about her and my father?”

A shudder runs through her body, head to toe, and a chill washes over the room. Suddenly, it’s not just her energy revealing her true feelings, but her whole facade, the aloofness finally crumbling away, revealing a broken woman full of pain and regret—a woman I wish I never had to see.

Because the woman sitting before us now—nothing like the smug, self-satisfied bitch who waltzed in here tonight—is clearly harboring something so dark and painful, so earth-shattering, it’s going to break more than just my heart.

“No, Starla,” she says softly, dropping her gaze into her lap. Her hands, calm and steady throughout our entire interrogation, finally begin to tremble. “This is the part where I tell you your mother sealed your fate the day she made a blood deal with the Dark Magician to bring you into this world.”

Thirty-Two

STEVIE

Forward and backward through time and space

Past present future, all boundaries erased

Memories show us what oaths have kept hidden

Reveal our truths, unbound and unbidden

Soft and steady in the quiet darkness of the kitchen, Doc speaks the enchantment, the Moon card glowing silver-bright on the table.