Tarot Academy 4 - Sarah Piper Page 0,97

but Trello stands firm, her eyes holding a formidable challenge.

“Sometimes,” she says, “in the name of justice, we must carry out unjust deeds. I chose to honor my promise to protect you, at whatever the cost.”

“That sounds an awful lot like the ends justify the means, and it absolutely doesn’t make it right, no matter what you have to tell yourself when you look in the mirror.”

“There is no justifying the murder and persecution of innocents, Starla. There is no making it right. There is only choice.” She holds her hands up in balance, imitating the scale she held just moments ago. “You choose to act through your own free will, or you choose to let the river of fate carry you where it may. In choosing to act, you don’t always have the luxury of acting justly for all of the people, all of the time. You simply make the best decision you can with the information available to you. Again and again and again. After that, all that’s left is hope.”

Hope. There it is. The dreaded h-word again. A gift as well as a burden—one I’m not sure I have the strength to carry.

I drop back into my chair, my head so heavy I can barely hold it up.

“I’m one person,” I say. “One witch. It doesn’t matter what you promised—I’m not worth the lives of all those students you risked. Their magick. Their essence.”

“Yet in protecting you,” she says, “in bringing you to this Academy, in uniting you with your fellow Arcana brothers, in opening your mind to the gifts your mother intended for you, we are protecting countless more lives. We are protecting the future of magick as we know it.”

“I thought Justice was supposed to be blind,” I say.

“A blind Justice is an ignorant Justice, and a liar to boot. We can no more walk into this blindly than we can tell our hearts who to love, no matter how inconvenient those truths might be.” At this, she shoots Doc a pointed glare, then turns back to me. “Search your heart,” she says again. “Your truth is already there, waiting to be heard and honored. And no matter what you decide, as well as what you believe, I will stand by your side through all of it. That is a promise.”

At this, Anna Trello bids her farewell and heads out into the dark night alone.

No one moves from the living room.

And here in the kitchen, the warm air laced with the scent of candle wax and mugwort and magick, I take a deep breath, look into Doc’s eyes, and make a promise of my own.

“The Winter Solstice is in two days,” I say. “Time to summon my maker.”

Thirty-Three

STEVIE

The match blazes to life before my eyes, filling the air with the scent of sulfur.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Doc asks, the question calling me back to Trello’s memory of my mother, of a similar scene unfolding on a similar night nearly a quarter-century ago.

It’s the Winter Solstice. What I want is for us to cook up a big, ridiculous meal of roasted turkey and creamed spinach and butternut squash casserole and twelve different kinds of potatoes and mulled wine and more desserts than we can possibly shove into our mouths. What I want is to put on my favorite winter holiday playlist and decorate the Yule tree. What I want is to drink hot chocolate chai lattes in front of a crackling fire and exchange gifts with my friends and the men I love.

But tonight’s not about what I want. It’s about what needs to be done.

It’s about meeting the Magician face-to-face and offering him the deal of a lifetime.

Upon his acceptance—then, and only then, will we have our true Yuletide celebration.

Because then, and only then, will we be free to rebuild our lives.

The match flickers, the flame burning toward my thumb. Doc’s gaze grows more intense, his energy a white wall of fear and uncertainty.

He’s the only one here with me tonight, sitting across from me on my bedroom floor, the moon glowing bright outside. Every few minutes, Jareth peers into the window, flapping his great wings. But Doc and Jareth and the moon are all the company I have tonight.

I wanted all my brothers to be here for this, but in the days following Trello’s visit, whenever I tried to tell Ani about my plans, my body went haywire. First, it was a coughing fit. Then a sore throat and hoarseness.