Chapter 33 Spring Symposium
Admittedly, the Blackburne line didn’t have the best track record for survival.
Evolutionarily speaking, we were losing—and badly.
But I still had my mother’s blood, and I clung to the hope that it might be enough to tip the scales in my favor.
I pieced together the cold facts, stitching them together with something far older and wilder than logic.
The magick I no longer doubted—my own intuition.
Magick was ceremonial. And so too should be the destruction of the Book, in the eyes of the person who gave its power life. It was through this ceremonial burning that we could put to rest what my father started all those years ago. He would be free to move on, and so would I.
The plan was simple. We would arrange ourselves as the Meister has orchestrated many times before. Nina would be assigned potion maker—she’d make the vial concoction and include the poisonous nightshade such as the Meister would see it.
For this, I gave everyone a generous wad of cotton to place in their cheeks to soak up the liquid (this time not sourced from the dining room furniture). It wouldn’t be enough to completely eliminate the side effects, but the dosage would be diluted such that we wouldn’t die. And that was the goal.
When the Meister himself was disarmed, that would be the time to strike. Aspen would be the one to fend off the Meister as Leone and I would handle getting a hold of the Book, and Nina and Sequoia would kindle the fire so that we could burn it then and there.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
But the plan was contingent on one crucial detail: everyone’s trustworthiness. If even one person decided to sabotage the plan, it could risk everything. I wasn’t just betting on myself anymore. I was betting on my friends. And whether or not I trusted them.
I was in my room, going over the plan and preparing to take my work down to the Symposium.
The House was buzzing with activity in preparations for opening it to the Council and the Advisors.
This was the time all the students had been waiting for to dazzle and impress everyone.
The Council members would each come around to our stations and evaluate our work, deciding if it was worthy enough to grant us another year at Foresyth.
I had unfortunately been too preoccupied the last few weeks to make an impressive presentation, but I had scraped together something passable.
After tonight, I could walk away from Foresyth, content that my role had been fulfilled.
But would I be fulfilled?
The thought was interrupted by knocking at my door. Aspen walked in with a sheepish grin and a flower in his hands. I recognized it instantly. It was a gorgeous bright blue Dahlia, fresh-picked.
“These are harder to find than you know, despite the sea of florals downstairs,” he said admiring the petals.
“They require a lot of sunlight—not something this place is known for.” He stepped closer to where I was standing.
“I just came to wish you good luck tonight. With everything,” he said with one hand threaded through his hair and the other extended across to me.
He was nervous. But about which part? The ceremony, or us?
But there was no us. There was only them, the Trees. I was a flower at the base of their trunk, never to reach their heights. Hadn’t he implied as much the first time I met them?
“Thank you,” I said, taking the stem.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked, his eyes scanning the bed where I had laid out my supplies.
“I’m sure.” But I wasn’t.
He smiled, but there was sadness in his eyes. “Julian was a master puzzle maker. He blew us all out of the water at the last Symposium with his disappearing act. Little did we know it wasn’t the only trick up his sleeve.”
I returned his gaze but didn’t say anything. I thought of him and Julian, whether they got along, or if they fought in front of everyone else like we had. Were they like friends, brothers, or something more?
“Julian . . . he was more than just a friend to you,” I said. I studied his reaction carefully, because of course I did. It was my natural instinct. His brows twitched only for a second, but it was enough for me to know I was getting closer to something I probably shouldn’t.
“That’s why you and Sequoia were fighting at my first Circle.
I initially thought it was because Sequoia was involved with him.
But . . . you were too.” He looked down and I could sense the uneasiness in him—shame, perhaps.
“But it was unbalanced. Perhaps he had a fondness for you that outweighed his for Sequoia.”
Aspen started laughing. “That trick you do of reading people is impressive. And almost correct. But you know you could just ask, us being friends and all that,” he cooed with a wink.
“Julian and I were close. But we had very different views of the school—of magick. Our fights were academic in nature. He was always too easy on Sequoia—too friendly. He coddled her, but I didn’t.
I never stopped believing she was more capable than people believed her to be.
If we could have put aside our academic differences .
. .” He smoothed out his hair with his fingertips and continued.
“Perhaps in another world we would have all been something more.” And for a second, I forgot he was talking about Julian.
“Is that why you were drawn to me? Because I’m like him?
” I don’t know why I said it, but I wanted to know if all of this had just been because of who Julian was, not who I was.
I studied Aspen’s face, searching for the truth between the spaces of his words.
If Julian had left such a mark on him, if he had been the gravitational center keeping them all together . . . then where did that leave me?
I was still angry at Julian for giving up on himself like he had. He made me think of the Eight of Swords, imprisoned by a cage of his own doing. His own hubris had driven him to leave a puzzle in the wake of his death instead of fighting the Meister with the truth.
“You . . .” He paused. “You are the opposite of him—the puzzle solver to his maker. Julian was very secretive. He never let anyone get close to him. He told tall tales and dazzled everyone with stories, similar to you, but different. You were different. I noticed it the first time you connected with Nina, the sincerity of your shared interests, your shared admiration. Julian was a wall, but you’ve been more of a drawbridge, tethering on the verge of opening. ”
“Very poetic.” I scrunched up my nose to feign my amusement. “And now I’ve let you all in,” I said.
“And now you’ve let us all in,” he echoed.
When my eyes met his I was struck by the fierceness of them, the little specks of gold creating a dance of whorls and spirals in the light.
They seemed to harden, the edges becoming sharper in focus.
I hadn’t allowed myself to trust him, not fully, until now.
This was where he proved himself or destroyed me.
“Let’s hope it’s not a mistake,” I said.
*
I could feel the vibration of the House under the footsteps of so many guests, but it was barely audible over the chatter of conversation.
The posters and displays were set up in the sitting room where all the other furniture had been cleared, and the dining room table was now covered with a generous banquet—fruits and cakes of all sorts, sprinkled across the table like berry patches.
The theme of this year’s Symposium was “Eternal Spring,” and a sea of violently blooming flowers covered the floors and tables from the entrance to the back hallway. The smell was intoxicatingly sweet.
I wore the only dress I owned and tucked the dahlia into my hair.
The flower’s contrast with my pale skin made me think that I was almost beautiful, like Sequoia.
The dress was a sleek black that cut across my shoulders and cinched at my waist. On top of it, I wore a leather harness that tied into my utility belt where all of my items could be accessed in short notice.
I hitched my black socks up high and slid into my Oxfords.
I did not look entirely like myself, but perhaps a more feminine version of the menswear-donning self I had been a few months ago.
But maybe that was a good thing.
I stood by my haphazardly strung together poster entitled “Parlor game turned prophecy: the theatre of Tarot.” I had replicated the images of several of my favorite cards and drawn arrows between ones where I connected concepts and themes.
On the left panel of my trifold, I wrote out my pre-reading rituals, including the various cleanses and groundings I’d perform.
On the right side, I wrote my philosophy of reading, and how it was a collaborative, give and take, rather than a recitation. I didn’t mention Sophia or the demiurge. I held a deck of cards, my old Tarot deck from the shop, to demonstrate my methodology and give on the spot one-card readings.
My real theatrics were being saved for later that night.
“It seems like Foresyth hasn’t changed your methodology much.” The Meister smirked, scanning my presentation board at my station. Foresyth has changed a lot of my thinking but not about reading cards.
“Why fix something that isn’t broken? Pick a card,” I said, outstretching my hand.
“Indeed,” he said with a slanted eye and inched his fingers to my fanned deck I held.
“Although, I do wish some of your work on the runes had made it into here.” His tone implied I was holding out on what I had learned, and it was true.
Did he suspect I connected the runes to human sacrifice, and back to his own horrid practices?
“I’m not ready to present those ideas to the Council. But when I am, they’ll be the first to know,” I said.
He feathered the cards with one finger before landing on a card. He pulled it out and gave it to me, not flipping it over. “And, uh, what about our other little side project?”