Epilogue
Three months later
I’d been sneezing all afternoon, stirred by the dust blanketing the last shelves of my bookstore.
I knew it was my fault for not cleaning more often, but I cursed the books for gathering it.
At least it kept my eyes cloudy with dust rather than tears.
Although I’d always dreamed of selling the shop, packing the books into boxes to be shipped off to the public library in Greenwich made it feel too real.
In the long afternoon light, with most of the shop empty except for one shelf, I stopped to admire my work. The sun streamed through the windows, illuminating tiny motes of dust suspended in the air. The bookstore was all packed.
The last shelf was my father’s prized collection of archaic magickal texts, which he hadn’t let me touch (though I’d secretly read through them before I turned thirteen).
I trailed my fingers over the cracked leather spines, feeling a faint static build beneath my fingertips.
This set was reserved for another library, one that would make better use of it than Greenwich.
But the invisible tug at my core stopped me from placing them in the special black box I’d set aside.
These books were the last pieces of my father. Giving them away felt like giving away a part of myself.
I reached into my pocket, my fingers closing around the pebble my father had saved for me. I reminded myself that not everything of his was gone.
A knock sounded at the door. I crossed the nearly empty shop, expecting my guest. It wasn’t a client, as I’d closed my Tarot reading practice after returning from Foresyth. Perhaps the woman at my door would have an interest in the accounts, but I doubted she’d assign Advisors to the public.
“Dahlia,” greeted the Al-Ahmar when I opened the door.
She wore no cape or ceremonial garb this time, only a polished peplum blouse and long black slacks, elegant yet simple.
Her curly hair was pulled into a sleek bun, and her eyes, outlined in dark pencil, studied me with a familiar intensity. “You look well.”
“I am,” I replied, meaning it. “Come in. I have the collection ready inside.”
“Thank you,” she said.
I offered her tea, which she declined with a polite smile. “We’re grateful for your donation to the library,” she began, “but there was something else I wanted to discuss with you.”
“Truthfully, I expected as much,” I replied, walking to what used to be my Tarot-reading table and motioning for her to sit. She nodded, taking a seat across from me. My hand reflexively reached for the shawl I once wore with clients, but I stopped myself.
I no longer needed it; I no longer needed a disguise.
“It seems you’ve been busy here,” she said, noting the empty shelves. “Moving out?”
“Foresyth taught me that I can’t live in books forever. It’s time to move on from the past rather than be haunted by it. My mother, Estelle, and I are set to visit Dublin next week,” I said, crossing my legs.
With the Book finally destroyed, a new life had entered my mother, her health all but fully restored. She still had to take frequent breaks, her body not yet as strong as her spirit, but I didn’t mind. I had all the time in the world now.
Estelle was upstairs now, slowly packing our rooms as I sat with the Al-Ahmar. A conversation like this with the Meister would’ve unnerved me a few months ago, but with her, I felt calm. She seemed as at peace with the past as I was learning to become.
“That’s a significant undertaking. I wish everyone could move on as you have,” she replied, her gaze steady, almost assessing.
“It’s unfortunate that the Meister couldn’t do the same.
He believed old blood magick could restore the House, but really, it was draining it.
Each failed ceremony only corrupted the place further. ”
“I wish he’d been stopped sooner,” I said, feeling a simmering anger rise I thought I’d buried long ago. I thought I had let go of my anger toward them both—toward Julian for making me chase his ghost, toward my father for suffering in silence for so long.
But sometimes, closure wasn’t a neat conclusion. Sometimes it was a wound that needed time to scab, scar, and heal. But even then, it would always be there underneath the surface. I’d just have to learn to live with it.
“We lost several Council members who sided with him, but we’ve reformed the Council now,” she continued.
“Understandably, many were afraid of his powers, but now with the Book gone, I think that type of power has been laid to rest. Our new leadership is dedicated to keeping magickal study separate from practice. We’re an academic institution, after all. ”
When the silence between us stretched, she continued. “There’s still much good you could do, Dahlia. Sometimes we must rely on what we already know to guide us to the good, rather than searching for it outside ourselves.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
The Al-Ahmar studied me for a long moment before speaking again.
“The Council was impressed by you. You have a unique immunity to magickal relics—a talent that was evident that night of the ceremony. In fact, you were the only one able to handle the Book without being consumed. Have you wondered why?”
“I’ve tried to put that night behind me,” I replied. “But yes, I have wondered.”
I had felt the Book’s pull—like a low, humming presence, something that wanted to burrow inside me, whisper secrets only I could hear. But it hadn’t consumed me the way it had others.
I held it, I resisted it, and I burned it to ash.
“Our research suggests it has something to do with your Roma heritage on your mother’s side,” she said.
“Dealers in magickal relics often need some immunity to them, and we believe you inherited this. Your father’s blood contained Elyrium, which made the Book call to you.
But from your mother, you inherited a marker that counteracts it.
You’re like a bloodhound that doesn’t devour what it finds. ”
Elyrium? A counter magick? Thoughts tumbled through my head, curiosity sparking in my chest. But I gulped them all down.
“An interesting metaphor,” I said, “but I’m not sure how it’s relevant now; the Book is gone.”
“The Book might be gone, but magick is not. As you said, belief itself can still compel people to evil. Your father, though tormented, was driven by justice. I thought perhaps you were too.”
I swallowed. “I’m not my father.”
“I think we can both be glad of that,” she said, a soft laugh threading through her words. “But there are parts of him in you—parts drawn to darkness, and parts searching for light within it. The truth.”
As she fell silent, I regarded her carefully.
Her words settled over me like dust, fine and inescapable.
She wasn’t wrong. I had always been drawn to the places others turned away from—the secrets buried under floorboards and behind locked doors.
I had spent my life digging, prying, searching.
If it was a patron seated across from me or a deadly Conservatory, it didn’t matter, I pressed on the same.
But was it justice? Or was it morbid curiosity?
As the silence stretched, I realized something else. This wasn’t just a conversation. This was another job offer.
“What exactly are you proposing?”
“You’re too young to be an Advisor, not to mention I suspect that’s not your path now, given you closed your practice.
But there is an organization I think you’d find interesting.
They’re called the Arcanum, a group independent from Foresyth that investigates magickal crimes across the world. I recommended you to them.”
I squinted at her. “That’s not the kind of travel I had in mind. Estelle and I have other plans.”
“You don’t need to decide now,” she said gently. “But I hope you’ll think about it. Like I said, Dahlia, there’s a lot of good you could do. Promise me you’ll consider it?”
Her voice held a strange weight, an almost maternal urgency that made my throat tighten.
I looked at her, and for a moment, it was as if Julian himself were staring back at me.
The resemblance was uncanny—not just in the tilt of her head or the softness in her smile, but in something deeper, more ineffable.
It was as though a thread had been woven between them, and through Julian, it now connected to me.
“I promise, I’ll think about it,” I replied, my voice steadier than I felt. Her smile deepened, and I returned it cautiously, my chest caught between a swell of relief and an ache I couldn’t quite place.
She stood, and I followed her across the room.
My eyes fell to the box resting on the counter—the relic of my father’s life, his obsessions, his failures.
For so long, it had weighed on me, like an anchor tied to my foot, pulling me down.
Now, as I prepared to part with it, I felt that weight shift, not vanishing entirely, but becoming lighter.
“Are you sure you want to part with these?” she asked, her fingers hovering over the box.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. My hand rested on the lid for a moment, realizing I was sealing it for the last time. I could hear Estelle’s quiet footsteps above me, and I smiled to myself. “There’s nothing in here I don’t already know.” The words felt true, but they still tasted strange.
The knowledge was mine now, not bound to these objects or the people who had held them before me. Letting go of those books felt like shedding a layer of skin.
She took the box and tucked it under her arm, and I followed her to the door, watching as she stepped into the street.
I stood at the doorway until the car turned the corner and disappeared, swallowed by the narrow street.
I stepped outside, onto the cobblestones of Wicker Street.
The wind pressed against my skin, cool and full of familiar scents—salt, smoke, something sweet carried from a bakery down the way.
The street stretched before me, endless in its possibilities.
Arcanum, I thought. At least they had one less thing to worry about, now that I had banished Skorn magick. I had seen the Book crumble into ash, its powers rendered void. No one could use the cards to hold sway over others, anymore.
But then, like a weed sprouting in a cleared garden, a thought pushed its way through the soil of my mind.
Aspen.
The Emperor.
THE END