Chapter 9 The Lab and the Rock
There was one thing I had become assured of in the last twenty-four hours at Foresyth Conservatory: simply blending into Foresyth would not be possible.
I had to take an active role in building alliances or enemies, or risk being outcast by the entire group.
Perhaps even risk facing the same fate as Julian.
Sequoia was not at breakfast the next morning. I turned to Nina, who said, “She does this sometimes. The Trees fight, and it ruins the whole mood if you let it.” She took a giant bite of her biscuit. “I can show you the lab this afternoon if you have time,” she said with full cheeks.
“Yes, I’d like that. I’m free after my mentorship meeting with the Meister.
” I sighed, relieved I hadn’t alienated her last night by siding with the anti-Druids.
There was still a chance at forging an alliance—perhaps even the most advantageous, given her access to the lab.
Even if I could pick a lock or two, it was always easier to have a key.
“I’ll meet you in the sitting room.”
The Meister’s presence at Foresyth was elusive at best, which made seeing him as unsettling as seeing an apparition.
There was a sense that he should be elsewhere, or elsewhen.
It was the first time I saw him in daylight.
The white flesh of his scar glinted in the morning light as he lowered his spectacles.
I wished I knew how he had gotten that scar.
I wished I knew anything about him. I grimaced, remembering how Gabriel had turned up with nothing from the archives.
“Ms. Blackburne, I can’t tell you how delighted I am to see you at Foresyth. It suits you. Though, I’m afraid I must apologize for the behavior of the other students last night. Julian’s death hasn’t been easy for anyone around here.”
“No, especially not Julian himself,” I quipped before I could catch myself.
“I can’t argue with that. He wasn’t my favorite, but he was jovial and brought a lightness to Foresyth. In his absence, a dark cloud hangs over this place. One I hope you may dispel soon enough.” He smiled, motioning me to sit.
“That’s what I’ve come to discuss with you. I’ve made some developments on the case.” I ignored his gesture and instead walked across the room to where he sat. I took out the case file and laid it down on his desk.
“Here, this is a picture of Julian’s hanged body.
We know from the toxicology report that he must have been poisoned.
I don’t think he hung himself to die, but to leave a message.
” I pulled out another sheet of paper, one on which I had drawn the lion-serpent symbol.
“He left this for someone to find. He must’ve realized what had happened—that someone had poisoned him—and he wanted to make sure someone would find it. Do you know what it means?”
I studied his reaction. His eyes scrunched together in thought, and I traced his features for any sign of deception. I didn’t fully trust the Meister, even though he was the one who had hired me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow more involved in Julian’s death than he let on.
“I can’t say what this means,” he said without looking up from the drawing. He adjusted his spectacles further up the bridge of his nose. “But it doesn’t surprise me that Julian would leave a clue—he studied iconography and thought in puzzles. The boy was sometimes an enigma himself.”
I noted his word choice: can’t say, not don’t know. Why was the Meister holding back from me?
“That’s lovely for him, but it gets me nowhere. Why couldn’t he just write down the killer’s name?”
A corner of the Meister’s mouth lifted, and my stomach churned.
“Ms. Blackburne, if there is one thing you should know about the students of Foresyth, it’s this: when you’re an artist—and all magickians are—everything becomes an art.
Even dying.” He read the disgust on my face and added, “They don’t have your direct sensibilities. ”
“Can I ask you something?” I paused.
“Certainly.”
“Why mix the two? Art and science, I mean. Are they not diametrically opposed?”
The Meister’s eyes flickered with amusement, as if I’d just told him a joke.
“Magick is simply science we’ve yet to understand.
And what remains after the experiment—that’s art.
That’s why we unite the two at Foresyth.
Because art, like magick, grants the soul a means to transcend—to glimpse the universal human experience. ”
I furrowed my brow, uncertain of his meaning.
In the quiet of my bookshop, the Meister had seemed legible—his intentions sharp beneath the surface.
But here, steeped in the shadowed corridors of Foresyth and the weight of its obscure histories, I found his words increasingly opaque.
Perhaps it was foolish to chase meaning through the thickets of philosophy.
Better, for now, to return to what I knew: the facts.
“How did you come to be the Meister of Foresyth?” I asked, testing him with my directness. He chortled, reclining back in his chair.
I didn’t see what was so funny.
“I was born here, metaphorically speaking. My father was Head Meister, and his father before him. Though we were fairly elected, Foresyth has always been in my blood.”
Legacy. The students had used that word during dinner last night. It meant something special here, to be born into this school through parentage.
“And you like it?” I asked. Perhaps it was childish of me to think that people ought to enjoy their professions. My father hadn’t become a detective because he enjoyed it necessarily, but because it served him a higher moral purpose. It benefited society.
“Yes, I do,” he answered. “But not just because it was what my father did.” His tone dropped, as if drawing a parallel between us. “But because it was my own path that I chose, independent of my predecessors.”
I broke my gaze from his, frustrated by how much he knew of me when I knew so little of him. That was enough of him reading me. That’s not why I had come.
“I’d like to see Julian’s things,” I said, changing the subject again. “His research papers and the like. If he studied iconography, maybe I can find the symbol in one of his papers, something that points to who poisoned him.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll see if I can have his personal effects sent to your room with discretion.” He smiled.
“Thank you,” I said and started to turn out of the room.
“Ms. Blackburne, you are not dismissed yet. We have your academics to discuss.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know I’m not here for that. I came to read suspects, not more books.”
“Yes, but it would do you well to try to . . . blend in at the school. You’ve been excused from the first-year prognostication seminar given your background, but I still expect you to produce scholarly research.
You wouldn’t want to generate suspicion.
” He arched a brow. I thought of the past day—Aspen’s truth serum, Sequoia’s Research Circle, and all of them staring at me expectantly.
As if I had an obligation to contribute.
As much as I wanted to disagree with the Meister, I couldn’t.
“If I may grant you some advice, Ms. Blackburne: the easiest way to act a scholar is to become one. Esse quam videri. To be, rather than to seem,” the Meister added.
He had a point. Crafting a ruse, even just to feign interest, was taxing.
Perhaps it was better to be rather than to seem.
If I wanted to track down Julian’s killer, I’d have to make a better attempt at fitting in.
I’d have to fully embrace the type of person, the type of scholar, I had always dreamed of being.
I had always been fascinated by mysticism, not because I believed in it, but because there was a part of me that was morbidly curious about the darkest parts of humanity, the id to their ego.
If I just embraced into my natural curiosity, I could become a natural at Foresyth.
But I needed to toy the edge just right, such that I didn’t get swallowed whole by the very same obsession that had claimed my father, and maybe even Julian.
How difficult could that be?
I smiled, resolution coating my lips, and looked up. “Very well. Let’s talk about Tarot.”
*
The Meister and I agreed that I would begin my research with a historical perspective on Tarot, which I was already familiar with, and then write a paper on how Tarot became affiliated with the occult.
He asked me to present at Research Circle the following week.
I agreed, if only because I could use the opportunity to garner more credibility with the other students.
Shortly after my conversation with the Meister ended, I made my way to the sitting room to meet Nina. She was there on the chaise thumbing through a book on mythical reptilian species.
“You were in there for an hour,” she said, closing her book.
“Yes, the required mentorship meeting.”
“The Meister never spends more than thirty minutes with me; he must really like you,” she said with a genuine undertone of envy in her voice.
“I doubt that. It’s just that, with me being new, I need a little more guidance.”
“Fair enough, though I don’t think you need much guidance. You spoke your mind pretty plainly last night. That takes a lot of courage to do—dispute, I mean. Not a skill a lot of first years know.”
“And what year are you?”
“I’m a second, so are Aspen and Sequoia. Leone’s a third, but he’ll probably do his postdoc here. He has none of the softer skills necessary to become an Advisor.”
“Right. Aspen alluded to as much. The Advisors?” I toyed with the line of my ignorance carefully. Maybe seeing my incompetence in some way would alleviate some of her envy.
“Yes, hired magickal Advisors, sourced primarily from Foresyth and other reputable institutions. They advise on all business and personal matters. They work for statesmen, executives, proprietors.”
“Presidents?” I interjected.