Chapter 12 The Tarot Circle
I was panting by the time I made it to my room with Julian’s box, having narrowly escaped Aspen’s interception.
I couldn’t risk Aspen—or any of the other students, for that matter—learning about my investigation.
My throat tightened at the thought of Aspen seeing the journals I carried, clearly marked with Julian’s initials.
But had he already seen them? I slipped by him so quickly, it seemed unlikely. Unlikely, but not impossible.
I pushed the thought aside as I picked through Julian’s things.
I scarcely had time to search the box, given that my proposal was due in six hours, but my curiosity had gotten the best of me.
My cursory glance found four journals—presumably one for each of the semesters he’d spent at Foresyth—two books on Gnostic symbology, and three on Norse mythology, plus a Norse dictionary.
But what connection had Julian seen between ancient Christian mythos and Norse runes? The two practices were separated by at least two centuries. Flipping through Julian’s journals, I noticed something else peculiar: they weren’t written in English. At least, not all of them.
They were written in strange markings that resembled a mix of Latin and Nordic symbols.
I stacked the books and journals back together in the box.
I imagined Julian thumbing through these books in the library alcoves late at night, scribbling his findings excitedly into his journal, running his hands through his curly hair with each thought pulsing through him. He was only a year older than me.
Perhaps too young to leave a mark on this world, certainly too young to die, especially in the manner that he did.
Whatever Julian was studying had to be connected to his death.
But I couldn’t afford to spend more time thinking of it, not when I had to speak at Circle tonight in front of all the other students.
Tonight’s performance might silence their doubts—or unravel the illusion entirely.
I trudged back downstairs and into the library, avoiding the route that would take me past the Meister’s office, just in case Aspen was coming out of his meeting.
It was exceptionally quiet.
Richard had drawn the curtains to cast out the afternoon light. I retreated back to my workstation and started stacking the books out of my bag onto the table. Luckily, given my extensive knowledge on the topic, there were only a few gaps to fill before I could construct a coherent proposal.
The scent of aged, leather-bound books clung to the air, and despite everything, a small smile found its way to my lips. Whatever the circumstances that had brought me to Foresyth, there was a part of me—quiet and unshakable—that felt at home here, buried in the alcoves, surrounded by words.
I drew in another breath, letting the stillness settle around me, and then turned to my study.
The fog in my head lingered, but I kept it at bay with steady cups of black coffee retrieved from the breakfast room.
Each bitter sip cut through the haze, sharpening my focus as my eyes moved over the page, line by line, chasing clarity in the flickering lamplight.
An idea was taking shape in my mind, and I traced its contours. Could someone use the physical decks of cards to chemically date their age instead of relying on scholarly reports?
Granted, it was a first-principles question and would require a significant budget to loan and date the decks of cards from different libraries, but if I succeeded, I could put to rest the conflicting timelines found in the literature.
A smile broke on my lips at the thought of imbuing this mystical field with scientific investigation.
I only hoped the others could be convinced.
*
“Where were you all day? I didn’t see you in the lab,” Nina said, taking her seat next to mine.
“Preparing for this,” I said, nodding to the center of the room. The old tree swayed, as if nodding in recognition.
“This is nothing. You could write a proposal in your sleep. Wait till you submit for review. There’s nothing scarier than the Advisors evaluating your work.”
“The Advisors are involved in publishing?”
“Of course. But it’s not just quality inspection, even though that’s what it feels like, it’s also because they want to know the latest and greatest research. They’re still scholars. It’s just that their research happens in the real world.”
My stomach churned at the thought of magick—or worse, the presumption of it—seeping into the outside world.
It belonged in books, buried in the long-forgotten histories of vanished ages, where it could be studied, disproved, and ultimately contained.
It wasn’t magick itself that unsettled me.
One cannot fear what one does not believe exists.
What frightened me was belief. The kind of belief that turns into certainty. Because with enough conviction, even fiction could be dangerous.
“Good evening, everyone,” the Meister said, striking his cane down several times, opening the circle. “Sub rosa.”
“Sub rosa,” I murmured under my breath as I stole a glance at Sequoia and Aspen seated on the loveseat. He had a hand on her knee, strumming the fabric of her skirt. I closed my eyes, and the image of her warm hand in mine from last night flashed before me.
People are not trees.
But we are, she had replied. Her eyes met mine for a second before looking away. Or was it the glint of the fireplace playing tricks on me?
“Ms. Blackburne, I believe tonight it is your turn to start,” the Meister beckoned.
I tucked a loose strand of hair back and sat up, straightening on the chaise. “Indeed, I’d like to begin with a brief history of Tarot, including the elemental suits and Major Arcana.” I cleared my throat, ready to dive into the research I had gathered.
“That won’t be necessary,” the Meister said. “You can just dive into your hypothesis.”
My stomach dropped. This was what I had been preparing for all day, all week. Hadn’t we agreed to this?
“All first years take Prognostication seminar. We’re familiar with the history of most methods—scrying, palmistry, and cartomancy, of course,” Aspen said, wrapping his arm around Sequoia’s waist.
I had prepared for a rigorous re-telling of Tarot, tracing all the threads of lineage, which would perfectly set the stage for my proposed research. Without an interest in history, what else did I have?
“I was trying to explain how there were conflicting timelines in its history—”
Leone chuckled. Sequoia crossed her legs away from me. Even Nina’s gaze dropped.
Failure built thick and hot in the pit of my stomach.
“If we studied every conflicting timeline in history, we would never graduate,” Aspen said factually. There was no menace in his tone, just academic objectivity. A part of me even appreciated it.
“Research isn’t just about doing the research, reading books, and recounting what academics say—any first year could do that.
What distinguishes you as a scholar—as an Advisor—is asking the right questions,” the Meister said.
“What is it that you really want to know? Absent any sense of how you would actually go about investigating it?”
I sat back in my seat, heat flushing my cheeks.
What was there to know about card tricks?
Aside from their methodology, there wasn’t anything substantive in them.
I read people, not Tarot. They were just the medium of my manipulation.
I didn’t believe in their intrinsic power; it wasn’t something to find out, it was already a fact.
“I see you thinking, Ms. Blackburne. Challenge the status quo. Question everything, even what you think is an unshakable truth.”
My pulse quickened, saliva gathering on my tongue. My mind raced with memories of my readings. Yes, I read people’s micro-reactions and profiled them accordingly, but somewhere deep inside, I knew there was another force at play. Invisible, but ever-guiding.
The question sat at the back of my throat, rising with the bile in my stomach from all the coffee I’d had earlier in the day. I tasted the swelling truth.
“What I truly want to know,” I began, feeling the weight of every eye on me, “is this: If the cards are indeed magick, if they can prophesy the future . . . where does that power come from?” I couldn’t very well ask, is the magick of Tarot even real?
But if there was a source, then there was power.
“Ah, now that’s a much more interesting question.” The Meister leaned back, satisfied.
Sequoia’s eyes flashed with horror, but the look was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Had I said the wrong thing? Or had I tapped into something I wasn’t ready to know?
“Haven’t you heard of The Book of Skorn?” Leone said.
I turned to him, feeling the weight of his judgement. “Of course I have, but it’s a hypothesis, just like anything else. The truth cannot be derived solely from books, only through experiment,” I said pointedly to Aspen.
Aspen rolled his eyes. “What a purist,” he muttered under his breath.
“No, let’s follow that thought,” the Meister probed. “True magick, after all, comes from experimentation, not from reading books. It is the practice of doing, of becoming, that creates magick. What experiments should Ms. Blackburne perform to derive the origin of the cards’ powers?”
An uneasy silence fell across the room. I had the feeling that everyone, except me, already knew the answer.
“She could call to different deities and then pull cards, see which ones are more accurate,” Sequoia suggested. “I could help you draft a list of patrons,” she added.
“That assumes that the power of Tarot comes from deities,” Nina said. “What about sacrifice? I could lend you a frog or a pheasant. I would expect it back, though. After you kill it.”
“You’re disgusting, you know that?” Aspen frowned. “What she really needs is a hypothesis, like she said. Where do you think the powers come from? From there, test it.”