Chapter 23 The Kiln #2
“And I think you’re the only one who can figure it out,” he whispered, the gleam from his eyes hardening. I could feel my eyebrows twitch into a furrow and I countered the movement, willing them to relax. How could he believe in me so fervently when I scarcely believed in myself?
We stood there for a moment, watching each other in silence. I wrestled with his words, not wanting to accept them, yet finding myself sinking into their weight. Finally, he spoke again, his voice quieter. “There’s something else I need to show you.”
He moved past me toward a pedestal draped in a linen sheet and, with a single graceful motion, unveiled it.
What lay beneath took my breath away. It was the most beautiful sculpture I’d ever seen, even though I couldn’t fully understand what it was.
Entirely made of glass, it resembled a vase, yet appeared more like a puzzle—endlessly shifting, without a fixed form, beginning, or edge.
The glass spiraled in continuous loops of deep Prussian blue, a color that felt strangely familiar.
Just when I thought I could grasp its pattern, it morphed again, slipping away from my mind’s eye.
“It’s devastatingly beautiful.”
“Yes, you are,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the sculpture. Staring at it was both unsettling and mesmerizing. The sensation felt oddly familiar . . . Then, it hit me. It was the same feeling I had while holding The Book of Skorn.
“It’s forged with Skorn magick. Out of curiosity, can you guess which cards?”
I considered the object in front of me. Perhaps this was as close as I could get to reading Aspen.
“The Wheel of Fortune, of course. Representing the circularity, infinity. The Two of Swords. Duality, choice. Explains how I’m repulsed and entranced at the same time. And perhaps the Queen of Cups. The flow of water, emotions, ever fluid.”
He studied me for a moment before replying. “Pretty good. But two are missing. There’s a heavy pinch of the Seven of Cups, and a tad bit of the Devil in there, too.”
“Ah, Satan’s tricks. How could I have missed it?” I teased, eyeing him.
“A satyr that gets too much vitriol, if you ask me.”
We both caught ourselves chuckling. He stared at me, his mouth still spread into a brilliant smile. A crack. This was the time in a reading when I’d push harder.
“Can I ask you something else?” I edged closer, sensing I was getting warmer, but I hadn’t reached the heart of it yet.
I had seen the fractures between the students, but now I was nearing something even darker—the cracks between them and Foresyth itself.
The students didn’t follow the Meister’s decrees, at least not always.
Sequoia hadn’t. Maybe Julian’s death was just one symptom of a deeper, festering wound, poisoning them all.
“Do you ever question this place? What it offers you?”
His smile faded, and he paused for a long time before replying.
“There’s a lot about Foresyth I don’t agree with—most of us don’t,” he said quietly, as though afraid someone might overhear, even though we were far from anyone else in the House.
“I thought I could change it from the inside, given that I couldn’t escape it. ”
“What do you mean?”
“For one reason or another, we’re bound to it. We’re powerless.”
The idea that Aspen was powerless was absurd. He had so much influence in Circle it was almost sickening. “Powerless? How?” I whispered, half expecting him to brush off the question. But he met my stare, the lines around his eyes tightening as if the truth caused him physical pain.
“The Meister has a very particular way of choosing us. He picks us, not just for our merits or lineage, but our family’s debts.” Aspen paused, his voice quieter.
I scrunched my features together, waiting for him to continue.
“My father, Titus, he didn’t just amass his fortune from his cunning or luck.
” His eyes fell downward, back toward the tool bench.
“He has been using the Advisors for years. And the price for that type of service isn’t just money—it’s us.
” Aspen looked up then, and I almost staggered back by the severity of his expression.
“Sequoia too, her mother didn’t earn her fame in the theatre just from talent, the Advisors had a hand in that, too. ”
My breath caught. The focus on lineage at Foresyth—it wasn’t just an elitist prejudice, it was practical. Their parents had traded success for their children’s future.
“That’s cruel. You and Sequoia aren’t at fault for the decisions your parents made,” I said.
“Though that might be true, we all still answer to our parent’s misdoings, one way or another,” he said.
“But don’t misunderstand me: regardless of the debt, I want to be here.
So does Sequoia. We’re all scholars at heart, by birth or otherwise.
” My heart sank at the mention of her name.
Was the warm, spiraling sensation in my chest . . . jealousy?
He looked toward the kiln, the light from the flames reflected in his eyes, yet he didn’t flinch from the brightness like I had. “My father has exceedingly high expectations, and I admit that I sometimes put those on others. But it doesn’t mean I don’t question my own abilities.”
“Everyone does. Especially those with the best of them.” I paused, recalling the first conversation I had with Aspen in the breakfast room.
“When you said you were here for the art, I doubted you. But now I see you were telling the truth. Your sculptures really are magnificent.” My cheeks flushed at the admittance.
“Thank you,” Aspen replied with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
I looked away, my eyes traced the curves of the glass in front of me.
“So this is your research work—what you’ll be presenting to the Council at the Symposium.
This is your magick,” I said, rounding the pedestal to get another view from the other side.
I couldn’t imagine how these slight curves and features could have ever been forged by hand.
The piece seemed as if it was assembled by magick.
Something this extraordinary belonged in a museum, not buried in a tunnel like this.
He stepped closer, stopping just in front of the sculpture, and I felt the hairs on my arms rise. “Do you trust me?” he asked, his voice low, his eyes emanating their own source of heat.
My thoughts spun. I had been conditioned to trust no one, to be an impartial seeker of the truth. Of course I didn’t trust him—I wasn’t supposed to trust anyone. But despite that, my body betrayed me, instinctively drawn toward his presence, defying the logic of my mind.
“I don’t know yet,” I said.
“Then maybe this will convince you,” Aspen said. And before I could react, his hand had swiped the glass sculpture to the floor. It fell so fast that I heard the crash in my ears seconds after seeing the pieces at my feet.
“What the hell—” I choked, my voice catching in my throat as I stared at the shattered remains at my feet. My heart pounded in my chest, the horror of what he’d done sinking in.
“Why did you do that?” I whispered, unable to tear my eyes away from the wreckage.
But before the shock could fully register, something else stirred inside me—a sudden, unexplainable heat.
It unfurled slowly, spreading through my core like molten fire, each wave stronger, more consuming.
I gasped, my breath hitching as the warmth surged lower, flooding my body with an intensity that made me rock and tremble.
I wanted to recoil, to scream, but I couldn’t. Every part of me felt pulled towards Aspen and his devilish grin. Were those specks of amber in his eyes? It felt like we were tethered by some force far beyond reason. What had he done to me?
“You wanted to see something real. You wanted to know that I hadn’t been using the cards on you.
” A dark undercurrent grew in his voice as he spoke, stepping closer to me.
I winced as his feet crunched on the glass below.
“Well, Dahlia. There’s only one way to convince you of anything, and that’s to show you. ”
My hands instinctively went up to his chest, as if commanded by an external force.
The feeling I had from looking at the sculpture was now how it felt to watch him, his eyes narrow and serpentine, rounding every curvature of my cheek and flesh.
The green in his eyes flickered in the kiln light, and I was entranced by the whorls and stripes of his irises.
Their tendrils seemed to reach out to me—pulling me closer like an asp.
The wave of inexplicable desire crashed over me, and even the faintest voice in my head, trying to warn me, seemed gurgling underwater.
I was overcome by an almost primal need.
I needed him closer to me. I needed to know what it felt like to be bit by Eden’s serpent.
He stepped closer. The flames behind him cast his shadow long across the floor.
I crashed into him, my body caught in the pull of something dark and unspeakably sweet.
My hands fell across his neck, our faces only inches apart, and our breaths mingling at one another’s lips. I was pulled—and pushed—into him.
My lips found his, and relief flooded me at the warmth of him. He groaned in response. I inhaled the smell of sulfur and stone, relishing as it scorched my lungs. Our lips danced on each other’s like a ballet, him supporting my every lurch and spin. It was as if we had danced many times before.
In the next instance, the spell was broken, and I pushed him off of me.
“What the hell?” I spewed, wiping the taste of him from my lips.
He considered me for a moment, the corner of his lips upturned. “I’ll give you a second to figure it out.”
I heard the glass sculpture breaking all over again. He used the cards. He wanted to prove to me that he’d been honest, that he hadn’t used them on me before, and the only way to do so was to show me how it would be when he did.
The counter factual.