by Sarah Piper
Finally, from out of the smoke, an ally emerges. She runs to me, leaping onto the boulder. Her blue gown is tattered, her crown of flowers smashed and tangled in her wild dark hair.
The Princess of Swords stands before me, blood soaking her dress, a blade gripped in each hand. Her face is grim, her eyes flashing in warning.
“Help me!” I shout, finally finding my voice. “I don’t understand! Show me what to do!”
She whirls her swords in the air, those fierce eyes blazing.
Then she jabs the vicious blades into my calf.
It’s only when the images of the gruesome army fade and the pain burns hot through my veins that my Princess of Swords vanishes, and I realize she wasn't a vision at all.
She was a rattlesnake. As real as the rock beneath my feet.
Back here on planet Fuck My Life, I may not have an undead army to contend with, but my leg is already swelling from the bite, the pain like lava chewing through my skin.
I try to scramble off the boulder, but I stumble and land on my ass. The puncture wounds are already closing, but the venom is working its way into my bloodstream—pretty sure I can’t heal that on my own.
Fuckrabbits. I can’t stay here. I need to find help. I reach for my pack with the phone, but my fingers graze the strap, and it slides down over the side of the bolder, wedging itself into a crack I can’t reach.
Seconds later, my leg goes numb, my lips tingly.
I try to remember everything they ever taught us in Tres Búhos elementary school about rattlesnake bites, but it’s no use.
My stomach lurches—pretty sure I just puked up that granola bar.
My vision is swimming, darkening.
The last conscious thought I have is one of pure fear. Not that I’m going to be destroyed by an undead army, but that I’m going to die on this rock, and someone is going to find my phone, and instead of being remembered as the spirit-blessed witch who mastered her magick and translated her mother’s prophecies and saved countless lives, I’ll be forever immortalized as the girl who felt compelled to issue unsolicited warnings about the dangers of masturbating with a cactus, and then got herself killed by a poisonous snake.
Son of a hairy-ass bitch, I always knew Mother Nature would be the one to take me out.
I’ve got just enough energy left to laugh and flip a middle finger up to the sky.
And then the world simply fades away, taking me right with it.
Thirty-Six
CASS
Her fever still hasn’t broken, her words coming fast and furious now.
“Flame and blood and blade and bone, what starts with zero ends with one. One, five, seven, twenty. Arcana devours, all and plenty.”
“Easy, Stevie. You’re alright. You’re home safe, resting in your bed.” I dip a clean cloth into the ice water, then press it to her forehead.
Twice in as many days, the woman has fallen victim to this landscape. First the river, rising up as if to claim her, well after the other women had already backed off. And now the snake.
It’s too much to be a coincidence.
She’s a target. We knew it was a risk, but I didn’t expect it to start so soon. Unlike her home in Tres Búhos, the Academy is warded against dark magick.
Which only proves how powerful our adversaries truly are.
“I saw his army,” she says. “Death and rot and blood and ruin. Zero begets the next, the One. Innocence lost, magick undone.”
Her voice is high-pitched, frantic, her words mixing her own visions with translations Kirin shared from her mother’s work. It’s all interwoven, but so far, none of us has been able to connect those dots.
“Shh,” I murmur, stroking her face. “Try to rest.”
She slips into a light sleep, but her dreams are perilous, her body twitching, soft whimpers escaping her lips. I lower the lights, ignite candles instead. Place the Four of Swords card on her bedside table. It seems to calm her.
I don’t dare leave her side. Though her body heals external wounds quickly, the venom is largely immune to her magick. In fact, it seems to feed off it, sending her into a fevered state even after the Academy healer administered the antivenin.
For now, all I can do is keep watch.
There’s a soft knock at the door, and Baz enters.
“How is she?” he asks. Here in the candlelight, his features are thrown into sharp, exaggerated relief, his eyes glinting with a wicked tint. But I know he’s already grown to care for her. We all share the same worry.
“Not out of the woods yet,” I tell him, “but getting better. She’ll be okay—her fever is just starting to break.”
Sweat beads on her brow, and I blot it gently with the cool cloth, relieved.
He kneels beside the bed, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm. “I didn’t… I thought…”
“It’s not your fault, Baz. It could’ve happened to anyone.”
“But it happened to her. I shouldn’t have left her alone.”
“She’s a skilled climber and outdoors-woman. She’s perfectly capable of handling herself out there. This was an accident, plain and simple.”
“Or a targeted mage attack.”
“Either way, it was out of your control.”
He nods, but I can tell he’s not buying it.
“Baz, if anyone deserves the blame in this, it’s me. I’m the one who brought her to the Academy.”
“And Anna’s the one who wanted her here, and her mother’s the one who left the prophecies that no one else could translate, and we could go all the way back to the dawn of time looking for someone to blame, but what’s the point?”
I offer a smile. “I believe you just made it.”
His stern face cracks into a small grin, and he finally releases the breath I’m fairly certain he’s been holding since we found her hours ago.
He kisses her hand once more, then gets to his feet. “I’ll give the guys the update.”
“Everyone still here?”
“We’re not leaving until we know she’s in the clear.”
“Good.”
Alone with her again, I pace her bedroom, trying to focus on something other than my worry for her. The Tarot Aces hang above her bed, the Academy-issued furniture and window treatments decorating the space, and I wonder if she’ll ever feel at home here. The room is full of her scent, like honeysuckles after a gentle rain, but other than some lotions and perfumes she must’ve purchased at the Promenade and a few photographs and other items Anna left for her, the space is strangely impersonal.
The thought opens a hole in my chest. I wish it could’ve been different for her. For all of us.
But that’s not our lot, in this life or the next.
“What… what happened?” a small voice emanates from the bed, and I’m back at her side in an instant, taking her hand in mine.
“Stevie?”
Her eyes open slowly, and she lifts a hand to my face. Exhaustion weighs heavy in her movements, but her fever has broken, and her gaze is clear once again.
“You completely mortified me in front of the whole class yesterday,” she says, her words still slurred.
I hold back a laugh. I should’ve guessed she’d choose her first lucid moments to give me hell.
But then she pats my cheek and smiles, and my heart melts. “I thought we were friends, Doc.”
“You know you’re not supposed to call me that,” I say gently, damn near mesmerized by the candlelight glittering in her eyes. Here in the privacy of her bedroom, in the intimacy of the moment, I allow myself to break my own rules and press a kiss to her palm, just like Baz did.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
“Like someone who got bit by a fucking rattlesnake.”
I let out a soft chuckle. “At least you’re coherent enough to remember what happened.”
“Did they have to amputate?” She tugs the blanket aside to inspect her leg. Other than the last bit of swelling, it’s almost impossible to tell she
was bitten.
“You seem to be healing quite well on your own,” I say.
“I remember a sharp pain, and a few minutes later, I got really queasy. My lips were tingling… I guess I blacked out. There was a… I saw… the Princess of Swords visited me, and…” She closes her eyes, her brow furrowing.
I brush my knuckles across her soft cheek. “You told me about the vision, Stevie. No need to relive it now.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out. Right now, let’s just focus on getting your strength back.”
“I left the gear,” she confesses. “It was really good gear, too.”
“Not to worry. Baz retrieved everything, including your pack and phone.”
“You found me,” she whispers. “How? How long was I out there?”
“Long enough.” I press my lips together, suppressing a shudder. To think what would’ve happened if things had gone a different way…
“I couldn’t reach my phone,” she says. “Rookie mistake.”
“You didn’t need your phone.” I look to the window, the moonlight illuminating the Forest of Iron and Bone beyond. We’d all hoped to introduce her more slowly to the full scope of our world, to have time to properly train her.
But that was before we knew the extent of her powers.
Knew what she was.
“The owl appeared in my office while I was preparing tomorrow’s lesson,” I say. “You can imagine my surprise when he landed on my desk.”
“My owl?”
“He led us to you, and without a moment to spare. When Kirin and I found you, you were unconscious on the ground beside the boulder, your leg badly swollen. You’d cut your head, too—probably in the fall.”
She touches her fingers to her forehead, the once deep gash no more than a faint pink line.
“I wish I could call him up at will,” she says. “I’d like to thank him for his most excellent timing. Although, maybe next time he could show up before the rattlesnake. Don’t owls eat those things?”
“Eventually, you’ll be able to communicate with him.”
“How?”
“The snowy owl is your familiar, Stevie. An animal soul connected to yours, bound to travel together for eternity. He has always been with you, but most witches don’t connect with their familiars until they’re much farther along on their magickal path.”
“My familiar,” she says, her voice reverent. “Do you have one?”
“Sadly, no. Mages can adopt animal companions much in the same way that humans do. But we don’t bond with familiars—that honor belongs solely to witches.”
She closes her eyes, processing this. I can only hope she’s too tired for more questions.
There’s so much more she has to learn. So much I wish I could tell her, but to do so now would overwhelm her. The Brotherhood is walking a thin line as it is, all of us growing far more attached to her than any of us could’ve predicted.
Which only lends credence to our theory. Well, I’m certain it’s not a theory now. Not after the visions she’s shared.
“I need to ask you something, Doc,” she says, all traces of reverence gone. When she meets my eyes again, I see only determination.
I swallow through the tightness in my throat. “What is it?”
“I need you to be straight with me.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Yesterday in class, you said something about a lake and standing stones.”
“It was your dreamcast.”
“It’s not a dream,” she says. “It’s the Star. Trump Seventeen. What does it mean?”
“It means you’re connected to its energy,” I say, which is the truth, though not all of it.
“I thought my affinities were with the Princesses of the Tarot?”
“They are. This is… different. Not an affinity, but…” I let out a breath, searching for the words to explain this, wondering if now is the right time. If I should call the others in. If we’re all making a grievous mistake. But before I can utter another word, her eyes turn glassy, her features twisting into a deformed sneer that looks so out of place on her beautiful face, it’s like she’s wearing an ugly mask.
“Why do you have the dark book?” she asks, her voice high and childlike, her sneer turning into manic laughter. “It’s a very, very, very bad book, and you are a very, very, very bad mage, Cassius Harding Devane.”
She giggles, and a chill slithers down my spine.
This isn’t Stevie. It’s something else—some dark force twisting her face, her voice, her words.
“Which dark book do you mean, Stevie?” I ask, playing along. Whatever this thing that’s taken hold, I don’t want to alert it just yet.
“Book of Shadow and Mists,” she says triumphantly, as if she’s proud to be in on the secret. “It’s a very bad book, and you have it. I saw it, when you wrote on it with your blood.”
How could she have seen that?
“Legend,” I say automatically. “Just a legend.”
“What does the legend say? Will you tell me the story? Please?” Now she pouts, her eyes big, making her look about ten years old.
My mouth has gone so dry, I have to take a drink of her water before I can continue.
“I don’t know, Stevie. It’s an old tale, a long one, and you really need to rest now. Perhaps I will tell you another time.”
“Myths and legends come to pass,” she says, her voice taking on the lilting, sing-song quality of a child taunting a rival. “When all are dead and first comes last. He wants his book, Cassius Harding Devane. He really really really wants it.”
She laughs, a nervous giggle quickly boiling over into hysterics.
My heart bangs a tympani drumbeat against my chest, and I school my features, praying she—it—doesn’t see right through me. “Who wants it?”
For a minute she says nothing, her eyes rolling back, her head lolling against her pillow. I try to convince myself it’s the delirium of the venom, still working its way through her bloodstream. That she’s hallucinating, repurposing images and stories from her library books.
But then she shoots bolt upright and grips my arms so tightly I’m sure her nails draw blood. A low rumble vibrates in her chest, quickly turning into a growl.
“The Dark Magician is rising,” she says, the voice no longer high and child-like, but deep and raspy, older, darker. Ancient. Terrifying.
And it’s not simply recounting her visions or mixing up old legends.
It’s warning us.
“Tell the Arcana the son of the Fool has come to reclaim his birthright. And this time, he’s bringing an army. None will survive.”
Thirty-Seven
ANSEL
“Once again,” Kirin says to Baz, “we’re running damage control on account of your complete inability to keep your dick in your pants.”
“Shut it, asshole.”
“Oh, I would love nothing more than to shut the book on this topic. To be fair, your dick has been the subject of more conversations than I care to count.”
“Guys, please,” I say. “Keep your voices down.”
We’re all standing around Stevie’s place, Kirin pacing, Baz leaning against the kitchen island, me shuffling the novelty cards on the table, none of us knowing what else to do. Stevie’s hurt and I’m going out of my mind with worry. The only thing I do know right now is that arguing isn’t going to help.
“Stevie would kick your asses if she caught you acting like dickheads in her living room,” I say. “And don’t think she can’t. Have you seen those biceps?”
Kirin glares at Baz. “You know how I feel about her.”
Baz lets out a bitter laugh. “Does she?”
“Irrelevant.”
“Oh, I’d say it’s totally relevant. Maybe you’re not the only one who feels a connection.”
“You hardly know the woman,” Kirin says.
“And you do?”
They’ve been bicke
ring like this all night, neither of them willing to address the big fat magickal elephant in the room—the fact that Stevie is connected to all of us, and we’re connected to her. No, not necessarily in a romantic way, but still. Kirin could no more talk Baz out of his feelings—whatever they may be—than I could pretend I haven’t felt the tug of that bond, too.
Not that I need to bring that up right now. There’s enough dick-measuring going on in here as it is.
But at some point? We’re going to have to deal with this.
“Hug it out,” I say. “You know you want to.”
Kirin snorts, but Baz is already smiling. Despite his macho bullshit, he doesn’t like fighting any more than I do.
He stalks over to Kirin, puts him in a headlock until Kirin has no choice but to relent.
“Fuck off, Redgrave,” Kirin grumbles, but I catch the relieved smile on his face.
The two are still screwing around when Cass finally emerges from the back bedroom, his face as pale as the moon.
All of us snap to attention.
“Is she okay?” I ask.
“She’s better. Fever broke, and she was awake for a bit. She remembers everything that happened. That’s the good news.” Cass settles in on the couch, and we take seats around him, the air heavy and ominous with the question no one seems to want to ask.
Finally, I break the silence. “What’s the bad news?”
“The rattlesnake wasn’t just a random accident. It was an omen. A warning.”
He tells us about Stevie’s visions, the gruesome battle, details so horrifying she couldn’t have possibly invented them.
“For whatever reason, she’s been given a glimpse of what’s to come,” Cass says. “She’s… she’s seen it.”
And though his foreboding tone leaves little doubt as to what he means—as to what any of this means—Kirin asks anyway.
“Seen what, exactly?”
“The rise of the Dark Arcana.” Cass pales, his eyes aging a hundred years in a single heartbeat. “She’s seen our end.”