Anna nodded, her mind wandering to the lines she had scored into the floor of her Tower, illustrating sixteen years of isolated existence.
“My memories from the past, the short past I have, are fading.” Topper clenched his fists and slid down the wall of the arch, sitting in the hard-packed sand. “I believe that all of our memories are fading, but I’m the only one trying to hold on to them.”
“You’re a historian.” Anna knelt beside him at the cave’s entrance.
“Yes, but even the idea of history or culture—it’s nonexistent here. I had to learn about those concepts in Pentacles.”
Anna wiped a hand across her face. “This reminds me of one of those drawings where the artist has placed a hidden image within the scene, but the closer you look, the harder it is to find.” She leaned her head against the wall. “It almost makes my brain hurt.”
Topper smiled at her. “When I was traveling, I heard about something called the Akashic Records from an old man who owned an inn where I stayed.”
Anna sat down and leaned her back against the wall next to Topper, tucking her knees under her dress.
“It’s a library that contains every event, thought, and emotion that has ever occurred, is occurring now, and will occur in the future,” Topper elaborated.
Anna’s mouth dropped open. “How can that possibly exist?” As she uttered the words, she thought of the Magician, of her own father possibly hiding as the Moon, and her disbelief waned. “Is it supposed to be a place? A structure?”
Topper shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know. No one I’ve met so far does, but it is my life’s purpose to find out.”
“So you’ll leave Cups again?” Anna stood back up and paced the length of the cave. Topper rose from the sand and met her in the middle of the small space. She stopped and they stood face-to-face.
“I will. I won’t find anything new here.” He peered down at Anna.
“Does it bother you?” Anna met Topper’s blue-green eyes. “That you’re the only one with these questions? With this quest? Isn’t it lonely?” She wanted to reach out and touch him again, grab his hands, run her fingers up his arms, but the thought of James stopped her.
“That’s a lot of questions,” he whispered.
Anna was willing herself to back away from Topper when suddenly the ground shook so violently, she was thrown against one of the shelves. Topper ran to Anna and threw his arms around her, huddling against the wall until the quaking stopped.
When, after several minutes, an eerie stillness fell over the cave, Topper unwound his arms and took Anna by the shoulders.
“Are you all right?”
Anna nodded, rubbing her arm where she had collided with the stone.
“Daniel told me you experienced an earthquake last moon cycle. Did it feel like this?” He asked, breathless.
Anna looked up at him, her eyes wild with fear. She motioned for Topper to follow her as she crawled toward the mouth of the cave, bracing herself for the next rumble, but it didn’t come.
“We should get back,” Topper said, “and see if the others are okay.”
They clambered up from the ground and ran down the path back to the beach. Anna dashed in front of Topper and, stopping near the water, tried to inconspicuously feel around the air for a wall or a sticky sensation—anything that might signal that the entrance to the Hierophant’s Kingdom was still there. Nothing.
When Topper reached her, he turned his head to one side, just watching her. Anna spun around and winced sheepishly. He was looking for a library of souls for stars’ sake, Anna reminded herself. He was probably not one to pass judgment easily. She blew out a big breath and set her shoulders.
“Okay, let’s go.”
The wind started to pick up as they made their way back to the festival, and they had to shield their faces against the swirling sand to spot the group in the distance. When Anna and Topper reached the site, they saw that people were running panicked from the flapping canvas tents.
“Inside, everyone! Now!” Daniel yelled. He and James were corralling the swarm of confused people into the villa. The wind was so strong, it was starting to lift the stakes from the ground one by one. Anna watched as the huge recovery tent flew into the air and out over the beach, the brightly colored cushions tumbling down the shore behind it. She clapped her hands over her ears to block out the buzzing sound that had descended upon the beach, and fought through the wind to get to safety.
Through the crowd of fleeing people, Anna saw Lara limping up the beach. She sprinted over to her.
“I think my ankle is twisted!” Lara had to scream above the horrendous noise. Anna put her shoulder beneath Lara’s and helped her reach the villa’s staircase. She handed her off to a girl with short dark hair who was ushering people through the door.
There were partygoers from the night before frozen in the garden. Anna could see them from where she stood. A small group of them, looking dazed and scared as dirt and wind pummeled them from all sides.
She ran toward them, the dark-haired girl screaming after her not to go.
In the distance Anna could hear the animals of West Farm screaming in their various tongues, creating an ominous cacophony of sound. She had to duck to avoid being hit with flying shovels and rakes as she neared the garden.
“It’s not stopping!” Suddenly James was at her side, shouting. They were thrown toward each other as the earth quaked violently beneath them. James linked arms with Anna, and they careened toward the group of people huddled in fear at the edge of the garden. Just before they got to them, the garden’s earth began to rise up at their feet.
“Run!” Anna and James shouted at them. The group broke apart and bolted toward Anna and James seconds before the earth split in a thin, jagged line.
A deafening rumble muted the sounds of stragglers screaming on the beach. She saw the terror on their faces as they ran in the direction of the sea.
“Anna, this way!” James shouted, trying to reach for her hand. Anna lifted her arm but stopped abruptly as something caught her eye. Instead of more earth in the ever-widening crack, she saw what looked like sky. She inched closer and dropped to her knees, crawling forward to get a closer look.
“Help them, James! I’ll be right there!” she screamed over her shoulder.
He shook his head violently. “No, Anna! It’s too dangerous!”
Anna held up her hand. “Listen, it’s stopping.” The ground had ceased its shaking, but the wide crack down the garden’s center remained. “Go. I promise, I’ll follow you.”
Torn, James looked from her to the panicked people of Cups and back again.
“Right away, Anna.”
James ran off, looking distraught, while Anna crawled closer to the rupture, painfully aware that the quake could start up again at any second.
She peered over the side and gasped. It was small, almost minuscule from this vantage point, but she’d recognize it anywhere. Anna looked down onto the stone towers and turrets of the world she’d fled, the world of the Hierophant’s Kingdom.
It was midnight when Drake rode out of the castle gates and into the woods under cover of darkness to meet the Magician and the Hermit. He arrived at a small deserted clearing surrounded by oak, hazel, and birch trees. He dismounted and took a lantern from the satchel tied to his saddle. As he was about to light it, he felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped in surprise.
“It’s only us,” whispered the Hermit. He held up his lantern and saw that Drake’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy.
“Did you bring them?” The Magician emerged from the darkness. Drake tilted his head toward his horse. The three of them walked over and untied the heavy tapestries. “Thank you, Drake. You are a good friend to the Fool and you’ve done well.”
“You will get him out?” Drake’s voice caught as he spoke.
�
�We’re doing our damnedest,” said the Magician. “You should go. We’ve put you in enough danger.” Drake looked as if he wanted to say something, but he decided against it and mounted his horse.
“Be careful,” the Hermit said under his breath as he watched Drake ride back into the blackness of the forest, leaving him and the Magician alone in the small clearing.
“What do we do?” asked the Hermit.
“I’ve been thinking this through. Anna was being chased,” the Magician explained. “She was scared and alone.”
“I’ve always taught her to breathe through her fear,” the Hermit stated. “Maybe she stopped to collect herself for a moment and the bridge appeared?” He shook his head as if chasing the thought away. “No, that wouldn’t explain it. . . .” They hemmed over the tapestries at their feet.
“Let’s lay them out,” the Magician suggested.
Together the two began to roll out what was left of Anna’s tapestries. They were tattered and mostly just depictions of landscapes now, with people dotting them here and there, missing the areas where Anna had sliced through them.
When they had covered a good portion of the forest floor, the Magician grabbed the lantern and examined them carefully.
“Where do we begin?” the Hermit said, feeling overwhelmed by the four vast lands before them.
The Magician took her wand from her robe, the quick movement causing the Hermit to gasp.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“I switched it out with a decoy when that beast Barda wasn’t looking,” the Magician said proudly. “I’ve been taking things here and there each session. A little at a time, so he won’t notice.”
The Hermit smiled at her. “Clever. But I thought you didn’t need it anymore.”
The Magician crouched over the tapestries. “I don’t need it, but it certainly helps things along,” she mumbled under her breath.
The Hermit followed the Magician as she knelt in front of the Pentacles tapestry. The Magician took a small vial filled with iridescent powder and uncorked it. She placed a little on her hand and blew it out onto the tapestry, muttering a long incantation.
Epanfatheo, genimaintos, therapinatos . . .
The landscape in front of them was patchy, but the pieces began to mend under the Magician’s spell.
The Hermit nearly put his hand on the Magician’s shoulder but then thought better of it. “It’s like you’re healing them. Restoring them to their original forms.” He knelt down next to her to watch.
But it was more than that. The figures that had been cut from the tapestries were coming alive beneath the watchful eyes of the Magician and the Hermit. The King was back on his throne, but now the peach thread in his face morphed into flesh, and he walked from his seat, taking the Queen’s hand. Soft music echoed around the court, and the figures within the tapestry began to dance. The sound of waves crashing and a brackish smell wafted up from the sea at the tapestry’s base.
“I don’t believe it,” breathed the Hermit.
The Magician moved to the Wands tapestry next. Warm sands kicked up at the Hermit’s feet as he peered into the desert land. The mountains looked like flowing chocolate beneath the light of a moon sliced into a sharp crescent from Anna’s scissors.
“Look for Anna.” The Magician scrutinized the miniature worlds before them. “Do you see her?”
The Hermit squinted and walked around the tapestry. “I don’t.”
“Neither do I,” the Magician huffed.
The Magician performed the same spell on the city of Swords. It was hard not to forget their purpose as the Hermit watched people rush to and fro among the strange silver buildings towering over the land.
“I’ve found her,” the Magician yelped. “Over here.”
He tore his eyes away from Swords and joined the Magician in front of Anna’s land of youth—her last tapestry, unfinished and not yet named. The Hermit gasped and put his hand over his mouth. There was Anna, walking along a white stretch of beach with a tall blond boy.
“How do we get there?” The Hermit leaned forward to touch the tapestry before the Magician could stop him. The moment his fingers touched the threads, a great force sent him stumbling backward. The tapestries went dark and lifeless. The figures froze, the tide of the sea stopped flowing, and everything went completely still.
The Hermit got to his feet slowly, dazed from the impact. “What was that?”
“We can’t use the tapestries to get to her. They’re protected, and I believe it’s Anna’s magic that’s doing it. Whether she knows it or not,” the Magician added. Out of habit, she reached for the chain around her neck to study her infinity charm, but when she found only bare skin, she remembered that she had given it to Anna. “But I think I might know another way in.”
Before Anna could react to what she’d seen, the fissure in the land slammed shut with immense force. She scrambled away, afraid of being sucked back into the kingdom she had run from.
“Anna!” Daniel dashed toward her, screaming her name. She got to her feet, wiping dirt from her legs.
“I’m okay,” she reassured him. Her body trembled with shock.
“Why didn’t you flee with the others?” Daniel asked, putting an arm around her shoulders and leading her back toward the villa.
Anna felt a dark pit in her stomach. She wondered briefly if she should offer him the truth. He might think she was being absurd, but she was more afraid of what might happen if Daniel believed her. She had history with the people of Cups now; unfortunately, not all of it was built on the truth. Which was the very reason why she couldn’t tell him what she’d seen. Anna had placed them in grave danger by associating herself with them, but she also couldn’t bear the thought of losing the friends she’d made.
No, she had to discover exactly what was happening and exactly how to fix it. She would figure out how to protect the people of Cups from the Hierophant King. To tell them the truth now would only scare them.
“I was trying to see what was happening,” she finally answered quietly.
“That was incredibly dangerous and foolish,” Daniel said.
Anna shrank back, feeling cowardly for not being honest with him.
Daniel sighed and dropped his arm from her shoulders. “I think the villa is the safest place for us now. We can all gather there and try to work out what’s going on,” Daniel said comfortingly. “Something is terribly wrong.” He took Anna’s elbow and steered her toward home.
Daniel halted just before they reached the door. “I have this feeling, this heavy feeling in my gut, that you are hiding something from me. From all of us.” He looked deep into Anna’s eyes. “Do you know something about what’s happened here today?” He clenched his jaw, waiting for her to respond.
Anna stopped breathing for a moment. She longed to tell him the truth, just unburden herself, but instead she crossed her arms and waited for Daniel to speak again.
“If you say it now, Anna, we can help each other. If there is something I need to know as the leader of my people, you have to tell me.”
She pulled her arms closer to her body. “There’s nothing, Daniel.” Anna hated herself as she said it.
“What were you looking for in the split in the ground?” Daniel wasn’t giving up. “I saw you leaning into it. Why would you put yourself in danger like that?”
Anna felt trapped. “I thought if I could examine the crack, I might find something out about what has been happening lately.”
Daniel pressed his lips together.
“That I would see a clue of some sort,” Anna continued. “There was the disturbance at sea, then in the jungle, and now this. I’m scared, Daniel.”
With Daniel’s silence, and the stiff set of his jaw and shoulders as they walked, she decided her best bet was to stop talking.
“We’re all a little trauma
tized.” He slumped and then reached for the front door. “I’m just trying to work it out myself.”
When they entered the villa, Anna was not prepared for the scene before her. The people of Cups were clustered in groups in the main room, crying and holding one another, the girls’ faces still cracked with last night’s makeup. Lara and James were flitting from group to group, trying to calm them. The doors and windows had been shuttered, and the normally cheerful room was dark and stuffy.
Terra and James spotted Anna at the same time and flew toward her, wrapping her in a tight embrace. How could she have caused these people, these people who she loved, this sort of pain and fear? She saw Topper watching her from the corner of the room where he was talking to Luke and a curvy girl with dark red hair. He tilted his chin at her and then returned to his conversation.
“What can I do?” Anna asked James. “I could make tea for everyone.”
“Henry is in the kitchen.” James gestured to the room off the main common space. “I’m sure he’d appreciate the help.”
Anna took a step toward the kitchen, but James grabbed her hand. She spun to face him, and he brought her in close. She felt safe, pressed against his warm chest, his arms tight around her.
“I was so worried about you,” he whispered in her ear.
She lifted her face to his and they pressed their foreheads together briefly before she headed off to the kitchen.
She found Henry inside, placing a huge tray into the oven. His movements were slow and drawn out.
“Oh, hello, Anna.” He wiped his brow with a rag and leaned against the oven, pointing her to a large ceramic bowl filled with a thick dark-orange batter.
“What is this?” she asked, picking up a long wooden spoon and beginning to stir.
“I’m making sweet potato bread. It’s all I can think to do right now.” Henry turned around and leaned his elbows on the counter. “I hope it will comfort people.”
“I’m sure it will.” Anna stirred while she watched Henry prepare ingredients next to her. He grated sweet potatoes and zucchini until they formed a towering pile, cracked eggs into a bowl and added sugar to them, whipping the mixture into a cream.
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