Four women, just as before. The Tarot Princesses who blessed me with their protection.
But this time, the gift they’re offering isn’t magick.
It’s my mother.
Her hair is pulled into a high ponytail, dark brown waves with a streak of gray on the left side. She’s wearing a pink T-shirt coated in flour and an apron bearing her favorite saying:There’s no problem a proper cup of tea can’t fix.
She smiles when she sees me, and opens her arms to welcome me into an embrace.
But she doesn’t move from the center of the lake.
“Mom!” I gasp.
“My sweet Starlight.”
Tears fill my eyes, and I try to run to her, to reach out for her, but my feet aren’t cooperating. I look down to find my lower half has turned into a tree, my roots twisting deep into the earth.
“The worst has happened, hasn’t it?” my mother asks, her smile fading. Surrounding her, the Princesses watch in silence.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “What’s happened?”
“You’re there now, aren’t you?” Mom shakes her head, her eyes full of regret. “I knew it would come to pass. I have always known. We never meant to leave you, Starlight. Not like this.”
“I know. You didn’t—it wasn’t your fault.”
“Nor yours.” She smiles again, tears glittering on her cheeks.
I try to reach for her, but my arms turn into limbs, my hands covered with bright green oak leaves that shake and quiver in the breeze.
“Now you find yourself back in the very place we tried so hard to leave behind,” Mom says, and I know she means the Academy. “Well, I suppose there was no outrunning that path, was there? Leaving was our failsafe, the escape hatch for the worst-case scenario.”
“What do you mean?” I cry out, frustration mounting. “What escape hatch? What’s the worst-case scenario? Where’s Dad—is he with you?” I have so many questions, but everything’s getting tangled up in my head, twisting inside like the roots of this tree. The more I talk, the less I understand, my words becoming no more than a soft rustling on the breeze.
“We tried to give you a normal life,” Mom says. “To prevent this. Yet as always, things unfold exactly as they are meant to. You could no more avoid your fate than we could avoid ours.”
She smiles, but it’s full of sorrow, nothing like the smile I hold onto in my memory. Now, it looks more like the smile in her photographs, the one she used to hide the pain inside.
Her gaze shifts to a point beyond me, far away from here, and I can’t turn to follow it.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t prepare you better for this,” she says. “You’re in grave danger at the Academy. Ironically, it’s also the place where you are the safest. I wish I could have told you more, Starla, but I do not see in specifics, and to reveal much more than this would be to place you in even graver danger. Already, we risk everything by meeting here.”
I shake my arms, losing some of my leaves. I want to ask her about the prophecies, about what Anna wants me to translate, but I can’t form the words.
“The dark book,” my mother says suddenly, and I wonder if she heard me, if that’s her answer. Then her face turns shockingly pale, her eyes wide with fear. She tears at her hair, pulling out handfuls, the lake around her starting to roil.
The Princesses step closer, then look to me, as if warning me our time has come to an end.
“What dark book?” I try.
Mom shakes her head, tears streaming down her cheeks, sizzling when they hit the lake.
“Book of darkness,” she says. “Book of shadow. Book of mists…” She’s rambling now, and when she meets my gaze again, her eyes are milky white, her voice a ghostly echo that reverberates through my skull.
Book of shadow, book of mists.
What magick draws, you won’t resist
Death to those who shun its call
