“Do you think he’s warning us about another attack?”
“Not this time. It’s a function of your magick—it calls to him. Especially when you’re working with the air element—owls are associated with knowledge, like the swords, as well as with literal air, like all birds. The more you use your air magick, the more you tune in with it, the stronger your bond with your avian familiar will be.”
I pick up another rock—a larger one this time, about twice as big as the last—and go through the process again. Despite the new heft, this time, the rock lifts almost immediately.
From his perch on the spire, the owl seems impressed. At least, that’s how I’m choosing to interpret his stately demeanor.
“Look at you, showing off,” Kirin teases, giving my shoulder a playful nudge.
“A rock today, a boulder tomorrow.”
“Why not?” Kirin’s smiling at me again, his warm hand firm on my shoulder. “I’m so proud of you, Stevie. You’re picking this up so quickly. It took me a month to do what you’ve just accomplished in five minutes.”
“Really?”
Kirin nods.
“In that case, maybeIshould teach Air Magick 101.”
“Maybe you should.”
He’s still smiling, locking me in his warm gaze, when out of nowhere my big dumb mouth goes, “Why?”
He cocks his head curiously, but his smile is already faltering, even as I shake my head in a desperate search for the undo button.
We both know what I’m asking, and it’s not about teaching Air Magick.
“You want to know why this—us—why it can’t happen,” he says softly. “Why I told you I destroy everything I touch.”
My first thought is to deny it. To drop it. To stop prying and let him off the hook, go back to the part where we’re laughing as we make rocks fly.
But after everything the two of us shared, if Kirin owes me anything, it’s an explanation. So instead, I take a deep breath, steeling myself for the answer, and nod.
Behind him, my owl leaps from his perch, spiraling upward until he’s no more than a dot in the mist… And then he’s gone.
“I need to tell you more about the Arcana,” Kirin says, resigned. “You need to know about our gifts.” When he meets my eyes again, all the proud, playful energy dissipates, replaced with a heaviness that nearly presses the air from my lungs. “And you need to know about our curses.”
Thirty-One
STEVIE
We walk deeper into the lands of Breath and Blade, where the terrain turns rockier and the Towers grow even taller and more magnificent. The mist has thickened, too, cocooning us in our own hazy, eerie world, the rocky spires twisting upward like dark red fingers grasping for the sun.
“Tarot cards—both minors and majors—contain multitudes,” Kirin says. “Light, dark, and every shade in between. Some people see reversed cards as merely the opposite of the upright interpretation, but that’s highly limiting. A reversed Ten of Cups, for example, doesn’t necessarily mean loneliness or family strife—the opposite of joy and fulfillment. Depending on the question and the other cards in the spread, it could just as easily suggest a need to free yourself from a toxic relationship or a time for seeking inner joy rather than connection with others.”
“Or a message that we’re blocking some of that upright energy and need to open up to it.”
“Precisely. Now, consider it in terms of Arcana witches and mages. If the cards themselves contain multitudes, you can imagine what happens when you take those meanings—that incredibly complex magick—and apply it to a person, with all of our human contradictions and frailties and hopes and emotional experiences. Our unique personalities amplifying the magick for better or worse.”
“Everything seems a lot more intense when you put it that way.”
“It is. Take Baz, for starters. As The Devil with an earth magick affinity, he’s very much rooted to the sensory and material realm. His energy is focused heavily on pleasure, on the physical senses of the body—taste and touch especially. The man can cook, too, though he doesn’t let that secret out very often. In its positive aspects, The Devil energy brings with it a wealth of sensual pleasures and a deep appreciation for life in its human form—for our experience in these bodies, exploring everything our martial realm has to offer. But the darker aspects of his energy can sometimes lead to obsessions, to prioritizing earthly pleasures and experiences at the expense of all else—the emotional bonds associated with water, the pursuit of knowledge associated with air, and the creative and spiritual energy of fire.”
“But what would make him give in to the dark side, so to speak?”
“It’s not so much giving in as it is a constant balancing act. The potential for darkness is always within him, but the outcome is always going to be influenced by his personality, his choices and actions, his relationships, his magickal practice. Even something as simple as whether he gets enough sleep the night before—all of that can influence the manifestation of his Devil magick.”
Talking about pleasure and sleep and Baz sends a flood of heat through my body, and I look away, losing myself in the mist swirling before us.
