“Then they’ve got a lot in common with Ann Trello.” Kirin laughs and removes his glasses, hanging them from his shirt collar and finally giving me a clear view of his eyes. “Anyway, even though it’s our sacred duty to protect magick, to stay in the light, sometimes protecting magick means tapping into our darker aspects. But tapping into darkness carries its own consequences.”
I blow out a breath. “It’s never a straight shot, is it?”
“Not for the Keepers of the Grave, no.”
“So what doesmydark side look like? Do I go supernova or something, blow up the whole world in a blaze of epic glory?”
Kirin laughs at the image, but he’s shaking his head. “I’ve told you we all have light and dark aspects. Across the entire Arcana spectrum, that’s mostly true.”
“Wait… Mostly?”
“There is one exception. Only one.” Kirin reaches up and cups my chin, his smile vanishing, his eyes shining with wonder. “The Star is pure goodness, pure love, pure light. You represent hope and healing, wholeness, compassion, forgiveness, inspiration. The fact that you’re spirit-blessed, in tune with all magickal elements, only amplifies your inherent gifts. That night when you signed the Book of Reckoning—when I said you’re the center holding us all together? This is what I meant, Stevie. You make us whole. You give us hope. And when things are at their bleakest—at their darkest—it’s your light we’ll follow home.”
He holds my gaze for an eternity, his eyes shining with emotion, his energy awash with love. Not just romantic love, but something so much more intense—a pure, bright love that transcends all human emotion.
“Kirin,” I whisper, my own eyes misting again, but then he lowers his gaze and drops his hand, my skin cooling in the absence of his touch.
“Which brings me back to your original question.” He gets to his feet and leans back against the rock spire, his eyes falling closed, a tear leaking down his cheek. “Just as the Star dwells in the realm of light, the Tower lives in darkness. Destruction, chaos, despair—that’s my Arcana energy. And if I get too close to you, I’ll steal your light away. I’ll destroy you, Stevie. No matter how I feel about you, no matter how much it kills me not to touch you again, not to kiss you… If I dimmed your light even a fraction, I couldn’t live with myself. I won’t take that risk. I can’t.”
His energy pulses with shame and fear, the darkness swallowing up the light of the pure love I felt just moments ago.
“Kirin.” I get to my feet and stand before him, grabbing his hands. “Look at me. Please.”
Reluctantly, he does as I ask, his gaze tormented. Haunted.
“I’m not perfect,” I say. “I’ve got just as many flaws and foibles as anyone else. Maybe more. I can make you a list of at least ten recent grade-A fuckups, if you’d like.”
“You’re talking about yourhumanflaws. Of course you have those. But your Arcana magick is… It’sbeyondperfect. There isn’t even a word for it.”
“If my magick is so damn special, what makes you think your Tower energy would destroy it?”
“It’s not the Tower energy itself, but the manifestation of that energy. The wayImanifest that energy.” He releases my hands and crouches down to grab a fist-sized rock. “I feel things intensely, Stevie.Anyemotion can be blinding for me—love, hate, anger, rage, desire, all of it blurs together, building up inside me until I just…” He squeezes the rock, and in an instant, it pulverizes.
I gasp. “But… how did you—”
“I thought back to the night at the library. The night I kissed you. The memory brought back the emotions I felt that night—just a fraction of them. And this is the result.”
He holds his palm up, and I pinch the red dust between my fingers, remember that night, Kirin kissing me, dropping to his knees before me, teasing and tasting me until I exploded with pleasure. And then, at the exact moment of ecstasy, a flash of lightning exploded in my mind. The ground trembled, right along with my body. Books dove from the shelves, glass shattered, and a raging fire consumed everything in its path…
“But it was just a vision, Kirin.Myvision. None of that stuff actually happened. Even the books that fell off the shelves… That was just my regular ol’ human expression of big-O excitement.”
I crack a smile, but Kirin isn’t convinced.
“What you sawwasa vision,” he says, “but not how you think. It wasn’t imagined. It was a glimpse into the future—the very near future. An actual peek at whatwould’vehappened had I not immediately suppressed my energy. And that was just the emotional resonance of me givingyoupleasure. Imagine if I’d let you do the same for me?”
I take a step back, trying to process this. “So you’re saying you can’t… You’ve never had sex before?”
“No, it’s not…It’s just…” He shoves a hand through his hair. “I’m not explaining this right. It’s not the physical sensations that send me over the edge. It’s theemotionbehind them. What I feel for you… It was magnified in that moment—magnified by a thousand, because that’s how emotion works for me. The more intense the emotion normally, the more intense the effect magickally. And for me, that can literally spell disaster.”
“But the Tower is so much more than just chaos and destruction. It’s about clarity—those shocking moments of insight that make you question everything you’ve ever held true. It’s about knocking down all the old shit so we can heal and rebuild. People are afraid of the card because in most interpretations, it looks scary as hell. But there are so many positives about that energy. Don’t you see that?”
“You’re right.” Kirin slumps back against the rock, shaking his head. “But something about how I carry that energy… It’s different. Yes, the Tower arcana is the one who ushers in those moments of clarity, but the rest of it… It’s me. Just me. Whatever crossed wires or broken shit exists inside me, the end result is that I destroy—”
“Everything you touch?” I ask, throwing his old words back at him, because yes,nowI’m getting pissed. “I don’t buy it, Kirin. Not for a second. You’re not broken. I don’t know what happened to make you believe that, but you’re not.”
“I never should’ve brought you into this. Not… not emotionally.”
“We’re Arcana brothers now. You wouldn’t have been able to keep this secret.”
