My heart warms at the mention of my mother, and I remember something Doc said the first time I met Lala.
“Doc once told me you were a friend to my parents,” I say. “That you stood by them when things went south at the Academy.”
Her smile turns sad, her eyes misting with tears. “It was a difficult time for all of us. Your mother… It was so very hard for her to communicate all that she’d learned through her divinations. She knew her days were numbered at the Academy, just as she knew you would ultimately find your way here, no matter how much she and her father tried to protect you from it.”
“But that’s the funny part, isn’t it? In the end, the Academy wasn’t even something I needed protection from. I’mgladI enrolled. For the first time in my life, I feel like I belong.” I glance back toward the front door, the murmurs of happy conversation and laughter drifting on the air. “I’m accepted here.”
Lala reaches up and touches my cheek. “You were always accepted. Loved. You belonged to a family that would die to protect you.”
“I know that,” I say softly. “And I loved my parents more than anything. But as much as they protected me, they also stifled me. They kept me from my magick—the one thing I needed to learn most of all. They tried to convince me magick was a curse.”
“Not your magick, Starla. Not the Academy or the brotherhood.” She lowers her head, a single tear splashing into the dirt at her feet. “Your mother was trying to save your life, though she’d seen your death a thousand times over. She hoped that by altering your course, she might also alter its final outcome. Alas, that was not to be.”
Her earlier words come back to haunt me, hanging in the air between us like something rotten.
Thus her ache shall find no ease, so shall the daughter of The World surrender to the emptiness, to the void within and without. By her own hand, of her own volition, The Star shall fall. Henceforth she shall take her eternal breath in utter darkness…
I open my mouth to defend against this prophecy, to deny it once again, but what’s the point? We’ve already been down this road many times.
“It would bring her peace to know that you have your brothers now,” she says. “That the Light Arcana bond remains strong, despite the rise of the Dark One.”
At the mention of public enemy number one, her jaw tightens, her fists clenching at her side. But in her eyes, I find something else—regret.
The kind of harrowing, lifelong regret that can only come from deep personal experience.
“You knew him,” I gasp, the realization hitting me hard. “You knew the Dark Magician.”
It feels like an eternity before she answers, and when she speaks again, her anger has softened into something more like resignation. “In a former iteration, yes. He was… Well,hewas actually ashethen. And she was my beloved, Starla. Not in this body or time, but in another, many centuries ago.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, which has become a common refrain when it comes to Lala’s cryptic confessions.
“For the Magician and the High Priestess,” she continues, “One and Two of the Major Arcana, this bond has always been so. In one lifetime he was my brother; in another, a cherished student. In our last lifetime together, he was a she—my wife. She was a powerful Light Arcana, but she died of natural causes. When she was reborn, it was again as a man, and though I could sense the event of his incarnation, his soul remained hidden from me.”
“Hidden from you? But how were you able to connect with him… I mean her… Um,them… all these lifetimes?”
“The Magician and I are forever bound, much as you are now bound to your brothers.” At this, she frowns, her eyes filling with fresh tears. “And while part of the woman I once loved still remains, it is a very small part now—one the Magician’s dark soul no longer even recognizes in itself.”
“Wait. So you two are still in touch?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. We are still connected. We do not communicate the way you and I are communicating now, but a bond such as ours does not sever completely. You are only just beginning to experience such a bond, but in time, you will rediscover the lost memories of your previous lifetimes, and you will understand. You will know just how deep your connection to your Arcana brothers runs, like roots running to the very core of the earth.”
An image of the guys comes to mind again, and my heart races. Is that the kind of connection we share? When one of us dies, will the rest of us feel when that person is reborn? Will our connection change too, like it did for the High Priestess and her Magician? Lovers one lifetime, siblings the next, parents and children another, neighbors, colleagues… It’s almost impossible to imagine.
“The Magician has turned inward,” she says, “consumed by a thirst for power and revenge. He will not rise from this darkness. He is bent on your destruction especially, Starla, and he will not rest unless he succeeds. Until your mother’s prophecy about your death is fulfilled.”
“But why me? I mean, I understand he’s got a hard-on for magick and world domination, but why is he targeting me specifically? Don’t we all pose a threat to his master plan?”
“You are the Star. He knows that despite your lack of experience, you represent his greatest threat.” A smile touches her lips. “Hope.”
“I don’t feel very hopeful at the moment.” Thoughts of Baz swim through my mind, my fear of losing him to his inner darkness closer than ever, despite his earlier apologies.
Tucking a curl behind my ear, Lala offers me another kind smile. She knows exactly what I’m thinking about.
“Baz will find his way back to you, child,” she says. “As will all your brothers, any time one is lost. As long as your light shines bright, they will always know the way home. Even in death.”
A shiver runs down my spine, but I can’t think about that now. My death, their deaths… no. There’s no room for that in my head. Not tonight.
“I just wish I knew what to do for him,” I say. “He’s so lost.I’mso lost. I feel useless, Lala.”
