Foresyth Conservatory

Ninth House meets Mexican Gothic in a dark academia mystery where the cards are stacked against reason—and the price of knowledge is blood.

Dahlia Blackburne is a failing bookstore owner and fake Tarot reader who relies on deduction—not magic—to cast her fortunes. So when a stranger calling himself the Meister offers triple her rate for a reading after closing, she can’t afford to say no.

But the Meister has a far more dangerous proposition: infiltrate Foresyth Conservatory, an elite occult arts graduate school, and investigate the alleged suicide of brilliant but troubled student and puzzle maker, Julian Earhardt.

Desperate to care for her ailing mother after her father’s recent passing, Dahlia agrees to investigate Julian’s death. Inside Foresyth’s candlelit halls and ivy-choked towers, Dahlia finds the school’s ruthless academic Circlewhich include the alluring “Trees” Sequoia and Aspen who strive to create magickal art that threatens to transcend life itself. What Dahlia doesn’t know is that the other students are there to pay off their own form of debts, and her father’s history is more intertwined with the seductive currents of Foresyth than Dahlia could have imagined.

As the line between performance and passion blurs, Dahlia must confront the truth about Julian, the Conservatory, and the most dangerous form of magic—the kind that isn’t taught but inherited.

The cards at Foresyth have already been dealt.
Now, all Dahlia has to do is play her hand . . . or be consumed by the game.