It’s a good idea. I need something to steady myself anyway, otherwise I feel liable to float right off this mountain. So I begin to read Perilli’s letter aloud, my voice humming in my chest.

“To you who have found my Queen of Swords, you who I hope is also the carrier of my final Perillian deck. Maybe this letter will mean something to you, maybe it will not. But my intuition tells me it will. It tells me you climbed this mountain for the same reasons you likely braved the fires and swam the oceans and trekked the forests: to earn what you learn. Here on this peak, breathing this rarified air, you have earned the right to learn the story of the Queen of Swords, the truest muse of The Perillian Tarot.

“Once upon a time, a young knight fell in love with a young page. They spent years Coupled, The Moon and The Sun, learning much from each other’s differences. It was the first flush for them both, the first bloom of Lovers burning so brightly, their light felt potentially endless. Alas, night befalls all and circumstance pulled the two Star-crossed Lovers apart. However, long after our Tower burned, long after I quite happily married another wonderful woman, long after the birth and maturation of my three children, I still never stopped thinking of that first love: Florence Piccolo.”

Speaking Grandma’s name forms a lump in my throat. Still, I carry on.

“To my younger self, Flo had been a Magician. She was made of magic, the one who introduced me to the universe of the tarot, who brought me my first deck. But Flo taught me about so much more than the images on the cards—she taught me about the soul of the tarot, about its heart and its history, about the symbols that could open your awareness to your most authentic self. My twenties were lit on fire by this flowing queen and by the tarot itself.

“But as I have already written, flames burn out. I hate to say that my life then settled into the ashes of practicality; the beautiful, fulfilling, exhausting work of building a family. It was only after many years, once my children had grown to leave the nest and I lost my wife before her time—it was only during this time of loss and absence that the tarot called to fill the void. As you likely well know, the last years of my life were devoted to the art of the tarot and sharing this gift I had been given.

“But what of Flo, the first Star in my tarot constellation? We hadn’t spoken in a lifetime, but I learned she married another man. She had a child, and then that child also had a child. I never entered Flo’s world again, for I was no longer invited. But I always hoped Flo kept the tarot in her heart, that she passed her own gift of wisdom and insight on to those she loved.