Chapter 3 Bargain
BARGAIN
Students may not engage in unsupervised theurgic communication until their second year, when they are strong enough to guard their souls from malevolent beings who answer prayers with curses instead of blessings.
At night, Claudia crawls out of her bedroom window and lies on the roof of her home, a bottle of wine as her company.
She’s not one to drink often, but the eve of her wedding is a special and terrible occasion.
Soft snow blankets her, but the alcohol is doing its part to keep her warm, as is her long-sleeved black nightdress.
She likes this one best because it makes her feel like a witch.
Sometimes (especially when she’s a little bit drunk) she imagines running away and building a little hut in the middle of the forest where no one can make any demands of her.
She and Bishop would survive off crunchy rodents and she’d learn to cast spells out of snow to keep them entertained.
There are lots of legends about witches and ferocious fae in Kulden: the Wynter Witch who eats the eyes of meddlesome children and wears their teeth like pearls around her neck; the fae king Oberon who rules a world underground; the Landvaettir who feast on honey and protect the most sacred corners of the earth.
Having read all the stories, Claudia wonders if she is not human, but rather another mythical creature who has infiltrated this world and is now unable to get out.
Maybe that’s why she’s constantly fighting the urge to run away, as if some dark, faraway place is calling her home.
Hiding out in the middle of nowhere is a fun daydream when things in life become too overwhelming, but she could never do it.
For one, there are no bookstores or libraries or patisseries in the forest. Two, and contrary to what others might believe, she doesn’t actually like being alone.
In fact, she greatly enjoys the idea of constant company, but the catch is that she needs to find people she likes enough to spend that much time with.
That hasn’t happened yet.
She’s been lonely for a long time, and Lord Fournier certainly won’t help. She needs someone interesting to talk to, someone passionate to argue with, someone to put her big brain and bigger mouth to good use.
A drop of red wine trails down the bottle’s long neck and splashes into the snow at her side.
It rivers through the white like hot blood on pale skin.
Above her, the constellations pulse and twinkle.
Her eyes land on her new favorite—Andromeda: the princess bound in chains as a sacrifice to the sea serpent, only to be saved by her love, Perseus.
The stars and their stories used to bring her comfort.
Now they only remind her of Cygnus. Their light stings her eyes.
They shift into new shapes, warped letters.
Failure, they seem to say. She can’t bear to look at them anymore. Traitors, all of them.
She brings the wine to her lips and realizes she’s already downed the entire bottle.
Maybe that’s why the night sky looks so alive—she’s drunk enough to imagine something magical.
A cold rush of wet air sticks to her body.
Her head feels heavy when she sits up and shivers.
To her left, her window is flat on the angled roof, and the candlelight inside tempts her with warmth.
On her hands and knees, she pushes her window open and starts to crawl inside, but she’s wobbly from the wine.
It takes only one misstep for her foot to slip, and for her knees to give out.
Her chest slams into the roof, knocking the wind from her lungs.
There’s no time for her to grab on to anything before she slides farther down the slick shingles.
Her bare feet dangle over the edge of the house.
Screaming, she claws at the weak window frame in a panic.
Her sharp nails drive straight through the mushy wood and she falls farther down the roof until she catches herself on the eave.
She hangs like prey in a spider’s web, like a mouse from its tail.
“Help!” she shouts. The air spits out an echo of her desperate voice. Her arms tremble from her weight. “Someone, please!”
But she knows no one is coming. Her father is asleep and too drunk to be woken up by any sound.
Lord Fournier’s hearing is likely long gone.
And their land stretches wide in every direction.
There are no neighbors here. The empty wine bottle rolls past her, off the roof.
Six seconds of silence until the glass shatters on the ground.
Claudia looks down and regrets it immediately. The fall would probably kill her, or at the very least, it would break her bones so that she couldn’t get up. In that case, she would freeze to death by morning.
With all her strength, she fights to pull herself up.
Blood blooms in the snow beneath her hands when the sharp edge of the roof cuts through her skin.
Shaking all over, she shouts, “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK,” over and over again.
She brings her chest over the edge of the house and kicks her legs up until her foot finds the eave.
Her body earns scrapes all over while she inches upward, farther and farther away from certain death.
Breathless and barely alive, she crawls toward the open window as fast as she can, leaving a trail of blood droplets behind.
Maybe she’s drunk, maybe she’s seeing things, but she swears her blood is shimmering like rubies beneath the stars.
Something is radiating off the splatters.
At first, she thinks it’s steam, but upon closer inspection, she sees that it’s tinted green.
It’s like the smoke that consumed her room after she burned her application to Cygnus.
Fuck, she’s really drunk.
Ice-cold tears sting her face. Just before flinging herself inside, she vomits a stomach’s worth of wine into the snow. It bubbles and steams.
Bishop is there to greet her when she falls into her bed. Her snake curls on her chest, and the weight of him helps her steady her breathing. Fear lingers in her blood. Her toes and fingers tingle. Her heartbeat pulses in her neck and teeth.
She could have died. Why didn’t she let it happen? She’s impressed with her own survival instincts, especially considering what a terrible hand she’s been dealt recently. Tomorrow—her wedding day—is going to be the worst day of her life. Why did she so desperately want to live to see it?
She forces her eyes to close, hoping to escape the anxious whir of her mind.
The fear in her body eats up the rest of her energy and pulls her under.
In the span of a single blink, she falls asleep, and the world around her tumbles and stretches into something new.
She’s never fallen into a dream so fast in her life.
Where there was a bed, there is now snow.
Her nightdress has been replaced with a thin white gown that does nothing to keep her warm.
The ceiling has turned into a sea of stars, and the air smells like salt.
She stands, shaking the snow out of her hair, and sees the front gate of her home looming tall over her shoulder.
Everything is dream-laced and uncanny. Moonlight is brighter and bluer, allowing her to see through the dark.
The Jolicoeur estate rhythmically swells and shrinks as if it’s breathing.
The sky is stained with streaks of red, and the stars are sharp as teeth.
It’s unsettling how present she is. Normally, her dreams are hazy, intangible, and unmemorable.
But this dream has texture. It all feels real.
The wind is cold and coarse. She can still taste the same fear she had before as if she hasn’t fallen asleep at all, but rather fallen into a different world.
When she turns, the forest parts before her and creates a wide path.
Claudia’s steps are easy and intentional, unmarred by the typical weight of sleep.
In the distance, there is a white light that calls her forward.
The forest is silent—no rustling leaves, no snapping branches, not even a cricket’s chirp.
Nothing but the soft rhythm of her bare feet shuffling through the snow.
Eventually, the path narrows to the width of an aisle, and the world around her rumbles like an empty stomach. The white light ahead glows brighter.
“Hello?” she says, feeling the night pressed against her mouth like it’s drinking her voice before it leaves her lips. When she nears the light, she sees the silhouette of a man standing before it.
It’s Lord Fournier, and now she realizes she’s dressed like a bride.
He reaches for her, and she loses control of herself to the dream. Against her will, she takes his hand, and he pulls her to his side. Here, he’s even older. His skin is thin as paper and his eyes are milky blue. He smells sour and most of his teeth are missing.
“Is this the fate you want?” a deep voice calls from somewhere far away. Hisses and whispers chill her to the bone as they breathe against her body. Her betrothed leans in to kiss her, his lips in a tight puckered circle like an exit wound.
Panicked, Claudia pulls away and runs in the opposite direction, but the path is gone now, completely swallowed by tall trees.
Branches claw her while she forces her way through the forest. She runs while the blue light of the moon fades to almost nothing, and she finds herself lost in the dark.
When she collides with a tree, she knows she can’t see well enough to keep running, so she cowers in place.