Chapter 4 Escape
ESCAPE
The existence of other realms is reality’s concession to the scholar’s curiosity. The mind, heart, and soul of an academic all demand their own dominion. Desires create Doorways, and those who dream of escape will always find somewhere to run.
Since receiving her rejection letter, Claudia has kept it open on her bedside table. She doesn’t know why she didn’t throw it away immediately. Perhaps she enjoys using it as fodder for rage. As a reminder to never fail again. Claudia does well under pressure, and even better when in pain.
But this morning, it’s not a rejection letter.
Somehow, it’s rewritten itself.
Dear Claudia Jolicoeur,
We are pleased to inform you that a recent vacancy in the Rhetoric program shall be awarded to you, should you choose to accept this prestigious position. This is a remarkable opportunity, and we look forward to shaping your bright future.
Bring only what you can carry. When you are ready, burn this letter and walk through the Doorway. Do not share this with anyone. Do not ask for further instructions. Do not allow another soul through the Doorway. If you get lost, stay lost. Tell no one what you saw.
Sincerely,
High Sage Gieffroy Triche
The letter trembles against her fingers. She releases her chewed lip from her teeth and smiles. It worked. The bargain worked. Dorian honored his word, and now, at Cygnus, Claudia must honor hers. Whatever it takes, she will do.
But she’ll have to study Rhetoric alongside Astrologia.
She’s never considered herself a rhetorician, though she has a mouth that her mother once swore could browbeat a brick wall into stepping aside.
She should have no trouble catching up to her classmates, even though they are a semester ahead of her.
Her bags are already packed, for she’s meant to leave with Lord Fournier this evening, but now she’ll be gone before the old man wakes up.
The sky is still a deep blue, and the moon has only just started to fade.
Claudia slips out of her nightdress and pulls on a blue gown with a corset back and lace trumpet sleeves.
With a wide-toothed wooden comb, she sits in front of her vanity and fights the tangles in her hair, ultimately leaving it untamed.
She puts on her mother’s emerald necklace and pockets her gold Roe timepiece—the only pieces of jewelry she hid from her father, for she couldn’t bear the thought of him selling them.
When she stands, Bishop slithers out of his open enclosure and curls at her feet, staring up at her.
Wait—does Cygnus allow pets? She can’t leave Bishop here. Neither of them will survive without each other. Her snake is coming with her no matter what, and if he’s not allowed at Cygnus, then she simply won’t tell anyone about him. He’ll be her little secret.
Just like her bargain.
She does not intend to tell any of her classmates about her initial rejection or unconventional acceptance. As far as anyone will know, her arrival will be simply late. Nothing more or less than that. It’s not a lie; it’s an omission. Very different.
Her bargainer’s face appears in her mind.
She’d once thought the legends of devils were nothing more than dark stories in her favorite bookshop.
Now that she’s found herself in a tale of her own, she fears the other creatures she once assumed to be myths.
Most of all, she fears the gods of Cygnus.
If a god could trap someone as powerful as Dorian in the Realm of Nightmares, what could they do to her?
But she can’t let those fears hold her back. She has a bargain to uphold, and she doesn’t want to think about what her punishment would be if she left it unfulfilled. Dorian may not be as powerful as a god, but he’s strong enough to have taken a bite of her soul.
He owns a part of her now.
Her snake coils around her wrist. Claudia hides him with her sleeve as she eyes the box of matches on the mantel above her fireplace.
After crossing the room, she stands beside her heavy suitcase and reads her acceptance letter one more time before picking up the matches, ready to change her fate forever.
She’s striking the match when her father barges in.
“It’s time to wake your betrothed,” he says before he surveys the scene. Confusion grows over his face. Claudia freezes while the match hisses in her hand.
He looks her up and down. “You’re meant to be in white.” His eyes narrow when he sees the letter she’s holding. “What’s that in your hand?”
No time to think. Panicked, she touches the match to the letter, and it erupts into a shimmering Doorway framed by green fire.
Inside is pure black. She has no idea what she’ll be walking into, what Cygnus will look like, or even where it is in the world, but she doesn’t care.
It’s what she fought for, something worth a whole bite of her soul.
She will love whatever it is because it’s the fate she chose for herself.
Her father stares open-mouthed at the Doorway. Claudia, taking advantage of his shock, picks up her suitcase and gets one foot through the door before he grabs her arm and pulls her back.
Bishop lashes out and bites her father’s hand, but the snake can’t retreat fast enough. Her father grabs Bishop by the throat and unravels his body from Claudia’s arm. He squeezes hard, and the snake chokes.
“STOP,” Claudia shrieks. That’s her baby—he can’t die. She’d let the portal to Cygnus close up behind her before she’d let her father kill Bishop. Clawing at her father’s face, she screams, “Let go of him!”
Her father pushes her to the floor and she lands hard on her elbow, sending shooting pain through the entire left side of her body. Bishop goes limp in her father’s iron grip, hanging like a white ribbon in his fist.
A glass-shattering scream explodes from her mouth, and all she sees is red.
Forcing herself to stand, she grabs a letter opener from her desk and lunges for her father.
The blade slides straight into his heart.
It’s all so quick—she didn’t even realize what she was doing until it was already done, until his body swallowed every inch of the blade.
For a moment, they’re both too shocked to move.
Then the bleeding starts. The whole front of her father’s white shirt turns red in a matter of seconds.
He drops Bishop and clutches his chest, putting pressure on the gushing wound.
The portal to Cygnus remains open, but the flames are growing brighter.
Hotter. Wider. Soon, they’ll reach the curtains, and the whole room could go up in smoke.
While her father is bleeding out on the floor, Claudia picks up Bishop and prays to any listening gods that her snake is still alive.
“Please, Bishop. Don’t leave me,” she cries, caressing his body. Kissing his head, she whimpers, “I love you. Please don’t die.”
“What have you done, Claudia?” her father says, blood bubbling out of his mouth.
“What have I done?” She’s so delirious with rage that she laughs maniacally.
“I did what you always wanted, Father.” Her tears splash on Bishop’s body.
She stares at the hilt of the blade protruding from her father’s chest. A crazed smile stretches over her face.
“I got rid of the monstrous thing in this house.”
With a growl, her father raises his fist and lunges for her, but she ducks out of the way just in time. Behind her, he crashes into the portal to Cygnus, but he’s not transported to another world.
He remains here, caught in the Doorway, burning alive.
“Unworthy,” a phantom voice calls. The voice says something else, but Claudia can’t understand it through her father’s shrieks.
The Doorway stretches farther across the room, and the thick flames lick the curtains. Still, Claudia doesn’t move. She can’t pull her eyes away from her father. His skin is burning, bubbling, turning black as tar. He takes his last breath and collapses at the bottom of the Doorway.
Magic swells in the husk of her father, and his corpse explodes in a burst of wet blood and splintered bones. The torrent is so violent that it throws Claudia onto the ground covered in his remains.
At first, Claudia feels nothing but pride. His death isn’t vengeance. It’s justice. A life for a life.
But then, Bishop twitches in her hands. Slowly, weakly, he coils around her wrist. When she gasps, she sucks blood into her lungs. She coughs and spits until she’s able to breathe again.
“Bishop, are you really alive?”
He nuzzles into her palm. Her relief is almost immediately swallowed by guilt. Then shame. Then grief, disgust, shock, and horror.
All while the green flames of the Doorway crawl across the room. They climb the damask walls and spit across Claudia’s bed. Their entire house is going to catch fire.
She can’t think. She can’t move.
Her baby is alive. Her father is not. The scales are not balanced. Her kill was unjust.
Her pulse pounds hard enough to bruise her bones from the inside. She’s done something terrible, and there’s no way to argue her way out of the guilt. She’s wrong. She’s bad. She’s a godsdamned killer. She’s everything she never wanted to be—vengeful, messy, unpolished, weak.
There is blood on her hands. Fuck, there’s blood all over her body.
If she walks through that Doorway, will she now be unworthy, too?
The room fills with green smoke that reeks of death and burned flesh.
She can’t see her bedroom door or her window.
Her only hope to escape is through the Doorway.
It may reject her after what she’s done, but she has no other choice.
With Bishop in one hand and her suitcase in the other, she rushes through and closes her eyes, bracing for the worst.
A rush of cold air embraces her. The smell of smoke gives way to an earthy breeze. All is silent, until that same phantom voice says, “Welcome, witch, to the Realm of Knowledge.”