Chapter 27 Iphigenia
IPHIGENIA
When wine, lascivious discourse, night, and the intercourse of the sexes had extinguished every sentiment of modesty, then debaucheries of every kind began to be practiced.
The game master is gone. The two Agamemnons are unconscious. Others are coming for her, but Claudia cannot move. Ice and fear have settled into the marrow of her bones.
Was it real? Was that Dorian? Or is this just another symptom of the high from the opera? Stilled by the shock, Claudia does nothing to fight the Artemis who charges toward her. They take hold of the white fabric, and it slips out of her grip.
“You’re done,” the Artemis says, running back toward the school with a false flag in their hand. They’ll try to claim victory with it, and everyone will laugh in their face. The real ribbon remains threaded in Claudia’s hair, and the game is only just getting started.
A gust of wind wakes her up, telling her which way to run. She pushes off the tree and darts farther into the forest, weaving gracefully through the woods.
The game master couldn’t have been Dorian, she tells herself. It couldn’t be. It’s not possible.
“This is not a nightmare. This is just madness,” she repeats over and over, charging forward.
She runs through the tall trees, trying to keep her sanity.
A cacophony of wind howls, while the clouds above morph into terrifying, monstrous faces.
Around her are screeches and cries from other slaughters—stags killing kings, kings killing one another.
Claudia slows to a quiet tiptoe when she hears laughter and grunting to her left.
It sounds like animals fighting until she comes closer and realizes it’s an Agamemnon bent over a tree stump with an Artemis thrusting from behind, both chanting, “More! Harder!”
At least that’s two fewer people who are chasing after her. She backs away slowly until she can’t hear them; then, she’s back to running. Eventually, the woods spit her out to the graveyard, and she is not alone.
Marcherie stands before Odette’s grave, her low cries bristling against the high-pitched wind. There’s a gold ribbon around her neck—a stag. She can’t kill Iphigenia. She’s safe to approach.
“Marcherie?” Claudia calls, and the singer whips around to glare at her.
“Get away from me,” she bites out, her teeth chattering in the cold.
She sighs, still approaching. “March, come on. Talk to me.”
“Stay back.”
Claudia freezes and holds her hands up as if trying to tame a wild animal. “Let me help you through this.”
Marcherie laughs incredulously, crossing her arms. “You want to help me? You’re the one who hurt me. Everything bad in my life is your fault.” She wipes her tears so harshly—it’s almost like she’s slapping herself.
Calmly, softly, Claudia says, “You just came off the stage after a very emotional piece.” She takes a series of small, slow steps.
“Your feelings are in a dangerously heightened state.” Marcherie is almost within her reach.
Extending her hand, she says, “You need to go inside and rest before you hurt yourself.”
Marcherie looks down at Claudia’s hand, then back up to her eyes.
Her gaze narrows and the corners of her mouth sink in disgust. “You don’t even look human to me, you know.
When I see you, I see a monster. I see an evil that needs to be destroyed.
” Her words are sloppy and strange, muddled by wine and Dolericym’s magic. The girl is out of her mind.
“I am a good person. I am not evil.” Claudia says it like a prayer, like she wants so desperately for it to be true.
The singer snaps. She releases a pent-up groan and slaps Claudia across the face. “You reek of it.”
Claudia gasps, clutching her stinging cheek. “Have you gone mad?!” She steps back. Her face feels like it’s on fire. The wind needles into her burning cheek.
Marcherie’s wet, wide eyes glance down to Odette’s grave.
She blinks, shaking away her tears. Her nostrils flare.
“You made me this way when you killed her.” Looking back up at Claudia, she pulls a dagger from her sleeve—the one Agamemnon used onstage.
“I’m glad you found me here.” She raises the blade, its sharp edge slicing through the drips of starlight.
“I want you dead, Claudia Jolicoeur. And I want Odette to watch.”
Claudia jumps back, screaming, “Marcherie, please don’t—”
She pounces onto Claudia and takes her to the ground, slicing the dagger across her shoulder. It feels like a burn. Claudia screams, warmed by the spill of her own blood.
Marcherie slaps her again. “I’ve wanted to make you bleed for sooooo long,” she says, half singing.
Mounted on top of Claudia, Marcherie squeezes her thighs around Claudia’s waist and pushes her forearm against her throat, restricting Claudia’s breathing until she can do nothing but gasp.
Spit bubbles out of Claudia’s mouth, and tears leak from the corners of her eyes.
She claws at Marcherie’s throat. At one point, she’s almost certain she can feel her nails scraping directly across Marcherie’s bare bones, but still, the singer doesn’t budge.
“You could never be a performer, you know,” Marcherie says all too casually. “You’re too ugly when you cry.”
Claudia’s vision is down to nothing but tiny pinpricks. She feels the slick wet of her blood rivering down her arm from the gash in her shoulder.
Suddenly, Marcherie stills on top of her. She runs her fingers over Claudia’s wound, scooping up her blood and holding it up to the sky.
It glitters.
“What the fuck are you, Claudia?”
Claudia can’t breathe. Her vision is all but entirely gone.
Marcherie wraps her hands around the hilt of the dagger and raises it above Claudia’s head.
Seconds before the blade slices through her heart, Claudia uses all her energy to catch Marcherie’s wrists and hold her there, trembling against the singer’s impressive strength.
She has seconds left before the blade drives through her heart, one breath away from dying her father’s death.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She’s going to have to do it. She’s going to have to call out for him.
“DORIAN,” she cries. The name tastes like shit. “HELP.” She chokes and coughs through her next sentence. “SHE’S. brEAKING. THE. RULES.”
Marcherie barks out a melodic laugh. “No one is coming to help you. Everyone here wants you dead.”
The last thing Claudia sees before her vision goes are those two green stars leering down at her from above.
Then comes the heat.
It starts in her shoulder, in the open wound where the starlight meets her blood.
It’s as if life itself is burrowing into her.
She opens her eyes. First, she sees the point of the dagger nearly touching her skin.
Then, to her right, she sees her blood glowing green.
Below them, Odette’s grave rumbles like the empty belly of a beast. The entire sky shakes.
The stars are here. They are listening.
They are on Claudia’s side.
“You’re wrong, Marcherie,” Claudia says with sudden strength.
She throws the girl off her, rolling until she’s now mounted on Marcherie’s hips, holding her down with her thighs.
She grabs Marcherie’s wrists and pins them down to the ground.
To get the dagger, she repeatedly slams Marcherie’s fist into the ground, individually snapping the tiny bones in her hand until the blade comes loose.
She holds the blade to Marcherie’s throat, slicing through the gold ribbon until it falls from her neck to the ground.
The tip of the dagger barely touches Marcherie’s skin, but still, blood petals out around the blade.
“You’re wrong about all of it,” Claudia says, seething. “I didn’t kill Odette, and you won’t kill me.”
Marcherie struggles beneath her, unable to lift her shattered hand. “Get OFF,” she cries.
“I’ll let you go, and you will return to the school immediately. You need help.”
Marcherie’s mouth twitches in anger. With a deep breath, her eyes flash bright blue, and she releases a deafening shriek. It’s high enough to break glass, sharp enough to slice the very air, painful enough to force Claudia to crawl away.
It’s magic. It’s a siren’s scream. Claudia can do nothing but cover her ears and cower as the singer stands.
Marcherie lunges for Claudia, snatching the dagger from her hand.
Aiming directly for Claudia’s face, Marcherie plunges the blade through the air.
Less than a second before it spears through Claudia’s left eye, Cassius rushes from the woods and catches Marcherie by the wrist. He throws her back like she weighs absolutely nothing.
With a grunt, Marcherie hits the ground, landing on her broken hand.
Cassius turns to her and rips the blade from her grip.
He holds her up by her hair and points the dagger at her heart.
“Marcherie, what the FUCK is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with YOU?” She arches her back, fearlessly leaning into the blade. The sharp tip touches her skin. If she took a deep breath, it would pierce her. “Why are you with HER? She’s a MURDERER.”
Cassius groans. “No, she’s not.”
“HOW DO YOU KNOW?” Marcherie shrieks, her voice booming with Dolericym’s magic.
“BECAUSE MALEVIMUS HIMSELF DECLARED HER INNOCENT.”
Marcherie freezes. She swallows, eyes darting between Cassius and Claudia. Cassius releases her from his grip but keeps the dagger readied.
“What?” Her voice is quiet and childlike. “When?”
“Today. When we spoke before the debate.”
She shakes her head, hands bracing her temples. “No. No—she—she’s not—no. No. No. I don’t believe it. I know she’s evil. I know it.”
“You claim to know more than Malevimus?”
Her hands fall to her heart, and her big round eyes soften with shame. “But I don’t understand,” she whimpers. She looks to Odette’s grave. A sob cracks and spills out of her mouth. “I don’t understand.”