Chapter Four
Ingrid
When the bailiff stops, a new wave of dread rushes over me.
The torches in this part of the hall have burned down to embers, eerie fingers of shadow dancing against the damp stone walls.
The air is thick with the stench of neglected humans, the bitter cold making each breath sharp and short.
The bailiff moves a heavy iron bolt, and the door to Phillip’s cell swings open.
My heart clenches, guilt and despair stealing away with my voice.
I’m supposed to look after him, keep him safe, but all I’ve done is. ..
“Phillip,” I manage, trying to sound strong despite the effort it takes to stay upright.
A single, dim lantern sways in the cell, making my vision blur as my eyes adjust. My brother is shackled, his lanky frame hunched and hobbled in the corner. One eye is bruised and swollen shut, his normally-smiling face bloodied and unrecognizable. But worse is his broken spirit.
He thinks he’s alone. He thinks I didn’t come for him.
“Phillip,” I say again, louder this time. The tremble in my voice breaks through his defeated resignation and his one good eye widens as he finally looks up.
“Ing,” he says. And then the relief in his voice gives way to hurt, anger. “You shouldn’t be here.”
I blink back tears, clearing the catch in my throat. “Neither should you. I’m getting you out.”
He scoffs, wincing from it. "How're you gonna do that?" He gestures around the cell, the chains binding his wrists rattling for emphasis.
I bite my lip, trying to figure out the best way to tell him.
If I should tell him at all. He doesn’t make it easy, staring at me with betrayal in his good eye, the same way our parents used to look at the bottom of an empty bottle.
I take too long to answer, and he knows. I don’t even have to say it.
He knows.
"Tell me you didn't," he says, a challenge as much as a plea.
He's statue-still as I step toward him, trying to bridge the chasm of disappointment between us, the impossible, inevitable, all-consuming rift I know I can’t avoid. I kneel beside him, swallowing the pain and fear as best I can.
“It was the only way."
Hurt flashes across my brother’s face. He turns away, blood-matted hair hiding his expression, but I know what it is. I know exactly what it is, because I feel it too.
“I had to! He was going to hang you," I insist, tears dripping to the dirty stone floor. "If there was anything else...it was the only way.”
“No,” he says, the words rough, angry. Angrier than I’ve ever heard him. “No, there has to be—”
“There isn’t,” I say, stopping him. “There isn’t. You think I’d do this if there were?”
Phillip finally looks back at me, his jaw set. Stubborn, defiant, trying to be the boy I raised him to be. The man I hope he’ll become. “He won’t kill me.” He almost sounds convincing. “He won’t.”
“He will,” I argue, and the flash in his eye tells me that maybe he believes it. Maybe he’s not just putting on a show this time. “He will, Phillip.” I put my hands over his, the mangled, twisted forms of his broken fingers strengthening my will. “He’s determined to see it through. You know he is.”
My brother glares at me. At the situation. At his own helplessness and mine. His expression softens as he looks at me, but only a little. “What are you going to do?”
I look at him, all our years together rushing through my mind.
Long, dark winters spent spinning by the fire while he sat by teasing the wool and sorting scraps, always begging me for another story.
Bright summer days of tending the flock and avoiding his mischievous splashes while he brought in buckets of water, growing taller and stronger every season.
Countless rumpled bouquets of wildflowers collected while he should’ve been gathering berries.
I’ve been meaning to lengthen his cloak all summer, putting it off in case he has a final growth spurt…
The lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow, tears blurring my vision.
“Whatever I have to.” I don't want to accept it anymore than he does, but I won't sit by while he's led to a noose.
I've always taken care of Phillip. I'm the one who gets him out of trouble, the one who smooths things over when his rambunctious ways lead to someone’s sheep escaping.
I'm the one who sweet-talks the neighbors into accepting an exchange of my yarn when he's caught pilfering in their orchard—whatever mess he finds himself in, I always manage to dig him out. Letting him down isn't an option.
But this time? I don’t know how I can do it.
The thought of the Judge touching me makes me feel sick, and I fight off a fresh wave of nausea when I realize he'll also expect me to touch him.
His gaze alone feels like unwanted fingers violating me out in the open—what vile, unthinkable things might he do in private?
"I'll figure it out, Phil. I have to. No matter what fae, god, or devil I might have to deal with—"
And then, just like that, time stops. I’m mid-breath when I feel the air grow still. Phillip and the bailiff are both frozen, unblinking, not even the shadows in the cell shimmer as the space fills with a thick blue fog.
From the fog comes a figure, stepping into the center of the cell from the mist itself. A tall, amber-eyed man with the ears and tail of a wolf and bright blue markings that twist and curve over exposed gray skin occupies the center of the swirling storm, his inhuman gaze locked on me.
Wait—me?!
The curved horns, claws tipping his fingers, and otherworldly glow coming from the marks along his arms should probably terrify me, but even his sly, predatory smile isn't as unsettling as the Judge's.
"What—who are you?"
The man tilts his head to one side, cocking an eyebrow. "Did you not say you wish to make a deal?"
"I... Well, yes..." I'm reluctant to admit my predicament before I know what I'm dealing with, but I’m not sure there’s a way to make my situation worse, so I might as well hear his proposition.
"My name is Anumar, and I'm a Dealmaker."
"A Dealmaker...?"
He exhales sharply. "A Dealmaker demon, if you require specificity, but the important thing is I can help you."
Of all the entities I could've invited into my life, a demon is low on the list of who I want to bargain with. Then again, is the Judge any better?
"Help me how? What are your terms? Can you ensure my brother's freedom and safety? Make it so the Judge cannot retaliate?"
"Kill him, you mean? Trivial," he says, examining the backs of his claws like the conversation bores him.
I start to argue, a dispute on the tip of my tongue, but then I shut my mouth, pressing my lips together. I might not personally wish death upon the Judge, but I certainly won't mourn his loss. Few will.
"And in return?" My stomach flips, and I send a glance over to Phillip who's still frozen in time. Can he hear our conversation? I've no doubt his mind is screaming objections if so.
"A bit of your time, is all."
"My...time?" I echo. "How much time?"
Anumar's tail twitches, his wolf ears flattening against his head. "How much is your brother's life worth to you?"
"That's not—" I'm quick to correct, panic washing through me. Angering the one source of hope I’ve got… Good going, Ingrid.
"One season," he says. "See your contract through to spring and I will return you to this moment."
"One season of...what, exactly?" I ask, heart in my throat. I have no personal experience with demons, but I've heard they're the type to twist and spin words as easily as I do wool.
"Standard services; I have an array of clients with different needs ranging from domestic duties to social companions. You will not be harmed, of course, and any mistreatment is grounds for immediate termination of the agreement with no penalty to you."
My mind races with the information, piecing it together and turning it over. A few months as a maid or cook to save my brother's life seems like a deal too good to be true.
"When you say clients..."
"I mean demons, yes. Your contract will be served in my realm."
"In Hell?" I squawk before I can stop myself.
His tail twitches, the fog around us thinning enough that I can make out the bailiff again.
"Not Hell. My realm. Home to my kind, just as this one is yours.
Not the fiery wastelands of your fairy stories.
..not all of it, anyway. You will not miss anything here.
No one will know you're gone, and time in this realm will remain precisely where it is until your contract is completed. "
"H-how is that..." Surely I'm not understanding properly. Other worlds, creatures who can stop time...maybe I swooned before the Judge and this is all an elaborate hallucination.
"It's all quite simple. We only have to leave between the seconds."
He says that as if it should clear everything up, but it only makes my head spin more.
"Speaking of, our window is closing, so what'll it be?" he asks, producing a long scroll of parchment covered in tiny, indecipherable writing—a contract.
Now that he's mentioned it, I can see the fog lifting more, the dim jail beyond my brother's cell fading into view. The Dealmaker offers a sparkling quill, his keen eyes glowing in an unsettling way.
Oh, to hell with it, I think, taking the quill. I can't imagine there's anything in the demon realm as terrible as being forced into a marriage against my will.
The moment I pen my name on the parchment, the blue fog thickens and swallows the world around me.
The fog parts to reveal a sky clearer than I ever thought possible. A streak of pinkish purple bisects the sky, dipping below distant snow-topped peaks, and glittering above it all, a whole cloud of twinkling stars.
I only realize I’m staring up at the sky open-mouthed when the Dealmaker clears his throat. Still, it’s hard to tear my eyes away. Even on the darkest nights back home, I never dreamed there could be so many stars.
This really is a different world.