The Midnight Bargain

by C. L. Polk

  She watched the tree-lined streets of Bendleton, hazed green with new spring buds and heavy with sweet blooming flowers, and couldn’t wait to get home.

  CHAPTER II

  The air grew sweeter the closer the landau drove to their leased townhouse on Triumph Street, a fashionable address on a gently curving road bordering Lord Harsgrove Park. Cherry petals tumbled through the air, their perfume gently choking Beatrice as her father explained the opportunity he’d lost.

  “The marquis’s latest venture plans on revitalizing the most miserable, wretched parts of Masillia into respectable neighborhoods. They mean to build in the Canal District. The shares from such a venture would have kept your mother in comfort.”

  Beatrice sobered. Father had the family to worry about, and his plans depended on the support of Beatrice’s new family to shore up his own. “I’m sorry the lead has come to naught, but perhaps that’s not such a disaster.”

  “You’re right, my dear. There are still the public shares, after all.”

  “Actually, I meant something different,” Beatrice said, and smiled as Father looked curious. “The trouble with the real estate development is that it will take years before the development is finished and your investments will see fruit.”

  Father’s expression folded into a downturned mouth. “Beatrice—”

  She rushed on. “If the marquis is seeking investors here, he’s probably also looking for supply partnerships. He will need timber and iron, and a little research will tell you who in Bendleton runs a forestry firm or a mine. If you invest with them—”

  “It’s a fine idea, my dear, but please don’t trouble yourself trying to decipher the world of finance. I have more meetings besides the marquis planned.”

  Why wouldn’t he listen? Valserre wasn’t the only country with an eagerness to build major projects. Investing in timber and iron made sense! Beatrice forced herself to smile. “That’s a relief. Will you be attending tonight’s dance?”

  Father’s cheeks quivered as he shook his head. “I regret to say that I will not, but happy to report that I have an invitation to Compton’s. I have received a letter from Sir Gregory Robicheaux asking me to attend a meeting about a trade expedition to Mion. Cotton, I expect, as the Lavans hold the exclusive rights to their cacao.”

  Beatrice tried not to grimace at the mention of the cheating, stealing Lavans. “I hope it is successful.”

  “I’m sure it will be,” Father said. “Sir Gregory is a clever man. This is a singular opportunity. If only I could bring the news of this expedition home. It will be sure profits.”

  Not like the last time. Beatrice fought to keep smiling. “I’m so happy to hear it.”

  The Westborne Trading Company’s orchid expedition had also been a singular opportunity. Father had contributed heavily to the voyage, believing in the international craze for exotic orchid species—a craze that had been abandoned for miniature dogs while the expedition returned home with once fabulously expensive specimens. Plenty of people lost considerable sums, and very few of the investors had bought insurance on their shares, including Father, and all the neighbors in Mayhurst who had listened to his dream-stirring predictions of the fortune investors would make. They had thrown cabbages at him for a week. No one was at home for Mother’s calls. They had snuck out of Mayhurst in the dead of night and didn’t stop the carriage until they were miles away, and someone in the roadside inn had still heard the story of how Father had ruined the fortunes of his neighbors.

  Bad luck plagued Father’s investments. He had taken a generous dowry and learned that the way to have a small fortune from speculation and investment was to start with a large one. If Father hadn’t risked so much, they could have put off the trip to Bendleton until next year. Beatrice could have had more time to learn what she had to before it was too late. But Father wouldn’t tell his family just how badly off they were, and he was sparing no expense to send Beatrice out to Bendleton’s social life.

  How much money did Father have left? Was it really enough to pay for all the hats and gowns and an address on Triumph Street? Or had he put all his money into one sure thing—Beatrice’s appeal as a bride?

  It wasn’t wise. Beatrice’s mother was one of the respected Woodcrofts, but they tended to bear girls rather than boys, often only producing one heir to carry on a legacy. Mother had married for love rather than status, and so the Clayborns were unremarkable members of the middle class. There were ingenues more elevated than her, certainly wealthier—she couldn’t reasonably expect to net a duke or a cabinet minister’s son, could she? And she didn’t have the wealth or connections a foreign mage hunted for, at that.

  But she didn’t want a duke or a minister’s son. She didn’t want to marry a man from another land. She wanted to be a magician, and marriage stood squarely in her way. She had to retrieve the grimoire Ysbeta had stolen from her. It was her only chance!

  “And starting tonight, you will be pursuing opportunity as well,” Father said. “I know I don’t need to explain to you how important your social debut is to us. I have every trust in your ability to evaluate the people you meet tonight. But enjoy yourself and make friends. Don’t forget to take pleasure in it.”

  Tonight marked the official beginning of the calendar of parties, outings, performances, and events that would allow Beatrice to rise as far as her charm and skill would allow—or sink, if she embarrassed herself. How was she to manage both social success for her family and romantic failure for herself? “I will do my best, Father.”

  She didn’t need to say more. Father helped her from the carriage. “Good luck will smile on you, I am sure of it.”

  He was more correct than he knew. “I have to get a tray from Cook and then rest before the dance. I will probably miss dinner with getting ready.”

  Father let her leave with an indulgent smile. “You will make me proud, my dear.”

  Once inside, Beatrice went upstairs to allow Clara to undress her and tuck her in bed. When the tray arrived, Beatrice kept it, saying that she would nibble at it while she read.

  After Clara had freed her of the fashionably tight corset and left Beatrice to rest in rag curls prepared for tonight’s Assembly Dance, she silently counted to one hundred, then sprang out of bed. Tonight’s gown was laid out where she could gaze upon it until she dozed off, but she scuttled past it without another glance, leaping for the pull-cord dangling from the ceiling.

  Moving the lunch tray to the attic was clumsy work. She had to balance the tray on a step scarcely wide enough to hold it, climb a stair, and rest the tray on a higher rung. She’d nearly dropped it twice as she climbed the narrow trap-ladder up to her bedroom’s attic one-handed. The darkness above smelled like dust and old paper. Beatrice hoisted herself into the space clad only in her shift. After closing the hatch so she wouldn’t stumble through it and break her neck, she groped for her striker-box. She whispered a charm to make the spark light a candle stub, and then as she touched the flame to all the others, she whispered, “Give light, and bring no harm to anyone.”

  The wicks caught and glowed, throwing flickering shadows on the sloped attic roof. Beatrice pulled out a book from her tiny hoard—Tales of Ijanel and Other Heroes, by E. James Curtfield, and found the spell encoded among the verses:

  To Call a Lesser Spirit of Chance

  She set it on a lap table with one uneven leg.

  Beatrice reread the instructions. She wondered, once more, if the summoning words would really work without being written in Mizunh—but Chasland had master magicians before adopting the chapterhouse tradition. It had to work. She practiced the signs she needed for the summoning. She checked and double-checked the sequence of sigils, then chalked down the marks in the order described without uttering a word.

  Now she wavered, just for a moment. This was more complex magic than she had ever dared—but she had to master it if she was ever going to have the skill to summon a greater spirit of her own. She must perform the ritual, and she could
not fail.

  She held her palm over each chalked symbol, breathing in the accepted pattern to infuse each mark with her will. She drew in the correct breath, held and vibrated exactly the right way to activate her circle and put her between the realms of flesh and spirit. Every mark had to be charged with the correct breath, the exact vibration, shaped by the positions of her fingers held just so—and as she worked the air shifted, pressing against her skin as the summoning built itself, mark by mark, breath by breath, sign by sign.

  The energy flickered and built just at the corner of her eye, bluer than candlelight, shot through with iridescent flashes of gold, rose, green. It made the air fuzzy and alive as her actions unmoored her from the world of the flesh, rubbing against the realm of spirit.

  She held down the urge to stare at it, to gasp in wonder like a child. But magic tingled all through her. She touched the aether and held power in her hands, her breath, her body—it was better than the sweetest music, the finest meal. Knowing power, drawing nearer to the mysteries, nothing was its match. Nothing was its equal.

  She breathed in magic, shaped it with her need, and charged the circle closed. She was between. Her body felt bigger than it was. Her awareness had expanded to the skin of her aetheric form, the body that spirits and magicians could see, glowing softly within the circle spun of her mortal life. But she trembled, her hands shaking as she gathered more power within herself, more and more until she was full as a waterskin, preparing herself for the ritual.

  “Nadi, spirit of chance, I name you,” she whispered. “I have brought sweet nectar and flesh for you. They are yours if you help me. Nadi, spirit of chance, I know you are near.”

  She held out a handful of strawberries, shiny and red, and put one in her mouth. She bit and reveled in the sweetness on her tongue.

  “Nadi, spirit of chance,” she murmured, the taste of strawberry on her lips. “You are hungry, and I have sweets.”

  A light flickered outside her circle. :Nadi wants that. Give it to me.:

  It spoke in her tongue, and Beatrice melted with relief. It had worked, even without knowing Mizunh. “I need your luck, Nadi. I will give it in trade.”

  Nadi grew and shrank, probing at the tiny dome that kept it out, lured by the only thing spirits delighted in—the allure of the corporeal.

  Spirits wanted the world of the flesh. They wanted to eat. They wanted to drink wine. They wanted to run, and dance, and touch everything they could. They wanted the walls of a body, the taste of a berry. But before all, above all, they wanted those things forever, and so the art and science of the higher mysteries were closed to women, to guard against the danger of a spirit getting exactly the thing they craved the most—a home, dwelling within an unborn child.

  “There is a book,” Beatrice began. “An exact book. I held it in my hands. Circumstance and a clever tongue stole the book from me. I want you to help me get it back.”

  :Yes,: Nadi said. :I see it in your memories. I feel the leap of your heart as you read it. I know what you want from it. What will you give me, if I tread on Fate to return it to you?:

  Beatrice held out the berries. “All of these are yours, and flesh besides—I have the smoked cheeks of a hog, glazed in honey. I have white cheese from the caves of Stillan. And I have Kandish wine.”

  :But when you have the book, I know what you will do with it,: Nadi said. :You will call an ally spirit. You will make the great bargain. And then Nadi will have no one to bargain with, no nectar, no flesh. Nadi wants more.:

  “Another magician will call you, Nadi. Another incanter will need you,” Beatrice soothed. “Nadi will always be needed.”

  :Nadi wants more now.:

  “I can’t break the circle to bring you more food,” Beatrice said. “All I have to offer you is already in its bounds.”

  She heard what she’d said an instant after she’d said it, and clenched her jaw shut. The luck spirit brightened, lengthened.

  :You have more to offer me,: it said. :You can give me a greater gift.:

  Oh no, no, she couldn’t. This was her first lesser summoning! She had meant for the spirit to instruct her, not to let it ride in her body as she retrieved the grimoire. She had asked for the best offering the kitchen could provide, had barely picked at it, and hadn’t allowed Clara to take the tray away. This spirit of chance wasn’t a very strong spirit, but all her rich food and Kandish wine wasn’t enough.

  Nadi wanted her to host it.

  She had never hosted a spirit, not even any of the minor spirits she could call without the protection of a summoning circle. She had always asked for small bits of knowledge, paid for with offerings of food. What if she couldn’t control it? What if Nadi took command of her limbs, made her say something outrageous, or embarrassed her? What if she lost control to it completely, and the spirit, clad in her flesh, hurt people who crossed it? She could fail completely. She could be condemned to death. She could hurt someone she loved.

  No. She knew who she was. She could do this. “An hour,” Beatrice said.

  :A day,: Nadi said.

  “Impossible. To sundown.”

  :To dawn.:

  “No. Midnight,” Beatrice said. “I’m going to an Assembly Dance. There will be music—”

  :Music?: The spirit brightened, swaying. It let out a happy moan. :Dancing?:

  “Yes.”

  :Cake?:

  “Yes.”

  :Starlight?:

  “If the night is clear.”

  :It will be clear,: Nadi vowed. :And a kiss.:

  Beatrice scoffed. “No.”

  :I can make it happen,: Nadi said. :You can choose who. The book will be yours. But I want a kiss. Pick the handsomest man you desire.:

  “That’s another bargain,” Beatrice objected.

  :Not this time. Just a kiss, Beatrice Amara Clayborn. Your first kiss, by midnight. I want it.:

  Beatrice bit her lip. If she danced twice with the same young man at an assembly, it was permission to court her interest. To kiss a gentleman meant rather more than permission to court her. She couldn’t do it. But then she would have the book. She would have the book and she would gain her greater spirit, and then she would have what she wanted. Wasn’t a simple kiss worth that?

  “Nadi, you will wear a fine gown. You will dance. You will eat cake. You will see starlight. You will have a kiss by midnight, and then our bargain is done.”

  :It is struck,: Nadi said. :Chance will favor you. Let me in.:

  Beatrice stretched out her hand, touching the barrier that shielded her from the world of Spirit. It resisted her touch as if she were attempting to press two lodestones together.

  Beatrice steeled herself for the sake of the book. She pushed through the border of her protection. The spirit seized her fingers. Its touch chilled as it seeped into her flesh. It slid inside her body, filling out the spaces under her skin.

  :Yes,: Nadi said. :Carry me to midnight, magician.:

  Her hands raised without her will. She touched her own face, her throat. Her lungs filled with a deep breath, and she lunged for the strawberries, popping one red fruit after another into her mouth. Nadi gobbled every last scrap on the tray, tipped the goblet straight up to catch the last droplets of wine, and she smacked her lips, hungry for more.

  “Nadi!” she said. “You can’t indulge yourself like this. It’s unseemly.”

  :It’s so good,: Nadi replied in her mind. :Delicious. Delicious. I want more.:

  “We’ll get caught,” Beatrice said, “and if we get caught, there will be no music. And no cake. Or starlight. And you won’t know your kiss. You must behave.”

  :Let’s go outside,: Nadi said. :I want to feel the sunlight. I want to feel the wind. I want to go outside.:

  “There’s a terrace outside my room,” Beatrice said. “We can go out there, but you must be good.”

  :Good,: Nadi said. :I can be good. Let’s go, let’s go.:

  The spirit inside her fidgeted as she took the circle down, spinning th
e power back into herself. She cleaned the chalk marks off the floor, snuffed out every candle, and carefully picked her way down the ladder into her bedroom, where the clock had only a quarter hour left to tick before Clara would come to prepare her for the dance.

  The opening dance of the assembly hall of Bendleton was as densely attended as Clara had predicted. Music barely made itself heard above the laughter and conversation of the dance’s attendees—so many young people, all squeezed into the gowns and dancing suits that showed off their best qualities. They leaned against the fashionable gilt and seafoam-painted walls, stood in clumps of elegantly gowned friends, glanced at her and let their eyes slide past her face, her hair and ensemble observed, judged, and dismissed.

  Clara had chosen every detail of the ensemble Beatrice wore, had draped and laced and pinned Beatrice into a silk gown dyed to the exact shade of a springtime sky embroidered all over with pansies, had pinned every lock of her hair into the high, curled style that was all the fashion, laced her stays tightly enough to nip in her waist, and refused to attach a fichu to the gown’s alarmingly low neckline. Beatrice had given up trying to pull the stomacher a little higher. Now she was breathing against the boned restriction of her stays, trying not to let her chest swell.

  A young man in ivory silk watched, half a smirk on his face. Beatrice snapped her fan open, shielding herself from his sight.

  :Kiss him,: Nadi said. :He likes you.:

  :He does not like me,: Beatrice thought back. :He’s unsuitable.:

  :Hmph.: Nadi lifted her head and turned her gaze to the crowd. Danton Maisonette stood with other young men of fashion. He watched her as he tilted his head toward another gentleman, this one unadorned by the crown of sorcery. He glanced at Danton, surprised, and turned back to stare at her, his lips moving in a comment that made Danton and his company laugh.

  Beatrice’s stomach clenched. They were laughing at her. Danton had probably twisted the whole story and made her out to be a shrew and a status climber, and the tale would spread all over the dance.