The Midnight Bargain

by C. L. Polk

  Magicians’ summoning signs. Beatrice used them while casting conjurations. This woman carved from serpentine was a magician, probably one of those who lived high in the mountains around Sanchi and mastered the art and science of magic.

  If only she and Ysbeta could run away. But Beatrice couldn’t abandon her family to the debtors. She had to remain in Chasland and save them. She thought of never seeing Father, or Harriet, or Mother, not even for a visit, and her eyes watered. They had to do the ordeal. Beatrice needed her grimoire back, and that meant getting Ysbeta to the point where she could attempt it first. It wasn’t just she who needed this freedom. Ysbeta did too, and maybe more than Beatrice did.

  Ysbeta carried a packing case heavy enough that she leaned the opposite way to compensate. Tucked under her other arm was a clothbound book.

  Ysbeta nodded to one of the glass-paned doors leading out of the manor. “We’re having an outdoor lunch in the wood,” she said. “Let’s hurry.”

  “Just cut them with a knife,” Ysbeta said.

  “Even if I had such a thing, you would have to explain why your staylaces were cut.” Beatrice had managed to pull the knot a little more, and then the whole thing unraveled all at once. Ysbeta was nearly dancing with impatience, but Beatrice took care with this, as she had with Ysbeta’s mantua and stomacher.

  “The sun will be down before you’re done,” Ysbeta said, “and you said night conjurations were more dangerous.”

  It was hours to sundown, but they had no reason to dawdle. “Lift your arms.”

  Beatrice lifted the stays over Ysbeta’s head, careful with her hair, and laid the boned garment on top of the case, now overflowing with ruffled orange silk.

  “Cast the circle,” Beatrice said. “I want to be sure your casting is strong enough.”

  “I practiced,” Ysbeta said, a note of complaint in her voice.

  “But you have to do this alone,” Beatrice said. “This is what your brother did to gain the initiation of the rose.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He told me. Not in so many words, but he told me enough that I could figure out the rest.”

  Ysbeta bit her lip. “Ianthe had been a novice for years before he earned the rose.”

  “I know,” Beatrice said. “But there’s no time to study everything he did, even if we did have the means to learn it. What we’re doing is incredibly dangerous.”

  “You did it.”

  “And I had no idea what could have happened when I did. Ysbeta. You have to know who you are when you host a spirit. You have to be sure of yourself—not just your thoughts and reflections, but of your body.”

  “I know who I am,” Ysbeta said. “I promise I’ll be careful. Please let me do this.”

  Beatrice stood aside.

  Ysbeta had practiced, just as she said. Her casting was stronger. She remembered sigil and sign and vibrated the names of the lords of magic perfectly. Soon a silver-violet chased dome of light protected her, and she called out to the aether to a particular spirit.

  Beatrice held her breath. A shimmering shadow leaking black light flickered in front of Ysbeta.

  “Elamin, spirit of joy. I have a suitor I do not want, but I bear him no ill will. I want you to stir his feelings for a different woman.”

  The spirit shimmered. Beatrice tensed. Could it do that? Was that a reasonable thing to ask?

  “Let her be pretty enough. Let her have a sorceress’s talent. But turn his attention away from me. Make him fall in love with someone who will make him happy.”

  No. It was too much. Ysbeta couldn’t ask for this; it was wrong. “Banish it,” Beatrice said. “I don’t think a lesser spirit can do that.”

  Ysbeta didn’t react. Could she hear Beatrice at all? “I will give you conefruit. Whiskey. A hot, perfumed bath,” Ysbeta said. “An hour of music. The sight of the moon. I will carry you to midnight.”

  Beatrice shook her head. “It won’t work.”

  Ysbeta ignored her, still speaking to the spirit. “Then I will carry you to the next noon. You will wear my most beautiful habit. You will ride a fine horse. You will dream my dreams while I sleep. You will have meat this evening and pastry in the morning. Everything I do from now until noon you will enjoy. Do we have a bargain?”

  It was too much. “No,” Beatrice said. “Don’t agree to that. That’s too much time, you could get caught—”

  But Ysbeta thrust her hand through the barrier, sealing the bargain. The spirit engulfed her hand and slipped inside the circle. Sparks of black light streaked across Ysbeta’s skin before sinking inside her, fading from vision and magical sight.

  Beatrice’s gut gave a sickening lurch. It was done. Ysbeta had bargained too much. And the expression on her face was wrong—it was too greedy. Too hungry.

  Ysbeta snatched up the bottle of whiskey and drank till she coughed. Sweet, golden nectar ran down her arm to the elbow as she bit into the tender conefruit, chewing noisily.

  “Delicious,” Ysbeta said. “Where is more?”

  Beatrice braced herself. That wasn’t Ysbeta. Disaster stood in the sanctum with her, demanding more conefruit and whiskey.

  “You have to control it,” Beatrice said. “Spirits have no conscience. They don’t understand restraint. You must control it.”

  Ysbeta’s chin came up, her expression sulky. She took a step toward Beatrice, and Beatrice’s heart tried to kick its way out of her ribs. “I want more.”

  “Please, Elamin. Withdraw yourself,” Beatrice said. “Let me have my friend back.”

  “But it’s fun.”

  The voice wasn’t Ysbeta’s either. Instead of her honeyed, throaty voice, accented in a way that rolled the words into shiny, smooth polished stones, the spirit spoke in high-pitched tones, piping like a child.

  “You must let Ysbeta protect you.” Beatrice raised her hands, putting a wall between them. “If you get caught, you will be caged. You will be hurt. My friend will die.”

  Ysbeta had to fight. She had to control the spirit. The longer she kept the spirit talking, the better chance she had.

  But the spirit stared at her, Ysbeta’s mouth spread in a petulant line. “You’re spoiling my fun,” the spirit inside Ysbeta said. “Get out of my way.”

  “Ysbeta!” Beatrice cried, but she already shaped the wall of light and the sign of banishment. Breath poured down her throat, and Beatrice intoned the name of Anam, ready to cast it out.

  Her breath stopped as Ysbeta’s hands slid around her neck, squeezing. No air! She grabbed at Ysbeta’s wrists, trying to pull herself free, but her grip was too strong. Beatrice was going to die here. She couldn’t!

  She let go of Ysbeta’s wrists and made the signs, pushing her will out of her palms. Ysbeta let go, and Beatrice sucked up a loud breath. She had one chance.

  “Anam,” she croaked. “Welaa, Har—”

  Ysbeta squeaked and covered Beatrice’s mouth with her hand. “Don’t! Beatrice, it’s me, it’s Ysbeta, I have it. Don’t banish it.”

  Beatrice tried to swallow, her throat coated with dust. She coughed. “Release it.”

  “I can’t. I need this. Elamin, stop. You have to behave.” Ysbeta scowled. “Don’t talk back to me.”

  She looked so cross Beatrice would have laughed if she weren’t trying to get her breath back. She touched her throat—was it bruised?

  “You can’t!” Ysbeta, fists clenched, scolded the spirit inside her. “If we get caught, you won’t get to hear music. Do you want that? Oh Skyborn, Beatrice. I am so sorry.”

  “You can project your thoughts at it,” Beatrice said. Her voice was hoarse. “So you don’t attract attention. Elamin doesn’t know any better. But you see how dangerous this is? Let me banish it.”

  “No. I need this,” Ysbeta said. “I need Bard to change his mind. I need him to marry someone else. Anyone. I don’t care who,” Ysbeta said. “I need him to stop courting me. I’m not going to hurt him. This will help him. He’ll find a good wife and forget a
ll about me.”

  “But your mother and Lord Gordon want this,” Beatrice said. “You could just wind up doubly miserable, with a husband who doesn’t want you.”

  Ysbeta waved the argument away. “I’ll buy more time once Elamin turns his head for someone else. Mother wants to shove me into a marriage with Bard, but Bard’s opinion matters where mine does not.”

  “So Elamin makes Bard fall for someone else? Who?”

  “Anyone,” Ysbeta said. “I’m not the only bride who could make the Sheldons richer. The Maisonettes have money. Genevra Martin, that elegant girl with the rippling black hair—her father is a diplomat. Let him love that girl, heart-whole and happy.”

  “Can Elamin really make Bard fall in love with someone?”

  “It says it can fill Bard’s heart with joy at the sight of someone else.”

  Beatrice sighed. “You have to keep control of this spirit. If you had been doing this in the chapterhouse, I don’t think you would be alive right now.”

  Ysbeta shook her head. “It was only for a minute.”

  “It tried to kill me. And then it would have wandered out, and you would have paid the price for its actions. They kill the mage who is possessed, Ysbeta. They burn them alive.”

  Ysbeta blanched. “They what?”

  “Sorcerers are cremated at death here,” Beatrice said. “They can’t leave the body where a spirit could get at it.”

  “We burn our bodies too. But alive?”

  “It’s cruel,” Beatrice said. “I have never witnessed it. But that’s what Ianthe witnessed in Meryton.”

  Ysbeta looked properly unsettled now. “Elamin. Did you hear that? They’ll burn us if you don’t behave.”

  “You can—”

  “Project my thoughts at it,” Ysbeta finished. She frowned, thinking loudly at the spirit inside her. “I think it understands. I am so sorry, Beatrice. I only lost control for a minute. I didn’t know it moved so fast.”

  Ysbeta had teetered on the edge of disaster. But she snatched control back, and now she would be even more vigilant. The bargain would be fulfilled. She could escape this fate, and they could learn the magic in the next grimoire. And the next, until Beatrice held the spell for the great bargain in her hands.

  “You need to get back into your stays,” Beatrice said.

  Ysbeta’s shoulders slumped in relief. “And you need to get home. Will you play a little music while we wait for the carriage?”

  “I’d be happy to,” Beatrice said. “We have to banish the circle first. I’d like to watch you do that—”

  “Miss Clayborn.”

  Ysbeta stared in horror at the sanctum doors, a shadow over her face. Beatrice spun, her heart in her aching throat.

  Ianthe stood at the threshold of the sanctum, his form limned by the long rays of the sinking sun.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, and the world flinched under Beatrice’s feet.

  CHAPTER XIV

  All the words died on Beatrice’s tongue. Caught. They were caught, and there was no hiding what they were doing when the circle they stood in glowed like starlight to the magical sight of an initiate. She stood frozen as Ianthe came nearer, his hands clasped behind his back as he walked around the candlelit circle. Every step made dust puff into the air around his ankles as he dismantled their circle, gathering it up with an efficiency that spoke to his training. Ysbeta moved, finally, a violent swing of her arms.

  “Get out, Anthy! I’m not decent.”

  Beatrice moved to the basket and picked up Ysbeta’s stays. “We’ll be a moment.”

  But Ianthe ignored her, focused solely on the dome of magic he unraveled. His brow furrowed, and he paused. “A conjuration,” he said. “You two summoned a spirit. Is that correct?”

  Ysbeta crossed her arms over her chest. “If you say anything, I swear I’ll—”

  “Is that correct,” Ianthe said, his voice flat.

  “Yes,” Beatrice said. Ysbeta twisted to give Beatrice an exasperated look, but Beatrice ignored it. “It’s banished now; it’s over.”

  A lie echoed on the sanctum’s domed roof the same as any others, but Beatrice concentrated on juggling Ysbeta’s stays and their laces. If Ianthe learned that Ysbeta hosted a lesser spirit even as they spoke, he would be furious. He would pull the spirit from Ysbeta’s breast, and then Ysbeta’s bargain would not hold. Bard wouldn’t be lovestruck by someone else. But Ysbeta had to stay calm. She had to keep control over a spirit who had already gained the advantage, who had already asserted control over her body.

  Ianthe must never know what they had done here.

  “I warned you,” Ianthe said. “This is dangerous. It has to end.”

  “You can’t tell us what to do.” Ysbeta lifted her arms and let Beatrice wrap the stays around her body. “You can tell Father, you can report us, but you can’t—”

  “Don’t be a fool, Ysy,” Ianthe said. “You’ve been lucky so far. But you must keep a tight rein on spirits. When we take the Ordeal of the Rose and make our first bargain, we’re in danger. If we make a mistake, if we don’t do it exactly right, then we’re as good as dead.”

  Beatrice swallowed. They had come so close to disaster. Her throat still hurt—was it bruised?

  “But you can wrest control back,” Ysbeta said. “You might falter, but you can recover.”

  If she said anything, she would spill it all. Beatrice concentrated on threading Ysbeta’s stays, studying the expert stitching around the lacing holes.

  “If you’re lucky,” Ianthe said. “Whose idea was this, to come out here and toy with spirits?”

  “Mine,” Ysbeta said. “I wanted to consult a spirit about tomorrow’s ride.”

  “You cast a circle and conjured a spirit to scry for you? In the face of all the dangers.”

  “Yes,” Ysbeta lied. “There will be a commotion tomorrow. Everyone will be talking about it by sundown.”

  That wasn’t much of a prediction. Any large gathering of the young burst with potential to cause a stir, and Ianthe looked properly skeptical. “You didn’t need a spirit to predict that.”

  Ysbeta huffed. “I didn’t say we were satisfied by the conjuration.”

  “Ysbeta—” Ianthe turned to regard Beatrice. “My sister talked you into this.”

  “That’s hardly fair.” Beatrice pulled on the cord. “I have a will of my own.”

  “But you wouldn’t let her do something dangerous alone. That’s not the kind of friend you are. I know that much. But tell me something. Why did you leave me stranded on Pigment Street?”

  “That painting was horrifying,” Ysbeta said. “I can’t have a wedding like that. I can’t.”

  Beatrice ducked her head. It didn’t make sense that Ysbeta rushed off in a great upset and then whiled away the afternoon asking for gossip from a spirit. If Ianthe saw it on her face, they’d be sunk.

  “I know,” Ianthe said. “I am trying to help. Please believe that I will do everything I can to make this easier for you. But promise me you won’t muck about with conjurations again. You are in far more danger than you realize.”

  “I will not promise,” Ysbeta said. “I cannot promise. What will you do?”

  They stared at each other, and Beatrice hardly dared breathe.

  Ianthe clamped his mouth shut, then threw up his hands. “If you fail, no one will be here who can help you. If you fail, you will burn—and the spirit deserts you at the first flames, leaving you to die alone. Don’t you understand that?”

  “I can do this.” Ysbeta took a half step toward her brother and nearly tugged the staylaces out of Beatrice’s hands. “Help me. Don’t just stand there and prattle of the danger to me. I’m already in danger.”

  “Enough. I am taking Miss Clayborn home, and this is the last you will see of her in privacy.”

  “Does that mean you’ll help us?” Ysbeta asked.

  “Ysy—”

  “Perhaps I should go with a driver.” Beatrice pulled the laces taut, and Ysbet
a exhaled, allowing the stays to restrict her breaths. “If you wish to discuss this further, I mean.”

  “I am taking you home,” Ianthe said. “And I mean it. No more meeting each other alone. This ends now.”

  “I can’t marry Bard Sheldon. I won’t. I will do everything in my power to escape it. Everything.”

  “You do not have the skill to make the great bargain,” Ianthe said. “You don’t know the ritual, you don’t have time to learn it, and you won’t have a chance. I’m telling the housekeeper to keep a maid with you when Miss Clayborn is here, and I am not.”

  “Ianthe.” Ysbeta’s voice broke. “Don’t do this to me.”

  “I won’t watch you die,” Ianthe’s voice cut through the air. “I will not.”

  Beatrice held up Ysbeta’s mantua, and Ysbeta held the stomacher to her body as Beatrice pinned it into place. “Then don’t watch me marry a man who will keep me warded day in and day out, forced to have child after child! Don’t desert me in a country that strips me of my wealth and property, my very rights—simply because I am a woman! And for what? Don’t we have enough money? Don’t we have enough power? Do I have to die in childbed for Mother’s rubber empire?”

  Ianthe stood still. Understanding dawned on his face. “You will have the best doctors, the finest Llanandras has, I promise you. If your hesitation is about that—”

  “It is about what I want, and what I do not,” Ysbeta said. “I want my freedom. I don’t want to marry—not Bard Sheldon, not anyone. I want to continue my study of magic. I never, never want to be pregnant. And no one cares what I want except Beatrice.”

  Beatrice’s middle made an uneasy turn as Ianthe flicked a glance at her. “I care.”

  “Then do something! Help me.”

  “I will help you. I’m doing everything I can.”

  “But you’re not doing anything to help me get what I want—”

  “I can’t allow you to dabble in High Magic again. It’s too dangerous, and it’s not the answer.” Ianthe shook his head as Ysbeta voiced a wordless protest. “I am taking Miss Clayborn home. The subject is closed.”

  He held out his hand to Beatrice. With one last silent look at Ysbeta, she allowed Ianthe to lead her away.