The Midnight Bargain

by C. L. Polk

  “He’s telling Father about the accident,” Beatrice said.

  The physician opened her packing case and produced a bottle. “You must stay off the leg. You are on bed rest until dawn. To aid that, I have a mixture here that will help you sleep, so you can’t be tempted. It will make staying still easier.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  The physician smiled, her eyes bright and pleased in her wrinkled face. “You’re a good girl. Drink up.”

  The mixture was sweetened, but carried a dark, earthlike flavor alongside an insistent herbal taste. She swallowed it and a bit of water and rubbed her aching knuckles.

  :What’s that?:

  :Medicine. I will sleep soon.:

  :I feel funny,: Nadi said. :Can we dream?:

  :Unless the drug stops me.:

  :I want to dream.:

  Beatrice smiled as the soft, cotton-packed feeling of the drug played over her senses.

  “I see Ianthe. He’s coming out,” Harriet said, and dashed out of the room, returning with a worry-pinched face. “He’s—oh no! He’s joining the gentlemen! He’s singing with them!”

  “Harriet,” Beatrice said, her tongue too thick to make her words crisp. “I’m very sleepy. Could you go out, please?”

  “This is a disaster,” Harriet said. “They’ll call you nothing else. You are a figure of fun. No one will want to marry you now.”

  “That’s a relief,” Beatrice said. “Now please go. I want to sleep.”

  “Come along,” the physician said. “Leave your sister to mend. She’ll be ravenous in the morning—why don’t you go plan her breakfast with Cook?”

  Harriet allowed herself to be herded outside, and Beatrice listened to the chorus singing of Ijanel—concentrating on the bits of the story where she was the lord-general of Chasland, and not the part where she was painfully executed in order to break her power over the country and silence her alarming talk of deposing the king.

  But that also meant leaving out the part where her spirit, robed in glory, rose out of her body to be embraced by the wind lord himself, earning her a permanent place among the emissaries of the Skyborn. And Chasland’s ministers did depose the king, inspired by that nation’s best-known saint.

  Ijanel was a hero—but she had paid bitterly for standing outside of her place. It had come out rewarding in the end, but Beatrice didn’t want Ijanel’s suffering. She only wanted to be herself. She only wanted to live to her fullest potential, to make use of the Skyborn’s gift, alive in her body.

  Maybe she asked for too much. Maybe she couldn’t have what she wanted. Ianthe would be kind. He would allow her as much freedom as he could. Maybe she should be grateful for that.

  Ijanel didn’t rise to power to satisfy herself. She selflessly gave everything to Chasland. Beatrice should be selfless too. For her family. For Ianthe.

  :You’re sad,: Nadi said.

  :I am. It’s all right, Nadi. Let’s dream.:

  She closed her eyes, and in her dream, she flew.

  The bonemend had been correct. Beatrice slid gingerly out of bed, but swiftly proved with a chassé to the gowns Clara had chosen and a standing jeté that her knee was healed to a full recovery.

  “The blue walking suit,” Beatrice said, and after a bath and an hour of preparation, she ventured to the first-floor terrace to take breakfast, but faltered when Father was seated at the table with an empty plate and a full cup of coffee, reading the broadsheets.

  Beatrice winced at an upside-down headline in the Bendleton Tribune: Warrior Maid Vanquishes Knave with One Blow. It wasn’t at the top of the page—it was crammed on the second half, and the tiny print took up two inches. But she was in the papers, and Father would act like she wasn’t even there.

  He tipped a corner of the Gravesford Times down to look at her, and Beatrice smiled, hopeful. “Good morning.”

  “You look fetching,” he said, and Beatrice vibrated with shock. He was speaking to her? “Are you on the search for anything you need for the Lavans’ party?”

  “Ysbeta Lavan wishes my company at a café today,” Beatrice said. “We may browse the shops after.”

  “An excellent day. You have done well, to cultivate such a powerful friendship. All this fuss will blow over. None of it will matter in a year. Enjoy yourself today,” Father said, and Beatrice had to sit down after he rose from the table and squeezed her shoulder.

  He hadn’t ignored her. He had praised her. After what she had done? It made no sense. But she hurried through her breakfast and her knee didn’t trouble her at all as she climbed into the landau. Ysbeta, splendid in a pale blue that nearly matched Beatrice’s walking suit in color even as it outstripped it in quality and ornament, rose to offer Beatrice her seat.

  “An excellent choice of color,” Ysbeta said. “Cornelius, take us by way of Thornback Street. We wish to see the gardens.”

  It was early in the season to admire gardens, but the first flush of flowers were in bloom by now. Cornelius slowed the carriage as they turned onto Thornback Street, and soon they saw what they wanted—before a modest little house with white painted sills and deep red bricks stood a hazel tree, as dense with catkins as its blooming chestnut neighbor.

  Beatrice and Ysbeta smiled at each other. They had found one, exactly where Beatrice had predicted. “I must compliment the owner on her design,” Ysbeta said. “Wait here, Cornelius. We’re going to call on the lady of the house.”

  Cornelius touched his hat and pulled out a book to join him for the wait.

  Ysbeta marched up the walk and knocked on the front door, nodding to the maid who answered it. “I am Ysbeta Lavan,” she said, and the maid’s eyes widened a fraction and she bobbed her knees again. “I wish to compliment the lady of the house on her lovely garden. May we ask for her company?”

  “I shall ask, miss,” the maid said. “Did you wish to see Miss Tarden, or Miss Wallace?”

  Beatrice spoke up. “We would enjoy the company of either. This dress is one of theirs.”

  They were shown into a parlor, a small room made smaller with the presence of a box-framed pianochord against one wall. They took spindle-legged seats and removed their gloves, and Ysbeta nodded as the maid asked if they would like tea. Beatrice opened her senses, but she could not detect the presence of grimoires nearby.

  “You never told me your modistes were magicians.”

  “I had no reason to suspect they were.”

  “Do you think the trees were a mistake?”

  “They’re young trees,” Beatrice said. “I don’t think there’s any harm in asking a few questions.”

  :Nadi,: she asked. :Can you tell a grimoire?:

  :Yes.:

  :Can you tell me if there are any inside this house?:

  :Yes. I will come back,: Nadi said, and the spirit left her flesh and blinked out of view.

  Ysbeta stared at the space where the spirit had been and frowned at Beatrice. “Did you just lose your spirit?”

  “Temporarily,” Beatrice said. “I sent it to look for grimoires. What if we could compare books and share knowledge? I think that’s something the ladies are doing anyway. It could be our entrance to their society.”

  “We are sorceresses,” Ysbeta said. “That should be enough.”

  The maid returned with tea, which they thanked her for, but the lady of the house didn’t appear. The tea timer’s last grains of sand fell to the bottom chamber. Properly, she should have been there to pour for her guests. What was the delay?

  “She’s making us wait,” Ysbeta complained. “Did her maid tell her that I had called on her?”

  “She may not have been dressed for callers,” Beatrice said. “She could have been stained with ink from all the accounting and correspondence, and ink is stubborn.”

  “It may be as you say—”

  The door opened, and Beatrice stood for the woman who owned the very shop where her walking suit had come from, and her newest ball gowns, and the green wedding gown she dreaded.
<
br />   “Miss Tarden,” Beatrice said. “Thank you for accepting our call.” No crown of sorcery ringed this woman’s head. Why the trees out front, then? They couldn’t be a mistake.

  Ysbeta cocked her head. “It seems we are an imposition, Miss Tarden. I had hoped to compliment you on your handsome shade trees, but clearly you are a busy woman.”

  “I thank you for the compliment,” Miss Tarden said. “I don’t wish to be rude—”

  “But you’re going to,” Ysbeta interrupted. “I’m curious. Why did you plant those two trees in particular?”

  Miss Tarden went white, her face pinched. “They seemed compatible,” she said. “I apologize, but I must return to my shop. I have a busy schedule—”

  Nadi returned then, settling back into Beatrice’s body. :Eight. She has eight.:

  Beatrice gazed at Miss Tarden, who had turned her head and tracked Nadi’s presence, and her expression pinched up with fear.

  “Please,” Beatrice said. “I know you are a sorceress, even though you know a way to hide it from a knowing eye. You felt my spirit come in the room, and it has told me that you have eight grimoires in your possession—”

  “You can’t have them,” Miss Tarden said. “I will defend my home and property.”

  “We don’t want to take them from you. We’re here because we want to learn more magic.”

  “We wish to make the great bargain,” Ysbeta said. “As I believe you also wished, Miss Tarden. But anything you have to teach us would be useful.”

  “I don’t—I would like you to leave.”

  Beatrice’s jaw fell open. “What have we done to offend?”

  “I saw that landau from the upstairs window. The whole street saw it. You are ingenues. You’re here for bargaining season. I have sewn seams on your gowns, miss, and your bridal attire awaits the final fitting in my shop. I’m sorry. You stand too high for us. If we help you—”

  Beatrice understood. “You’re afraid you’ll get caught.”

  “If anyone saw you here, I’m finished. The circle will ostracize me. We’ve worked too hard to stay hidden to risk having ingenues anywhere near us.”

  “It was the trees,” Ysbeta said. “They pointed the way.”

  “I will have them cut down,” Miss Tarden vowed. “I didn’t put them there for you.”

  “But we know the code. We have grimoires.” Ysbeta stood up, her voice pleading. “We want what you want, and you won’t give it to us because we’re—”

  “You can never be one of us, Miss Lavan. I’m sorry, but I have no wish to leave you with flowery lies. If you don’t marry, everyone will want to know why. You will attract too much attention—and your father is spending money like water, Miss Clayborn, trying to buy you an engagement. If you cry off, people will ask questions.”

  “But—”

  “I must protect my colleagues,” Miss Tarden said. “I am sorry. But we must not be discovered.”

  “I have five grimoires,” Ysbeta said. “They include the names of greater spirits, and the ritual to make the great bargain itself.”

  “And I have four,” Beatrice said. “Surely there is some worth in that. Will you admit us in exchange for that?”

  Miss Tarden stared. She licked her lips. “I’ll give you five thousand crowns for each.”

  “Miss Tarden. I am Ysbeta Lavan. I do not want your crowns. I want the alliance of a greater spirit. Put us in contact with someone who can guide us, and I will give you—”

  “No,” Miss Tarden’s face shuttered closed, nothing on it but cold reproof. “I will not endanger my colleagues. I will not defy the code. There is nothing more to say. Good afternoon, ladies. I wish things could be different, but they are not.”

  She rang a bell and the maid came immediately. “Miss Lavan and Miss Clayborn are leaving. Wish them luck and see them off. Goodbye, ladies. I have work to attend.”

  Miss Tarden stood and walked out of the room, leaving Beatrice and Ysbeta to stare at each other.

  “Well,” Ysbeta said. “I suppose we should go.”

  They returned to the landau, and Beatrice finally spoke. “She wouldn’t help us. I think none of them will. We’re on our own, Ysbeta.”

  “We can do this,” Ysbeta said. “I will think of something. We should go home. I’m going to need time to get ready for the party. I’ll tell you what I come up with then.”

  The party. Beatrice would attend, and Ianthe would propose. But there was a society of women magicians, women who had hidden their talents, escaped the warding collar, and knew each other. Working women, business proprietors who knew higher magic, but didn’t step out of hiding to help a sister sorceress. They were selfish, caring for nothing but their own power—

  Just like Beatrice. She too had intended to work in secret, securing the fortune of her family, living a quiet life as a master magician no one would remember or even remark upon. She had thought herself alone in her desire to pursue magic. Meeting Ysbeta had crumpled that notion. But a whole network of women magicians should be in the light. They should be known, so other girls knew that they didn’t have to lock themselves inside a warding collar with no other choices. If the hazel and chestnut ladies should be fighting for the freedom of other women, then shouldn’t Beatrice make that effort herself? Shouldn’t she and Ysbeta spread all the magic they had learned to everyone, so the knowledge would never die?

  But how? She was only one woman, still. The ladies of hazel and chestnut chose the shadows. Someone had to step forward, but Beatrice couldn’t be the one to do it. She had a family who needed her help—by magic or marriage, they needed her.

  She brooded all the way back to Triumph Street. The hidden sisterhood couldn’t help her. They couldn’t meet at Ysbeta’s house. But perhaps Ysbeta would have an idea tomorrow—something they could hold on to, knotting it into hope’s hair.

  Chapter XVII

  Tomorrow came, and Beatrice was busy being slathered in beauty milk, her skin wrapped and plucked and waxed. The final day had come; her fate had been chosen for her. Today was her last day as an ingenue, and she stayed perfectly still as Clara painted lacquer on her fingernails, a poultice of clay drying on her face. She dressed and rode with her family to the modest dock just west of Bendleton to sail to the overnight party hosted by the Lavans.

  Beatrice wore her best gown—a shining silk in the palest mauve, the stomacher the labor of a master needlewoman, glittering with faceted crystal beads and silver thread. Vividly embroidered songbirds of Chasland flew in a great murmuration along the full underskirt, their wings spread, their beaks open in song. Beatrice traced the outline of a plump blue-gray catbird resting over her once-injured knee and stared at the Shining Hand, anchored in the deep waters almost at the horizon.

  They sailed on the deck of a light, rapid sloop, a richly appointed pleasure craft named the Redjay. The dip and roll of the sea bothered her not a bit, but Mother groaned with nausea.

  “We’re nearly there,” Beatrice assured her. “Look how large the ship is now.”

  Father cleared his throat. “We may be sailing longer than you think. That’s a Llanandari treasure vessel. They are of prodigious size.”

  “But it’s already enormous,” Beatrice said. “It’s a hundred feet long, easily.”

  Father smiled. “It’s three hundred and sixty-seven feet long, my dear.”

  Beatrice watched the Shining Hand grow until it blocked the horizon, so large she could scarcely fathom it. Their vessel was a dinghy compared to it, and Beatrice gazed on the rows of portholes—some were windows to sleeping quarters, but the rest bristled with guns. She craned her neck and gazed at the ship’s tallest mast and tried to imagine the size of its sails.

  The crew hailed the Shining Hand and secured permission to come aboard. How were they to board such an enormous vessel? But the crew of the Hand lowered sling hammocks on long lines.

  She was to sit in that sling and be lifted on deck. Beatrice gulped.

  :Can we make it swing?: Nadi
asked.

  :I think we shouldn’t.:

  :A little?:

  :A little.:

  Nadi wriggled in delight.

  Beatrice kept a firm grip on the handles as she rose in the air. She kicked her legs to swing a little, to Nadi’s pleasure. The sailors raised her high above the rails and swung the arm over the deck, lowering her as gently as Ianthe’s spirit had set her on the ground after her escape from death. Ianthe stood with Ysbeta, Mrs. Lavan, and a stately, handsome man who must be their father. Beatrice found her feet and curtsied, raising her head to see the father smiling.

  Mrs. Lavan did not.

  “So this is the Warrior Maid!” Mr. Lavan said. He wrapped two warm hands around Beatrice’s and shook. “I admire a woman of spirit. She’s very pretty, Ianthe. Where are you from, Miss Clayborn?”

  “Riverstone House, in Mayhurst,” Beatrice said.

  “The country, how splendid. And do you farm?” Mr. Lavan inquired.

  Mrs. Lavan bumped her husband with an elbow. “There are still guests to be greeted, Mr. Lavan.”

  “Indeed there are, my starlight, but none of them so interesting to my son as this one.” Mr. Lavan smiled at her, and Beatrice smiled back.

  “It’s lovely to meet you, Mr. Lavan.”

  “I’ve been so curious about you, my dear. Promise me you will join my table when we dine.”

  “I shall,” Beatrice said. “Thank you for your kind invitation, Mr. Lavan, Mrs. Lavan.”

  Mr. Lavan chuckled and let her go.

  She gave Ianthe a fleeting glance and then allowed the porter to guide her and the rest of her family to the rooms that would be theirs for the evening. She had a cabin to herself. She even received her own key, and Beatrice touched every polished, expertly joined, built-in piece of furniture. It was small, but so charmingly appointed it felt intimate rather than cramped.

  On the bed lay a folded note. Beatrice opened it, and read—

  I will meet you here before dawn.

  —Ys

  Ysbeta wanted to meet her. To say what? Couldn’t she at least have given a hint?