The Midnight Bargain

by C. L. Polk

  :I’m glad you’re free. You have to fight them now. You have to fight.:

  :I will.:

  :Nadi will help. Nadi will hex your enemies. Nadi will bring you luck.: The spirit trembled inside her, and then stretched out its boundaries to fill her body. :A hug.:

  A tear rolled down her cheek. :Thank you, my friend.:

  They hugged that way—Nadi, pressing the envelope of its body to the boundaries of her skin; Beatrice, with her arms wrapped around her middle.

  “Now for my plan,” Ysbeta said. “It’s simple. First, I will summon a greater spirit of knowledge.”

  “You’re not ready yet,” Ianthe said. “Beatrice, tell her.”

  “You have to gain the companionship of a lesser spirit before you can attempt the ordeal,” Beatrice said. “Ianthe has had the company of Fandari for years. I have Nadi, but it’s only been a few weeks. You have to wait until you—”

  “There is no time,” Ysbeta said. “Ianthe, tell her what you told me.”

  “Bard Sheldon’s father, our parents, and their lawyers are in a meeting today,” Ianthe said. “They’re negotiating the marriage agreement for Ysbeta. Right now. But Ysy, you can’t do this. I know you want to help us. I do. But we have to follow my plan.”

  “Let you do it first,” Ysbeta said. “But I should go first, because—”

  “I have the most experience,” Ianthe said. “I know the most. But Beatrice has to do this immediately after, once I have been through the risks. Then we will evaluate the difficulty and determine how much more preparation you need.”

  “But I need this the most.”

  “Your marriage is in negotiations. Beatrice’s is tomorrow. She needs this more.”

  Ysbeta let out a gusty sigh. “If you’d just listen—fine. Very well. We shall abide by your plan.”

  They pulled into Lavan House’s round driveway. A swarm of grooms took charge of the pony cab, taking Ianthe’s battered hat and jacket used in his disguise.

  “George. Take Clara inside, and have Chef prepare her a meal. Is the staff still eating?”

  “I think they’ve begun, sir.”

  “Good. Tell them she’s Miss Beatrice’s lady’s maid, and that she needs a meal and refreshment.”

  “Oh, sir,” Clara said. “Thank you.”

  “Now you will go where Beatrice does.” He strode inside the house, calling for the butler. “Charles! I need a lawyer who isn’t beholden to my parents. I’m about to destroy a marriage contract. Go to the cathedral in Meryton and get me a man who enjoys delivering justice.”

  Charles bowed and moved to obey Ianthe. Ianthe led the way to the back of the house.

  “Have you eaten?” Ianthe asked. “It’s important to eat before the ordeal. In the chapterhouse, the initiate is honored with a feast before they enter the ritual chamber.”

  “What happens in the ritual?” Beatrice took a seat in a painted iron chair and served herself. Toast points. Duck eggs. Goose sausage. Fresh tomatoes—that was their greensman’s work, when he wasn’t cultivating orchids.

  Beatrice ate the goose sausage, which Nadi noisily enjoyed.

  Ianthe sat between Ysbeta and Beatrice and took a toast point. “You aren’t instructed until you enter the ritual chamber, and you can’t tell anyone what happened if you succeeded.”

  “But if Beatrice doesn’t succeed—”

  Beatrice laid a hand over the anxious rumbling in her middle. “What will you do if the greater spirit possesses me?”

  “It’s very rare,” Ianthe said. “But you will die.”

  “But the spirit will kill you to get you out of its way,” Beatrice said. “Maybe you shouldn’t be there when I do it.”

  “I must be there,” Ianthe said.

  “But I don’t want you to—if I fail, and the spirit hurts you, that’s more than I can bear.”

  Ianthe bit his lip. “I have a spirit blade. Everyone makes a fuss over the rose sword, but it’s a shiny stick. The real power rests in the dagger.”

  “How?”

  “It’s crafted with the same material and technique as the warding collars. The sheath shields its effects.”

  “So spirits loathe it,” Beatrice said. “It hurts them.”

  “Yes. I sink it in your body to the hilt, and it disrupts the body so much the spirit flees—and then you die.”

  Ysbeta and Beatrice sat back in their chairs. Beatrice let out a shaky breath. “So if I fail, you have to kill me.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re willing?”

  “I must,” Ianthe said. “No one faces this ordeal without someone who will do what’s needed. It’s my duty to the mysteries. It’s my duty to you, as my beloved. Will you face death to gain this?”

  “Yes.”

  He knew her. He knew her fate in a warding collar was worse than death. Worse than dying. He knew her enough and loved her enough to be by her side while she faced it.

  “Skyborn. I never thought anyone declaring that they would plunge a knife into their beloved’s heart was romantic, but you two seem capable of anything,” Ysbeta said.

  Beatrice smiled. “Perhaps it’s time we looked at that grimoire.”

  “Right. One copy of To Summon a Greater Spirit and Propose the Pact of the Great Bargain, coming right away.”

  Ysbeta left the table and went inside the house. Beatrice picked up a tiny, vividly red tomato and bit into it. Delicious, full of the flavor of slowly ripening on a vine in the sunshine.

  :Beatrice?:

  :Yes, Nadi?:

  :What happens to me?:

  All of the grimoires had remained silent about this. They instructed a sorceress to command, to conjure, to charge a spirit with a task. But Ianthe had spoken of a companion spirit, of summoning the same spirit many times. That was what they did in the chapterhouse. Why? Didn’t they—

  “Ianthe,” Beatrice said. “Nadi is returned.”

  “So it’s there even though you don’t call it,” Ianthe said. “That’s excellent. That’s the sign that you are ready.”

  “Is that what it is?”

  “Indeed. My own sponsor told me that I was ready to risk the mage ordeal and become an initiate of the great mystery—after I married.”

  “But why call the same spirit over and over? Why get to know it? Why nurture its loyalty to you just to—”

  “To prove you are capable of such things before you attempt the greater spirit. It’s a demonstration of your skill— Oh. Nadi is back, and you have to say goodbye to it.”

  :But Nadi is your friend. You need Nadi! Nadi needs you.:

  Her eyes filled with tears. She loved the spirit, full of mischief and opinions. Would a greater spirit love her? Would they want to ride in her body just to see, to feel? Or did she have to become the commanding mage, locked in an adversarial bargain with a spirit fully capable of destroying her if it wished?

  Magic bargained for the things you weren’t ready to give. It wasn’t fair. Nadi would return to the aetheric plane, the endless nothingness that spirits drifted through. Until another magician called Nadi. Another magician would call Nadi. Perhaps her friend would remember her.

  :Nadi, who called you before I did?:

  :It was so long ago,: Nadi said. :I was nothing. I knew a sorceress, long and long ago, until her light went out and I became a memory, alone in the dark. Then I heard my name, and I was. I became. And you were so bright, so alive . . . :

  :And when you’re back in the aetheric, will you—:

  :I don’t want to go back. It’s full of nothing. It makes me nothing too. But I can see you. I will see you until the nothing takes it all away.:

  Oh, that was horrible. Horrible. Beatrice pushed her plate away and shut her eyes.

  “Beatrice?”

  “I have to—I hate this,” Beatrice said. “I have to abandon Nadi, but . . . what happens to them? The spirits, I mean,” Beatrice asked. “What becomes of them?”

  “I don’t know,” Ianthe said. “Perhaps the
ritual in the grimoire describes it.”

  “I hope so.” Beatrice gazed out onto the formal gardens, at the winding circuitous path at the center—the road of right action, the exact path Llanandari slowly walked at sunrise or noontime or sunset or deep in midnight’s arms when they had a spiritual question or a dilemma of choice.

  “I walked it the day we came back,” Ianthe said. “I asked the path to show me what I should have done and tell me what I could do.”

  “And what did it answer?”

  “That the only choice I had, the only responsibility I had, was to honor your pursuit of freedom. To stand next to you as you faced death. That you are your own person, and love needs to be free, or else it’s just ownership.”

  He understood. He comprehended her need, and he honored it, and—

  Beatrice shook her head. “I was a fool to say no to you.”

  “You had your reasons,” Ianthe said. “But maybe they don’t matter as much. What will you do after you’ve become a mage?”

  Beatrice paused, thinking. “I don’t know. I was going to help Father and be a thornback. But he wants no part of that. I don’t know what I could do.”

  “You could come with me and Ysbeta.”

  “But we can’t ever risk a child.”

  “I know. It doesn’t matter.”

  “But you need a son,” Beatrice said. “You can’t run away with me. I will never be able to give you a family. If we run away together, you’ll be throwing away everything. They’ll expel you from the chapterhouse, you’ll be estranged from your parents . . .”

  “I know.”

  “Then why are you doing this? You’ll be giving up your whole life.”

  “It’s no more than what is asked of you, and all women with the power. I thought about it. Marriage is a sacrifice. But it’s the sorceress who gives up everything.”

  Beatrice trembled. “You will give up everything for me.”

  “I love you. And if I have to choose between you, fully within your destiny, or a son to continue the traditions that depend on keeping you diminished, I choose you.”

  Ianthe gathered up her hands in his. “I want to be with you. More than that. I want to stand by your side as you claim what ought to be your right. This is what I didn’t understand until it was almost too late. Can you marry me now? Will you?”

  Warmth swelled inside her, rushing all through her limbs. She had never imagined this. The way was clear, and she squeezed Ianthe’s hand as she stepped into the first moment of her new life. “Yes. Yes, I can. Yes, I will.”

  They remained like that, hands clasped and smiling at each other, the moment bigger than any words that would try to cage it.

  “Rebels and radicals, together. And Ysbeta, too? She keeps talking about her plan, but she’s tight-lipped about what it is.”

  “She wants to travel the world and record all the magic used outside the chapterhouse,” Beatrice said. “We could go with her. It could be a good life.”

  “I can still invest a sum with your father and offer him a strong share of the profits. Your family need not crumble because of this. And when we’re all magi—”

  “Ysbeta means to use the spell today?”

  “Not yet,” Ianthe said. “She isn’t ready yet, but between the two of us, I think we can get her ready for next year. The important part is to get her away from Chasland and out of Mother’s reach. I know she wants the power, but distance is more important.”

  “Where is Ysbeta?” Beatrice asked. “Surely Lavan House is not so large that she has to travel a mile between her room and back.”

  “She should be here,” Ianthe said. “Maybe she didn’t know which book.”

  “No, she named it exactly. To Summon a Greater Spirit—hold on,” Beatrice said, her blood gone cold. “I never told her the name of the spell. How did she know that? Oh, no.”

  “What is it?”

  “Have you noticed if Ysbeta has taken up puzzle books?”

  “She’s been up to her eyes in them. Every spare minute, she’s deciphering codes— What is it?”

  Beatrice jumped to her feet. “She’s figured out how to solve grimoire code.”

  “What is that?”

  “It’s how women learn higher magic,” Beatrice said. “I’ll explain later. We have to find her before she gets into trouble.”

  Ianthe shoved his chair back with a grinding scrape. “Do you think she took the book to—”

  “Do the spell first? I do,” Beatrice said. “She was trying to tell us why she needed to go first, and we didn’t listen—”

  Ianthe’s mouth went round in dismay. “But I told her she wasn’t ready.”

  “Does your sister thank you for your excellent advice and do exactly as you say when you tell her how she ought to do things?”

  Ianthe’s mouth was grim. “No. Skyborn! We’ve got to find her.”

  “I know where she went,” Beatrice said.

  “The sanctum,” Ianthe agreed. “Let’s go.”

  Beatrice hitched her skirts up past her knees, kicked off her delicate pillar-heeled shoes, and dashed over the pebbled path of the ornamental garden in stockinged feet. Ianthe’s long stride outpaced hers, his heels kicking up pebbles as he sprinted toward the sanctum. Beatrice kept on, her feet stinging with every step. Her stockings punctured, fraying right off her toes, and still she ran, ignoring the pain and the light-headed gasping breaths that fought against her stays.

  Nadi poured into her limbs, making her run faster than she could alone. A thread snapped, and the foot of her stocking flapped around her ankle. She passed Ianthe’s three-cornered hat, fallen to the path. He was still ahead, but she was gaining, thanks to Nadi’s help.

  The sanctum came into view, and from it, the thin wavering sound of a scream ribboned from its depths. Beatrice found more strength, more speed, and took the mossy stairs to the round, domed building two at a time, catching herself on the doorway to stop from blundering into the scene before she even saw it.

  But the sight was terrible. Ysbeta struggled on her knees, trying to make the signs for the wall of light and the sign of banishment. Ianthe, circling the soft glowing light of the circle Ysbeta had cast to bring the aetherial and the material worlds together, shouting in Mizunh—“Ka! Genmas In Ka!”

  It did nothing. The spirit rose higher in the air, so much larger than Nadi, its black light deeper and more powerful.

  Ianthe shouted again, as if Ysbeta couldn’t hear him.

  “Cast it out,” he called. “Make a golden shield of your will and cast it out!”

  Ysbeta’s voice broke on a terrified sob. All around her, the sparkling anti-light of a spirit, the largest such manifestation Beatrice had ever seen, coiled itself around Ysbeta and tried to slip under her untrained, fear-weakened defenses.

  “I command you, Hilviathras, Greater Spirit of Knowledge! I banish you, Hilviathras, Greater Spirit of Knowledge! I—”

  Ysbeta’s words were muffled as the spirit engulfed her mouth. Ianthe, tears clogging his voice, still called to his sister. “Hold the signs! Cast the shield with all your might! Cast it!”

  But Ysbeta was sinking, and Ianthe’s open mouth stretched wide with pain and despair. Sobbing, he fumbled at the sheath at his hip and pulled out his dagger. The silvery blade glowed to Beatrice’s sight, and the taste of raw iron filled her mouth. He settled the handle in his right hand and stepped toward the circle.

  :No!: Nadi cried. :Beatrice!:

  But Beatrice was already moving. She ran full tilt, her skin shivering as she crossed the line separating mundane space and between, the circle wavering to her sight as her intrusion snapped its integrity. Nadi swelled all around her like a pair of enormous, light-made wings, filling her with might.

  She extended her hands and struck Ysbeta in the chest, right where Ianthe had planted his hand on her the night of the card party. Her power flexed its fingers as it sank under Ysbeta’s skin and curled around the squirming, enraged form of the spirit trying to
take her flesh.

  “Hilviathras, Greater Spirit of Knowledge,” Beatrice said, and her voice had a chorus in it, as she and Nadi spoke as one. “I command you. Abandon this body and face me.”

  The spirit flinched. It slid over Ysbeta’s body, making a pillar of itself, rising and rising until Beatrice nearly whimpered at the size of it. At its power, outstripping her own.

  :I am Hilviathras,: it said. :You presume to command me—you, who are nothing? You are a speck.

  It loomed over Beatrice, huge and light-consuming. :But you are a better speck than this one. More refined. Better trained. You will be less frustrating to use.:

  :No,: Nadi said. :You will not have my Beatrice. You will not!:

  Nadi gathered itself, growing larger, but still small against the greater spirit. It coiled magic inside itself, and cast it at the spirit, who flinched—once, twice.

  Once for Nadi, who bit off a chunk of Hilviathras’s form. Twice for Ianthe, who planted his hand against Ysbeta’s back, his own spirit rising out of its body to challenge the knowledge spirit.

  It turned, its form facing Ianthe, who glared up at it and bared his teeth.

  “Hilviathras, Greater Spirit of Knowledge,” Ianthe said, and his own voice carried that same eerie harmony. “You may not have either of these women, so long as I draw breath.”

  :Have it your way,: Hilviathras said, and struck.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Ianthe gasped and clutched at his chest. The greater spirit struck once more, knocking Ianthe to the ground. The rose dagger clattered to the stone floor, sending up sparks as it landed on the line of the summoning circle, its power disrupting the casting.

  The circle’s light winked out, but it didn’t matter. Hilviathras was tethered to the material, and it was too powerful. Too potent. It held Ysbeta in its grasp and extended a tendril of itself toward Nadi, siphoning the spirit’s power away.

  Nadi and Ianthe’s spirit Fandari struck in unison, tearing pieces from the spirit’s form, absorbing the power. Hilviathras ignored Fandari and countered with a gnashing bite of its own, and Nadi yelped. Beatrice screamed at the pain, and then the weak, hollow feeling of having something torn from her.