Page 8

THE BARGAIN

S he stared at the man, indignation coming to the boil.

Having steeled herself to take charge of her own destiny, having come up with a Plan on how to do it, and having finally enacted said Plan more-or-less successfully, it seemed wholly unfair that it had all been entirely pointless if Malediction had no power to change her fate .

Unless Malediction was lying. She wanted to believe that he was, that everything from his disarming ear twitching to his plausible-sounding tale was designed to manipulate her.

But if he was telling the truth… she needed a new plan.

You couldn’t threaten someone into giving up something they themselves didn’t have.

Mainly, she felt tired. She’d walked a long way in both heat and anticipation of danger before having her entire world turned upside down.

There was a bump at the door. Malediction started. “I’ve been a poor host,” he said abruptly. “Do you drink tea?”

“Yes?” Before she could ask him why he was asking such a thing, he had whisked out of his seat and opened the door, revealing a tea tray atop a wheeled contraption.

“Thank you, Skymallow,” he said to the house, collecting the tea tray and closing the door.

Gisele could only watch in bemused wonder as he set the tea tray on the wooden coffee table. The table was made of a tree stump, its surface highly polished but with the original shape left intact.

“I have black tea or rosehip. Also biscuits.” He lifted a teapot. “What would you like?”

“Are you trying to poison me in return?” she asked suspiciously.

He drew himself up in affront. “I have offered you food in my own house; I would not break guestright in such a fashion.”

She worked that one out. “You’re saying it’s bad manners to poison guests, even after they’ve poisoned you first?”

“Precisely.” He wasn’t immune to the humour of the situation, amusement flashing briefly in his eyes.

“Are you trying to manipulate me into giving you the antidote, then, with this friendly afternoon tea act?”

“Of course I’m trying to manipulate you!

I had hoped the fact that I genuinely can’t give you what I don’t have might do the trick, but if it hasn’t, I’m more than willing to resort to the small briberies of refreshments.

But I certainly want tea, even if you don’t.

It’s been a long day, what with being stabbed and poisoned.

” He raised the teapot meaningfully. “Well?”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having, then,” she grudgingly allowed. The biscuits smelled amazing.

He served her with all the elegance of a palace butler, though he made what she thought was an unnecessarily dramatic show of having to do it one-handed before sitting back down.

She waited for him to take his first bite of biscuit before starting on hers, which he did while giving her a look that said he thought she was being ridiculous.

“I would free you if I could,” he said abruptly. “I’m sorry for what my bargain has done to your life. It was never my intention.”

It was difficult to keep being angry with someone whilst consuming tea and biscuits, especially when they were apologising with every appearance of sincerity and looking sympathetically wounded.

Her throat constricted, and she had to swallow past the lump in it.

What was wrong with her? Of course he sounded sincere when his own life was on the line!

She put her cup of tea down. “What happens if you die? Would it break the bond?”

He interlaced his fingers. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Death ends most curses. Are you going to let me die of poisoning, then?”

She scowled at him. “You’re being implausibly equanimous about the prospect.”

That got her a casual lift of one shoulder.

“I’m hoping it’s all an elaborate bluff.

Humans can lie, after all, and I don’t feel poisoned.

But if it’s not a bluff, I suppose I’m hoping that I can survive it.

I’m quite hardy, even without the greater part of my magic.

” He did look surprisingly hale for someone nursing a fairly deep stab wound.

“I did also ask the house to steal your pack, so I suppose my backup plan is to go through it and see if you’re keeping the antidote in there. ”

The faintly apologetic way he said it was outrageous enough to startle her into laughter.

“It’s not in my pack. Let me think.” She hummed unhappily and settled back into her chair.

Normally, if she was working through a thorny problem, she would retreat to her garden.

This had already been far more conversation than she was used to in a day.

Malediction went quiet, sipping his tea and waiting, his expression inscrutable and his tail draped loosely over his leg.

She closed her eyes, though she could still feel a soft impression of him, this strange magic of their bond. Could he feel her in the same way? Outside, it began to rain, filling the room with a gentle hiss. All right then. What were her options?

The most ruthless, self-prioritising option would be to simply wait and see whether Malediction died of the poison and whether that freed her of the bond’s effects.

Even as she thought it, she curled away from the idea.

If he’d been the dreadful, faceless sorcerer of her nightmares…

maybe she could have done it? Maybe, if Malediction had been a true villain, she could have been hard enough to condemn him to death in order to save herself.

But there was no getting around the fact that Malediction wasn’t an abstract evil anymore but a living, breathing person.

His degree of villainy felt ambiguous. He’d been horribly careless and self-centred, certainly.

She still couldn’t believe he hadn’t ever bothered to check on the effect of his own actions, or that he’d thought giving his name to a tree was any kind of sensible thing to do in the first place, but nothing in his story spoke of malice.

His fear of the person who’d been hunting him seemed genuine.

Unless everything had been an act designed to play on her sympathies.

It didn’t matter, though, did it? She wasn’t cold enough to sit here and watch him be poisoned to death—no use pretending otherwise—so therefore she needed a different plan.

Opening her eyes, she found Malediction watching her, mismatched eyes glittering like a cat’s.

“Of course,” he said before she could speak, “if you kill me, the unclaimed debt between us might kill you too.”

“You didn’t want to mention that a little earlier?” Was he telling the truth?

“I thought I would wait and appeal to your better nature first.”

Her chin tilted. “If I understood you correctly before, if we find your name, you will agree to cancel any magical debt between us? Whilst leaving the gold my mother rightly bargained for intact?”

He blinked. “Yes, of course. But as I said, I did try to find it, and I don’t think?—”

Gisele held up a hand. “I don’t care what you think. I’m not willing to give up that easily. If I give you the antidote, I want your help finding your name and your word that you will release me from my mother’s bargain to you. Will you agree to that?”

He frowned, but eventually he blew out a breath and nodded. “Very well, though I must warn you that I did not give up easily when searching for my name.”

She didn’t trust him. But what else was there to do? With no better options available, she pulled the vial from her pocket. “This is the antidote.”

“Not a bluff, then,” he murmured, surprise lighting his eyes.

“No. Drink it.”

His hand brushed hers as he took it, sparking another strange echo of sensation. “What is it?” he asked.

“A solution made with the flowers of blood matagouri. The poison is made from the thorns of the same plant. It’s very rare. I bought some seeds from a travelling merchant who’d been across the breadth of Panthea.”

Malediction obediently tossed back the vial, and she was oddly caught by the way his throat moved.

“Blood matagouri,” he mused after setting the vial aside.

“I don’t think I know that—though Void knows what’s growing out there.

The garden has rather got away from me, I’m afraid.

Gardening sounded a lot easier in theory than it turned out to be in practice.

I admit I hoped it might sort itself out as the house does, but it only seems to get more overgrown. ”

She was not going to get distracted asking more about his garden, even though she desperately wanted to know what he’d planted and also how exactly a magical house ‘sorted itself out’.

“Albert,” she said, firing off the first A name she could think of. Might as well start at the beginning.

He drew himself up incredulously. “Albert ?”

“Alaric? Alexander? Anselm?”

The corners of his mouth tugged up, but he shook his head. “Is this your strategy?”

“A list seems like an obvious starting point.” She narrowed her eyes. “Where did you put my pack? My notebook is in it.”

“Skymallow?” he prompted. “You can give Her Highness’s things back.”

Nothing whatsoever happened.

He frowned, his gaze going distant. “Pagefires, of all the interfering—” He cut himself off, his mouth tight.

“The house has put your pack in my bedroom and is refusing to give it back, apparently under the mistaken belief that I’ll throw you out the moment it does.

Move it to one of the guest bedrooms. The hyacinth bedroom, I think,” he instructed the house.

“I’ll show you where.” He set his teacup aside and got to his feet with only a small wince.

Gisele didn’t move. “Are you…inviting me to stay?” she asked.

“I said I would help you, didn’t I?” he said, his ears flicking with annoyance.

“I scarcely think you’re going to find my name in a single afternoon, and even if you did, I’m not so villainous as to throw you back into the woods at night.

How did you get through them, come to think of it? Or into Faerie at all?”

Before she could answer, a high-pitched screech reverberated through the house.