SHE DID NOT.
Tear-stained and terrified, Claudia yanks open her door and looks for any evidence of who left this, but the hall is dark and empty of all people. She closes it behind her and locks it again with her spell.
Is she in a nightmare now? Is that what this means?
Heart racing, she finds her linguistic celestial spell and checks for any tricky words that could’ve caused such a reaction.
Back pressed to the door, she rereads the note over and over and over.WAKE UP. SHE DID NOT. WAKE UP. SHE DID NOT. WAKE UP.
She does this until it all makes sense.
Until she remembers the first time she heard this phrase.
This is the answer to the question she asked Malevimus: How did Odette Dufort die?
He’d said, “She did not wake up.”
Only, he hadn’t said that at all. Claudia hadn’t been listening close enough.
The answer was not “She did not wake up.”
There was a pause.
How did Odette Dufort die?
She did not.
Wake up.
The answer, all this time, was “She did not. Wake up.”
Odette isn’t dead. The bargain didn’t kill her, which means that Claudia’s bargain won’t kill her, either.
Claudia is certain of this because she recognizes the handwriting on this note.
It was written by Odette herself.
She doesn’t believe a damn thing now from Sidarphion. He lied about who he is. He lied about the bargain killing her. He tried to trick her into killing Cassius by hinging her own life on it, when that was never the case. He won’t protect her, won’t love her, won’t make her a god. She has never hated anyone or anything as much as she hates him right now.
With Odette’s note and the diary in her hands, she charges through the halls and crashes into Lamour’s classroom. The room is just beginning to brighten with morning light. As she pants in the doorway, her eyes meet his. He’s hunched over at his desk, quill in hand, ink bleeding onto the page where he’s paused his lettering.
“Claudia?”
With a heaving breath between each word, Claudia lifts her trembling hands and says, “Odette is not dead.”
Lamour’s face loses all color. “You’ve seen her, too?”
Claudia eagerly pulls up a chair and sits across from him at his desk. They spend the next hour going over everything, and Claudia doesn’t hold back one bit. Once she starts, she can’t stop. She tells him about the bargain, her father, the rivalry, the diary, the nightmares, the snakes, the bite, all of it. She asks him about thediary entry in his desk, and he claims he never knew it was there. It makes sense—the diary mysteriously appeared in her room. Odette must’ve been placing it in their paths, waiting for it to be found.
Claudia tells him about Cassius, Dolericym, detention, Auridolace, tasting desire, and turning constellations into poetry. There is not a single secret she keeps from him. He listens intently and takes notes. Somewhere in the middle of her monologue, she wonders if she’s making a mistake, if she’s confessing to the wrong person, if her big mouth is making everything worse.
“I killed to be here, and he wants to force me to kill again,” she murmurs, wary that regret will overtake her immediately.
But it feels so good. So fucking good to just say it, to finally relieve herself of all these heavy, horrible secrets that have been rotting inside her.
When she finishes, he offers her a glass of water from a crystal carafe on the edge of his desk. She swallows it down in one gulp.
“Where do you think Odette is right now?” Claudia asks.
