Page 4 of The Bargain

God, I sound pathetic. I jolt myself out of it and bypass him before letting him finish his sentence, plunging into the crowd. A hulking figure nearby tells me I’ve found Dimitri, and wherever Dimitri is, Blaise won’t be far.

When I reach them, Dimitri has his back to me. He’s pressing a girl up against a wall and seems to be trying to perform some sort of surgical procedure that involves removing something from her mouth using his tongue. I look away quickly, and a wave of relief washes over me when I spot another face.

Blaise.

He’s dressed in perfectly tailored slacks, his short black curls crowning his ridiculously handsome face. Even though he founded the Blood Brotherhood with Dimitri, he’s not hanging out with the rest of them. He has a flute of champagne in one hand, and his other arm is wrapped around the shoulders of a pale girl.

My gaze catches on her, and I’m almost stopped in my tracks. Natalya Valenkova—that poor girl. She’s striking: beautiful, fragile, almost painfully perfect. A doll made of glass. Her blonde hair is so pale it almost looks translucent, and her eyes are so icily blue they’re almost grey.

Blaise is stroking her back comfortingly, but her eyes are fixed on Dimitri.

Her fiancé.

And I can’t tell if she’s hopelessly in love with him—or if she wants to kill him with her own hands. Maybe it doesn’t matter; it’s not like they chose to be engaged in the first place.

My heart catches, but I don’t have time to check on her. Not right now. I make a beeline for Blaise and tap his shoulder.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

“Desdemona!” He turns, face lighting up. “There she is! My favourite cousin—even if you are unforgivably late.”

“Have you seen Austen or William?”

Blaise rolls his eyes and throws a dramatic arm up.

“Ugh, those two idiots. I told them not to come.”

“You could’ve not told them about the party.”

“I didn’t. The Inquisitor posted about it.”

I wince. I should’ve known the Inquisitor would be involved somehow.

“Do you know where they’ve gone?” I ask.

“No idea, darling, I wasn’t paying attention. I’ve had my own⁠—”

I whip around and walk away before he finishes his sentence.

My ribcage feels tight, like the bones are pressing too close together. I can barely breathe, the noise and chaos of the party closing in on me. I check my phone again—nothing. I push past dancing couples, search the building, but to no avail. They’re no longer here.

I check the time. Almost eleven. Maybe they’ve returned to their dorm?

It sounds unlikely, not the kind of thing they would do. But with no other leads to follow, I decide to go and check, swallowing back a fresh wave of anxiety. On my way out, Julian makes another grab for me, but I’m already out of reach.

The door closes behind me. I stand for a second, trying to catch my breath in the sudden, blissful silence of the arboretum. All around me, trees loom, colossal and dark, watching indifferently.

And that’s when hands clamp around my arms—and I’m dragged into the trees.

2

Deformed Garnet

Desdemona

When I started my final year at Spearcrest, I wrote my goals for the year on the first page of my student planner.

It read as follows: