Page 52 of The Bargain

Mira shakes her head. “No. His parents are absolutely furious. They just can’t do anything until he’s out of his coma.”

I suppress a shiver and shrink into my jumper, pulling my sleeves over my hands. It’s oppressively hot in the crowded costume shop, but I’m trying to hide from a cold that’s already set deep into my skin.

“If their precious little baby boy doesn’t wake up, they’ll want North’s head on a platter, I bet,” Emerald says, shaking her head. “If only someone was brave enough to tell them what a disgusting freak their son really is.”

Except that nobody is. Not Emerald, not the twins—not even me.

“The Inquisitor has been saying that all along,” Mira points out.

“The Inquisitor isn’t brave, though,” Emerald replies with a sneer. “He’s just as much of a coward as anyone else. Throwing stones and hiding his hands.”

My eyes fall on the pale mask in my hand, the dark painted eyes and mocking smile. Elias’s words echo in my mind. I speak before thinking.

“What makes you so sure the Inquisitor’s a he?”

Mira and Emerald both turn towards me. Despite the stark difference in their looks—Mira’s brown skin and black hair and pretty little two-piece and Emerald’s pale complexion, vivid red hair and chunky blazer over a tight dress—they have matching expressions of surprise on their faces.

Then Emerald lets out a sharp, annoyed laugh.

“No chance the Inquisitor is a girl.”

Mira’s big brown eyes, wide and innocent as a deer’s, swing from me to Emerald, who’s walking on the other side of her. “Why not?”

“Because.” Emerald throws back her hair. “The Inquisitor thinks he’s better than everybody else at Spearcrest. That’s the kind of arrogance only the male of the species could possess.”

And with that, Emerald spins off towards the changing rooms. Talk turns back to the party, to outfits. Birnam, just like the Inquisitor, is just backdrop noise to Emerald and Mira, lost in the clicking of hangers on racks, the spooky pop songs crackling through the air. But I’m too distracted to concentrate on shopping, fingers sliding over lace trims and metallic silks and fleshy vinyl. My mind feels like a book with too many pages, and every chapter is a reminder of failure.

Ophelia’s silence. The bloody signet ring. Birnam’s inert body and his angry parents. Elias and our deal and his mocking smile and his fingers between my legs, drawing something out of me I didn’t even know I was capable of giving.

The Inquisitor, waiting to watch us all fall and finally—me.

Years spent working hard, serving the school, becoming a prefect, a tennis champion, head girl.

All reminders of just how far I have to fall.

19

Poison Candy

Elias

Maybe it’s a mistake not arriving at the Halloween party with Desdemona, but my hand is forced. After my last period, Mr Mazzati, my physics teacher, asks me to stay behind.

“You’re a bright young man and you’ve a bright future ahead of you,” is how he starts our meeting. “There’s this physics scholarship at Harvard you would be perfect for. The board has some of my old colleagues on it, and I’d be honoured to write your letter of recommendation.”

It’s the absolute last thing I expect him to say. For a moment, I can do nothing but stare at him, speechless. A physics scholarship at Harvard—what? I never even told Mazzati I was thinking of applying to Harvard. I’ve not told a soul, actually. Who would care anyway?

University in America has always been the plan: getting as far from the Pearsons as I can. But the reality is a different thing altogether. University in America is insanely expensive. Getting into Harvard has always been pure unchecked ambition on my part, quite divorced from reality.

And just like that, Mazzati’s just talked it into existence.

I stare at him, and he stares back hard, like he’s trying to see something in me that I’m trying to keep from him on purpose.

“Don’t look so gobsmacked now,” he says finally, slapping my arm bracingly. “With my good word and your brilliant mind, Elias, there’s no reason whatsoever you wouldn’t be perfect for the scholarship.”

Except that I might be arrested before the year’s out.

Which will mean a criminal record, maybe even jail time.