A/N: Sorry again for the long wait! There's a reason why they make you swear to tell the truth AND the whole truth…
Chapter Eight: The Bargain
Though Sophie's feet automatically took her in the direction of the shop, she couldn't have said what she was passing. The memory of the Lira's cards clung unpleasantly in her mind, and the colors and words swirled together until she had to stop half-way through Jem Cotter's empty potato field to sink down on a stile.
She took a careful breath. She was facing west, toward the setting sun. Tonight the sky over the fields was tinged a deep purple, with streaks of orange like ribbons of fire. This was usually Sophie's favorite time of day. She liked it when the town quieted and closed its shutters, and when the light grew soft and hazy. But tonight, with her breath puffing silver into the icy air, she had the unsettling feeling that she was alone, that the world somehow had ended and that hers was the only breath anywhere. Was this what the man in the picture had felt, after his castle had crumbled away?
Sophie shuddered a little and sternly told herself not to think of such things. The cards had certainly made one thing clear; Jaden wasn't getting her dreams, no matter how persuasive he seemed to think himself. Assuming they weren't some insane trick of Lira's, which Sophie thought more than possible, they could only come true if she gave in. And however bad things were at the shop, it would never be worth what she had seen in the fortune-teller's tent. What would happen to Londer if his niece went mad, if she became that girl in the red dress who never woke up? She could hardly believe that she had even contemplated Jaden's offer in the first place. She was usually so practical; what on earth had been wrong with her?
Sophie's resolve lasted her most of a week. Since the day of the fair, the weasel-faced man had come back twice more. She wasn't sleeping well, and from her little bedroom she heard the quick creak of the back door as it open and shut. Her uncle's slow tread would sound on the stairs, and then silence fell again until the stranger left.
The first time, she watched out her bedroom window as the money-lender slipped out into the street. The second time she simply lay still, and clenched her fist hard to prevent herself from flying down the stairs and shouting at Londer for all she was worth. Around her, her uncle had been the soul of cheerfulness, putting on an act worthy of a veteran gleeman. It had gotten so that she could barely stand to be in the same room with him anymore.
The third time she heard the money-lender leave, Sophie could bear it no longer. It had been six days since the fair and the fortune-teller, and she was so exhausted from her restless nights that even strangers commented on the bags under her eyes. When she heard the front door close, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and slipped on her dressing gown in the dark. Enough was enough; she was sick and tired of playing the fool. And if she was going to help at all, she had to know what was going on.
Quickly, before she lost her nerve, Sophie padded down the stairs and went straight to the study. The door was open, and she took a step to come in…then stopped dead.
Her uncle was crying. He was very quiet about it, so quiet that she would have never heard him upstairs, but it was unmistakable. His head was in his hands, and his shoulders shook. Sophie stood frozen in shock. She had never seen a grown man cry, her uncle least of all; the sound of it was terrifying. Londer always said that crying was for weak men, that real men bore their troubles with dignity. Apparently, Sophie thought unsteadily, even real men had a breaking point.
With the fight completely drained from her, she stepped back from the door. She would still have to confront her uncle, but not tonight. Not when he clearly knew everything she might say. Unwillingly, she thought again of Jaden's card. If her uncle was crying, there truly must be no way out. Nothing she could do would help…nothing, except for the one thing she had sworn never to do.
Sophie padded back upstairs and sat on the edge of her bed, wishing there was a way to forget the sound of her Uncle's despair. When she finally slept she dreamed of a girl in a red dress, and a white field cold as ice. And when she woke, she went to her cloak and found the crumpled card. Promise or no, she decided a bit wildly, she couldn't bear this any longer. She wouldn't be like her mother, she told herself. Surely she wouldn't go mad from one dream. One useless dream, and they would be free.
Once she had decided to go through with it, Sophie wasn't quite sure how she was going to get Jaden into the shop without her uncle noticing. But for once luck was with her. They were running out of the dream-boxes, and Londer had to go to the magician three towns over to order more. He would be gone for two nights. On the day he left, Sophie waited until it was well-past dark, when the curious townspeople would hopefully not be awake to notice the light coming from the Devereux shop.
She stood in the precise middle of the little sitting room at the back of the shop, clutching the now well-worn card. She had no idea what would happen. Transportation spells were powerful magic, and the strength needed to answer a call even from across a village was tremendous. Sophie realized that she had no idea where exactly Jaden lived, or how he would manage to come when she called. And if he was that powerful, what else could he do to her? She shuddered and resolved not to think about it. He had no reason to hurt her now, when she was finally giving him what he wanted. Or at least, she hoped so.
Half-wishing that it wouldn't work at all, Sophie took a deep breath and said his name.
"Jaden."
She waited. For a long moment there was nothing. Then something tapped her shoulder.
"Finally come round, have you?"
He was wearing a deep red coat tonight, and he looked arrogant and insufferably smug. Quite suddenly, watching Jaden cast a critical eye over the room, Sophie was struck with the the enormous impropriety of what she had done. The sitting room was dim, lit by a flickering oil lamp, and the shadows in the corners made the room seem close and intimate. It looked, she thought uncomfortably, like the stage for a seduction.
She had been so worried about her Uncle and the dreams, the idea of meeting with Jaden at half-past midnight hadn't seemed strange at all. But…an unmarried woman did not see men alone at night. Ever. She was no blushing miss, but there were some rules that still applied. Sophie had a sudden, wild vision of torch-wielding townspeople bursting into the shop and dragging her off in disgrace, and she had to bite down a half-hysterical laugh. She was being ridiculous. Even if people did notice the light, they would never dream that practical little Miss Devereaux was entertaining a man, especially not a man who spoke like a lord and had eyes like a fey prince from tales.
With an effort, she turned to face Jaden and drew herself up as much as she could. It didn't work very well; she barely came up to his chin, and he looked amused by her bravado. He took a step towards her…and then, something completely unexpected happened. Jaden stumbled. Not simply tripped, but almost staggered, so that he had to grab the arm of a nearby chair and hang on for what looked like dear life.
Sophie took an involuntary step forward. Jaden was still for a moment, then levered himself upright. He walked with deliberate care to the chair and sat down, back perfectly straight. In the light of the lamp, Sophie saw now that he was even paler than usual, and the lines on his face were more deeply carved. He almost seemed to be…in pain?
She opened her mouth, about to ask if he was alright, then shut it again. He hadn't bothered to show her any courtesy, she thought angrily, and it was no concern of hers if he was ill. Besides, knowing Jaden, it was just another ploy to gain her sympathy. She would give as good as she got, she decided. After everything he'd put her through, he certainly had it coming.
She very deliberately didn't offer him tea, and Jaden didn't ask. After a moment he said,
"Shall we commence our business, then?"
Sophie paused. She had thought about this all week. However badly she needed the dream, there was also something that she simply had to find out.
"Not yet."
Jaden's face darkened, and she raised a hand before he could protest. In somewhat of a rush she said,
"I need to know how you'll use it. I—I won't let it be used for some dark spell or something…something wicked." Jaden gave her a distinctly patronizing smile, and Sophie straightened her spine. "Tell me what it will be used for. Tell me, and if I think for a minute that you're lying you'll never see a single dream from me."
Personal dreams were very, very powerful. There was a reason why selling them was illegal; manufactured dreams could not be altered because they were not 'real' in the first place, but genuine dreams were a different matter entirely. If a person's own dream was deliberately tampered with, it could be made into a nightmare, trapping the unwary buyer in their own mind, in a horror of the magician's choosing. Princes became demons, lost jungles became burned-out wastelands. The judicious selling of altered dreams had brought more than one kingdom to its knees in the past, Sophie knew.
In all of her concern over her own predicament, she'd very carefully avoided thinking about what might be done with the dreams she gave away. Now she told herself that Jaden wouldn't do such a thing, and that one dream wouldn't matter much even if he did. She ignored the little voice that proclaimed her a liar, but the accompanying guilt was harder to silence.
At first Sophie thought Jaden would refuse. But then, he raised an eyebrow.
"You're very determined, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Do you really think that you could tell, if I lied?"
He looked amused.
"You're not as clever as you think." She hoped.
Jaden paused for a moment, clearly deliberating. Then, with an exaggerated sigh, he gestured her to a chair.
"Fine. You may as well sit down; this may take some time."
Sophie took a deep breath.
"Do you swear to tell the truth, and only the truth? Say it."
It was more than a question. Since time immemorial, the phrase 'do you swear' had been used in binding spells. It still held power, and rumor had it that magicians who used it and broke their word generally met nasty ends.
"I am not some schoolboy to be ordered." Jaden's voice had the undercurrent of real power, and Sophie was suddenly a bit afraid. She held her ground.
"If you mean to tell the truth it shouldn't matter, should it?"
Jaden looked as if he was gritting his teeth, and his hand on the arm of the chair had curled into a fist. Sophie had the uncomfortable thought that he was probably entertaining visions of creative ways to strangle her. Very carefully, he enunciated,
"I swear to tell you the truth, and only the truth. Are you finally satisfied, your ladyship?"
He looked anything but satisfied, and it made her feel a somewhat better.
"Yes. Tell me."
Jaden eased back a little in his chair and propped his legs up on the little serving table, one booted foot crossed over the other. Sophie didn't quite dare to remonstrate him for it.
"I suppose I should tell you how it began. You did ask for the truth, after all. Once upon a time…there was a lord."
Sophie rolled her eyes. Of course Jaden wouldn't be a simple commoner in his own tale.
"Doubting me already, are you? I did promise to tell the truth, you recall. As I was saying, there was a lord. Since before his birth, the lord was promised to a princess. But when she grew up, the princess didn't want to marry. She didn't want to marry anyone, ever."
"So it was her fault, was it?"
Jaden glared.
"Are you incapable of being silent?"
Sophie must have looked as if she would explode because Jaden simply shook his head.
"Do try to restrain yourself. We have something of a time limit, as I'm sure you know. And yes, it was the princesses' fault. She could have run away, she could have reasoned with her parents—she could have done many things. But the princess was impatient--", Jaden's mouth quirked bitterly at that "—and she didn't wish to wait. She was something of a magician, and she had been given the best teachers. So, on the night of her betrothal dinner, in her room in the royal palace, the princess cast a spell. Not simply a spell, but a curse." Jaden nearly spat out the word. "She condemned her unfortunate betrothed to a tiny, forgotten corner of his land, blighted by old wars and their spells. She bound him to the land so that he could not leave for long, and she bound him to stay there until he died."
The finality in his voice was awful. Surely, she thought, unbelievable as it seemed, he was actually telling her the truth? But he wasn't finished.
"And so the prince went into exile in his own land, and the marriage contract was broken. And there he stayed." She couldn't be feeling sorry for him, Sophie told herself sternly. It wasn't allowed.
"How—how long did he stay?"
Jaden's eyes seemed to be seeing something very far away.
"In the lord's land, people live much longer than they do here. So he stayed…for a very long time."
Sophie had at first thought that Jaden was fairly young. But now, staring at his too-pale face, she had the disturbing thought that he might be years, even centuries older than she. She blurted out,
"So you need the dream to break the curse?"
Jaden shook his head sharply.
"No. No, that can only be broken by the one who cast it. And she is not inclined to do so. But years ago, something…something came to the lord's land that should not have. There are worlds beyond this one, and things in those worlds that must never be let out. But something broke through. Perhaps it was because of the magic which had lingered, after the great wars. No one really knows. It started as a black circle on the ground, far out in the wild lands. People who looked at it couldn't look away, and went mad. Magicians planted herbs and drew circles of crystal to contain it. Then the magicians started dying. The crops didn't come in, and in the spring children died of a fever no one had ever seen before. And the circle on the ground spread, and everything it touched became...twisted. Magic could stall it, but we couldn't stop it." It was, Sophie thought with a start, the first time Jaden had included himself in his tale. "That is why I must have the dreams. Because true dreams are…hope, in its purest form. They are the only thing powerful enough to send a monstrosity back where it belongs."
Sophie sat very still. Jaden didn't sound like an arrogant noble any longer. He sounded like a man, a man who couldn't quite believe he had failed. And he looked drained; his head was tilted back a little as if he lacked the strength to quite hold it up, and there was a very faint grimace on his face.
For a moment, traitorously, she felt guilty. Jaden was fighting something so terrible that she could hardly imagine it, and she had thought only of her uncle and their little shop.
He wasn't lying, she decided. He couldn't be; much as she disliked him, he had given his sworn word, and a magician would not break that. Would he? She looked at him a little more closely, but his two-toned eyes were inscrutable.
"That…that is the truth? All of it?"
"I told you no lies, Sophie."
She blinked. He had never said her given name before, she realized. He pronounced it a bit strangely, with too much emphasis on the first syllable, so that it sounded almost uncomfortably intimate.
Sophie paused, feeling as if she were standing on the edge of some great cliff. She had her answers, she decided. And if doubt still niggled at her, if she wondered why Jaden had apparently bared his soul to a provincial shop girl, Sophie told herself that there was nothing she could do. Jaden would get his dream, from her or another spinner. And she couldn't afford for it to be someone else.
"I—I believe you."
With more assurance than she felt, her mind still filled uncomfortably by crystal circles and monstrous shadows, Sophie stood and led the way back toward the workshop. When she heard Jaden stumble slightly behind her, she didn't look back.
