Page 17 of The Bargain

Ophelia’s never seen me cry—how could I let her see me cry now? After what might’ve happened to her, what Birnam might’ve done? I need to be strong for her, not a pathetic, weeping mess.

“Why? Is everything alright? Are you⁠—?”

Unbidden and painful, Birnam Hastings’ text flashes in my mind, and with it, all of the sickening implications. I force myself to catch my breath, to inhale deep into the pain, dispelling it. There are a hundred questions I’d like to ask my sister, but all of them would be like sinking a knife into an open wound.

“Are you okay, Fee?”

The question drops from my lips, raw, almost broken.

“I’m fine.” She’s already standing, already pulling her hands out of mine. “I don’t even know why I came here, you’re clearly busy.”

My heart sinks.

“I’m not! I was just getting ready for bed, I⁠—”

I stand, try to reach for her, but she’s already retreating towards the door.

“Stay, Fee, please.”

“No, no.” She shakes her head. Her waist-long hair, which she started dyeing night-black only last year, curtains her flushed cheeks. Her dark eyes glimmer with unspoken words, unspoken pain.

In the end, my voice comes out low and weak and pathetic.

“I love you, Fee.”

She pauses in the doorway. She doesn’t look at me. I can’t see her face, behind that black fall of hair.

“Night, Dess,” she mumbles.

The door slams before I can even reply.

Spearcrest might be relentless, a furnace of pressure, but at least there’s no time to wallow in misery. The following week is a relentless cycle of classes, homework, prefect meetings, nervously checking the Inquisitor account for updates on Birnam, and failing to speak to my own sister. She doesn’t even respond to my texts. This part is nothing new: Ophelia’s been blanking my texts for years now.

I don’t know why; it’s like the moment she became a teenager, I was demoted from beloved sister to intrusive ex.

Now, I’m forced to stalk her social media page from a friend’s phone, since she’s got me blocked. I only ever really see Ophelia at home during holidays, or on the rare occasions she allows an amnesty and spends time with me of her own free will.

“Have you spoken to Ophelia?” I ask Blaise one afternoon.

We’re sitting at the front of our literature class; our teacher is helping a student in the back while the rest of us annotate our copies of Othello—my least favourite play for obvious reasons.

“Not since the summer holiday,” Blaise responds, looking up from his book in surprise. “Why?”

It’s uncanny how much he looks like the perfect mix of both his parents: light brown skin, light brown eyes, soft short hair. From his mother, Theodora Dorokhova, he inherits his grace and a sense of delicate beauty; from his father, Lord Zachary Blackwood, he inherits his charming smile, his genteel manners.

When I see him, I think of them, of winters at his family manor—I think of home, family, safety.

“She’s not answering my texts.”

Blaise waves a hand. “She doesn’t answer anyone’s texts.”

“She answers yours.”

He smiles indulgently. “Naturally—my privilege as the favourite cousin.”

Blaise is everyone’s favourite cousin, but why would Ophelia choose him over me? I was the first person to hold her when Mum and Dad brought her home from the hospital. The one she’d come to when she needed her little shoelaces tied, or when she’d found a pretty spider in the garden.

“You alright, Dess?” he says, interrupting my thoughts. “You look more tired than usual.”