Willow felt restless in the elegant velvet chairs of her hosts' common room. It was one of several chairs adorned in a semi circle facing a thick blackwood door with golden accents and a doorknob that was an immaculate pearlescent tone. Likely carved out of something precious, made to languish with the rest of the beautiful things in the manor away from the eyes of the public.
She felt filthy in the space despite wearing the best her parents could keep nice for her back home; a white ruffled dress shirt, a pair of blue skinny jeans that felt tighter with each squirming motion, and a pair of black shoes with a glossy shine. Despite the shine of her shoes, even the dullest onyx tile outmatched her brilliance.
Willow jumped out of her seat. She didn’t dare take a step and disturb the silence with her presence. Instead she tilted her body to the side to look at the smaller door she’d been led through.
Certainly her parents would be ashamed of her if she left from such an auspicious invitation and that nagging responsibility kept telling her to settle down but of the reasons why she was being brought over now, none held good fortune.
Willow turned her attention to one of the paintings in the room. She felt a kinship with the center of the art piece, a shining rabbit with its head pointed towards the sun and the predatory beasts with their crimson eyes and sharpened fangs bared for the opportunity to devour her if she made a mistake.
Her gaze shifted as the large blackwood door opened, revealing her host and the source of her troubles. She was wearing a cerulean dress with matching gloves that reached past her elbows and open toed shoes.
“Good afternoon, Willow. I hope I didn’t make you wait long.” Bianca stated in an amiable tone.
Startled. Willow was confused when the invitation from the Wesley family was delivered to her parents describing their interest in her and her abilities. She was floored with the opulence on display in their main yard and the personal teleporter they had to even access the grandiose mansion.
But the thought of her tormentor suddenly changing her tune to that of a gal pal had Willow's stomach in all sorts of knots.
Bianca seemed unphased by this new development.
“Ah, I’m surprised that piece caught your eye. ‘The Mark of Excellence’ was painted as a gift to my father by the Montauk clan. I’m always struck by the sincerity of it.” She walked to Willows side and admired the painting. “What do you see in the scene?”
Willow gulped.
“I see… a prize worth taking and competitors around me trying to claim what’s mine.” Willow avoided ending her claim on a question. They both had eyes to see she was shaking in her shoes but she had the dignity to not let it creep in her voice.
“I’m not going to bite, Willow.” Bianca invaded her personal space with a measured grace. “We’ve been classmates for a while, haven’t we? There’s a kinship there.”
Willow suppressed a venomous chuckle.
She’d come into this expecting to be asked for something and Bianca was laying it on particularly thick.
“I’d say that our social circles haven’t overlapped enough for us to interact in a meaningful capacity.”
Understatement of the century.
Bianca waved her hand around in dismissal, “Regardless of our own personal interactions, we are sisters in the making while under the eye of the coven and that bond is nigh unbreakable. Surely we have common ground there?”
“I guess…” Willow relented.
Bianca smiled, perfect white teeth bared for the world to see.
“Come. I’d like to walk and talk.” Bianca didn’t give Willow a choice, wrapping her arm around Willow’s in a hook to drag her towards the blackwood door.
Her fingers twist the knob and the door swings open. A rush of cold wind moves through Willow. If Bianca felt a chill pass through her, she didn’t so much as shudder to it.
The hall was extensive, unnaturally so. She could make out a distant end at the other side with the pearlescent knob on the end door acting as a reference point but that glimmer was a distant rainbow star in a sea of white ceiling lights and glass walls.
Bianca took a nonchalant step forward and Willow was forced to follow.
This was their domain. This was their power.
And just like everything else with this family, it was oppressive and impersonal.
She could feel it writhing beyond the transparent walls in the murky darkness beyond. She could feel the labored breaths of creatures held in captivity. Caged animals throwing their bodies around to break free from their bonds and escape to their corner of the astral plane.
“Why do you think I invited you over?” Bianca cut through the moment's peace.
Why had she invited Willow? Should she be honest in her gut feeling that this had something to do with asking for a favor? It’d be presumptuous as she wasn’t even an exemplary student but maybe it dealt with that?
And if she answered wrong, what would that mean for the rest of her family?
“To be honest, I think this whole invitation smells rotten,” Willow admitted her suspicions, “I think that you want something but I don’t know what it is.” She reveled in the unabashed directness of her statement but the dawning hor-
Bianca smirked, “Your intelligence precedes you, although it wouldn’t take much thought to come to your conclusion. I’ll start us off from the beginning, then. This hall is long and we must walk through it to the end.”
Willow saw the girl adjust her dress and clear her throat. She turned back and saw the door to the common room had become subsumed by darkness, leaving them with only the capacity to reach the other end.
The amiable facade of her host dropped, supplanted by the dismissive and judgmental gaze she’d come to know her by.
“There is a quality inherent to our kind, Willow, that I feel due to your… lacking experiences must be made known to you before you cross the threshold into proper sisterhood. A gap in your knowledge that I can elucidate.” Bianca started. “You and I and everyone else in that institution are Incants. Weave’s chosen. And despite your lineage coming from a clan of little repute, your name holds enough weight in my family's circles to make you someone worth advising in the right direction for mutual benefits.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Fucking cow.
“Despite your misconceptions, Willow, my family and I have the best of intentions for the wider community of Incants in Georgia. Hell, for the whole host of families of Incants attempting to avoid the bureaucratic boot of the AWW. It was my grandparents that gave patronage to the Scarlet Sisters during the aftermath of the schism and my parents remain a valuable business partner as far as locating and binding monsters are concerned.”
Willow rolled her eyes away from the girl's gaze but did not interrupt.
“We’ve only recently settled into this new world order and the hierarchy has clearly chosen for us to be at the top.”
Willow sighed, “What are you getting at, Bianca?”
Her eyes flickered with annoyance, “What I’m getting at, Willow, is the hierarchy. We Incants are at the very top of this new system. Just think of the alternatives.”
She didn’t linger on the thought long. The AWW was working with the remnants of the U.S. government on the founders benevolence above anything else. If that patriotism disappeared, so would the faint threads holding society together.
“The powerless rabble fear our abilities. So much so that they’re comfortable living with the hypocrisy of using inscribed tools to police our kind so long as it’s them who have the power. A nuisance in the face of our best and brightest because what good is a peashooter against the might of god?” Bianca gave her talking points with a rehearsed zeal and pomp. Willow was held captive in more ways than one.
“And then we have those pitiful Warlocks. Their kind, coveting power so much that they’re willing to wish for the Weave’s good grace or work with the monsters we’re meant to control. At least the first lot don’t debase themselves by indulging in their delusions. Their stockpiles are evidence enough to suggest they know where they stand in the chain.”
Bianca paused. She twisted Willow to face her and their eyes locked.
“But something you might not have known is that there’s a third group in that category of lesser beings that must be made to know their place.”
Willow gulped. She could put two and two together.
“What do you want from Maggie?” She asked, pulling from her friends past courage.
Bianca’s face twisted at the mention of her name, “Is that what her name is? She really did crawl out of the bayou.”
Willow’s face reddened. Fuck! Wait, no, she used her shorthand name. She was fine.
She hoped.
“She’s my friend and we’ve been working together to handle the course work for this summer.” Willow bit her tongue, holding back more vitriolic statements from spilling out.
Bianca laughed, “That’s not my understanding of the situation. That girl's fresh spawn in our seasoned grounds and you’ve taken it upon yourself to catch her up to speed.”
“What do you want?”
“I want what you want, Willow; status and comfort. Working to help the charity case when you’re in dire need of connections yourself. I mean how much of a strain is your education on your parents?”
Willow dug her nails into the palms of her hands.
“You don’t know anything.”
Bianca shrugged, “No, I don’t know everything. I know enough though. I know that your family has scraped by acquiring stars to get you in the Scarlet Sisters. That they are viewing this education as an investment, yes?”
“Fuck off and fuck you.” Willow began to storm off ahead of her, hearing a sigh as she walked away.
“I’m offering you a deal, Willow.” Bianca revealed with clear exasperation.
Willow slowed to a stop.
“What kind of deal?” Willow asked without turning around. There was no harm in hearing things out, if not for herself than for her parents. They deserved that much.
“I'll give a good word about your parents to my mother. Spread that name to our connections so you’re not bottom feeding for odd jobs. You’ll be one of us, part of my personal entourage.”
Big social gestures but nothing material.
“All talk then. There’s nothing stopping you from reneging this deal if I fulfill my end of the bargain.” Willow replied.
“Oh, I’m sure we can arrange something.” Bianca snapped her fingers and the hallway rubber banded. Willow felt space move through her, a wave of nausea overwhelming her senses as bile rocketed up her throat. She kept the spit up back through grit teeth.
The distant doorway was now an arms reach away.
Bianca reached past Willow and opened the door to a private study. The walls were overflowing with books and a cavalcade of relics that radiated magic. The center of the room held a wide desk made of blackwood with white and gold accents. Willow was drawn towards the carved depiction of a crow, its eyes bulbous and vacuous with its wings spread out in flight.
Bianca took her seat at the other side of the desk and gestured for Willow to sit down.
She listened.
“Consider this an example, a taste of the kinds of power you could be adjacent to if you succeed on this simple task for me.” Bianca gestured at her opulence.
Willow winced as she gulped saliva down her raw throat, “This place looks… nice, but I’m still not guaranteed that if I hold my end of the bargain that you will hold yours.”
Bianca nodded, “Of course, of course. Although my word is as good as gold, our interactions haven’t overlapped enough for you to know my deals are guaranteed. Understandable.”
Bianca twisted her wrist in a clockwise motion and conjured a black feathered quill, crimson ink dripping on a fresh spread of parchment on the table.
“Scrivener.” She uttered.
The only door in the room opened behind them. Willow felt an overwhelming presence enter and despite its prodigious size, it did not make a sound. She saw it round the corner of her eyes.
A creature with an elongated flesh colored beak stopped behind Bianca. Its neck was thick and wound like a snake's abdomen and its eyes were large discs of yellow light. Its body was covered in groomed black feathers that reached down its knees, the rest of its leg being a wrinkled length of sinew and talon. The creature lifted its arm and beckoned the parchment and quill with its slender four digits, three nailed tips bathed in red. Bianca relinquished the items freely.
“Do not pay heed to its presence. It will bind our contract once I’ve given you my stipulations and you’ve accepted the terms and conditions.”
Her mind was blank. What was she getting herself into?
“I, Bianca Gould, am informing Miss Willow Pontiere of an opportunity. Before she agrees to the terms, I will lay out my request in full and then delineate the rewards.”
This was too much, too excessive, but probably business as usual for a binding family. Respectfully decline the request and make something up to-
“The request is thus; due to her bonds with a Maggie Winthrop, I wish for Willow to provide them with this charm on the day of the inscription test,” Bianca pulled out a simple green bangle with a single twig charm, “And after the test is over, rewards will be dispensed based on the satisfaction of the request.”
“What is this charm meant to do?” Willow eyed at the bracelet with suspicion.
“The charm is meant to affect the girl’s ability to bind a spell into a grimoire or item. The result I am looking for is to see her fail the test or be removed from the institution. I will not graduate alongside her kind. My pride will not stand the insult.”
Willow paused, “I sell my friends goodwill and you have the audacity to offer up something as minor as a good word to your parents and my inclusion in your entourage?”
Bianca sighed, “In exchange for your services, you may name the price of your conditions. Within reason of course. If my idle offer was unsatisfactory, I give you the floor to state your terms.”
Oh.
The two of them sat in silence, their feathered vigil glaring Willow down with its unblinking eyes.
“Am I bound by anything I say while that thing is around?” Willow asked.
“Under the observation of the Scrivener, I am held to a higher standard of verbiage and kindfully request you do the same. You may stipulate your conditions freely, knowing you will not be bound to them until it has taken ink to parchment.” Bianca fastidiously replied.
Fuck, was she about to do this?
“If I perform this task for you, I’d like for my rewards to be the inclusion of my family as a business partner with yours, acquiring a job before this task is complete to showcase good faith on your part. And if I’m included in your entourage, I’d like access to this study, under your supervision.” Willow eyed some of the tomes in the room and found the collection to be more extensive than what the library on campus was willing to offer its fledglings.
“I can meet those conditions if you would include the stipulation in our contract that neither party is to reveal the contents of our arrangement. I’ll allow for an exception to be made between you and your family as well as mine and mine own due to the circumstances of the deal but should either of us reveal the conditions of our deal beyond that circle of our own free will, the Scrivener will void the contract and subjugate the offending party. Should payment not be delivered after the task is complete within a reasonable length of time, I relinquish my freedom as a person to you to do as you wish.”
Willow ticked with a nervous laugh.
“Are these terms amenable to you, Willow Pontiere?” Bianca asked in a neutral tone.
Maggie would understand. She has a sister that can handle things for her, make life easy. She doesn’t need this. She’d understand.
“Let’s draft out the contract then.”
Both Bianca and the Scrivener gave her a toothy smile, “Lets begin.”