Excerpt: An Arcane Study of Stars by Sydney J. Shields
From Sydney J. Shields, the breakout author of The Honey Witch, comes An Arcane Study of Stars, a historical dark academia fantasy filled with ancient secret societies, a swoon-worthy rivals-to-lovers romance, and dangerous deals made after dark. Perfect for fans of The Atlas Six and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
“An Arcane Study of Stars is a deal with the devil like you’ve never read before. Sharp, clever, spicy; this is the blueprint for dark academia romantasy.” —Breanne Randall, New York Times bestselling author of The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic
Read the first two chapters of An Arcane Study of Stars by Sydney J. Shields, on sale April 28th, below!
1
THE BOOK
Winter is best spent dreaming.
Kulden proverb
There is an old bookshop called the Wanderer’s Wonders in the heart of Kulden—a small, often forgotten town tucked in a far northern corner of England—and as far as Claudia Jolicoeur is concerned, it’s magical, for it always has something she needs. From love stories and poetry to theories and discoveries, she has never once been able to leave empty-handed in the decade that she’s been coming here. She and her mother used to come twice a week for Claudia to buy any book of her choosing. Back then, they could afford it. Her mother was a Roe, the only daughter of the famous watchmakers who made a fortune from being the first to include minute hands on their signature timepieces. Things changed when Claudia’s father was introduced to fine wine and expensive cigars, to boxing and betting on horse races. As it turned out, he didn’t have the constitution to merely sip his vices. He gorged on them at the expense of their entire fortune.
Now her mother is long dead, their money long gone, and it has taken an entire month for Claudia to scrounge up enough coins to buy one book. Her father has been pawning her mother’s jewelry—all pieces that were meant to be Claudia’s. She’s entitled to the money he makes from those sales, though her father doesn’t agree. Instead of arguing for what she’s owed, she spares herself the trouble by pocketing it when he sleeps, little by little so that he won’t notice.
One book a month makes her feel like her brain is shriveling up. She’d considered stealing some—old Mr. Aimes who owns the shop is half blind and half asleep at all times—but she could never bring herself to do it. No matter how far her family has fallen in station, no matter how much money they’ve lost to her father’s gambling, she would never stoop so low as to be a liar and a thief. She is still a lady, and the Jolicoeurs are still good, regardless of what the society papers say.
A bell chimes when she walks in. She shakes the snow out of her curly brown hair and pulls her green cloak tight around her shoulders. The wood floor is slippery from half-melted snow that customers have tracked in. Mud decorates the damp hem of her black dress. Candlelight pulses in sconces between the bookshelves, but it’s not enough to warm up the drafty building. She walks down the narrow pathways lined with mismatched rugs that are probably colorful under years of muddy boot prints. Rows of books tower over her, their leather spines wrinkled. In the darkest corner of the shop, where Romance meets History, it smells earthy, almost floral. Claudia smiles. Judging by the silence, she’s the only one here. Mr. Aimes must be having his dinner in the back since he isn’t behind the counter. This is why she prefers to come at night—she gets the stacks all to herself.
Again, she doesn’t steal and she never would, but she does help herself to the first few chapters of whatever catches her eye. That’s not stealing; that’s making an informed purchase, and with how long it takes to afford a new book, she needs to make sure she’s getting a good one.
Today in particular calls for a very special book. It’s the ten-year anniversary of her mother’s passing, and she doesn’t want to think about it at all. She needs something that will distract her from the grief, and from the knowledge that she’s fated to live her mother’s life and die her mother’s death—soon to be passed on from a father who hates her to a husband who hates her more, until death mercifully does them part.
She’s reading about the legendary constellations of Andromeda and Perseus when an old white-haired woman appears behind the counter and says, “Can I help you find something?”
Claudia snaps the book shut and looks up at this stranger. The woman is wrapped in a light pink shawl that accentuates the bulging hunch of her spine. She gives Claudia a thin smile.
“Where’s Mr. Aimes?” Claudia asks.
“Oh dear, you haven’t heard.” She tilts her head to the side with a sad, slanted pout. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but my brother died at last week’s end. I’m Mrs. Schottstaedt and I’m taking over until we can find someone to buy the place.” The old woman wipes her hand across the counter and sends a flurry of dust into the air. “This store is in such a state. He must’ve been struggling for some time.”
“Oh,” Claudia says sympathetically, though it’s hardly a shock. Mr. Aimes had been old as sin. “I’m so sorry.”
Mrs. Schottstaedt waves away Claudia’s condolences. “We all have to die, dear. It’s written in all of our stars. Speaking of…” She raises her brows and gestures to the book of constellations in Claudia’s hands. “Did you want to buy that?”
She already knows she can’t afford this one. She’s been sneaking in its chapters during every visit and doing her best to memorize the constellations so she can draw them in her notebook back home. Obviously, that isn’t stealing, either—it would only be stealing if she traced the pages directly while in the shop. If she memorizes the content and writes it down later, well… that’s simply an act of learning, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a good thing, actually. A noble and admirable deed.
“I’m still looking.” She turns to tuck the book back into its place, but there’s a little black book there instead, its spine thin as her pinky finger. At first glance, it’s nothing special, but Claudia is drawn to it. More than that—compelled. When she picks it up, she can’t explain how right it feels. She just knows that this book was meant for her hand.
There is a faded silver swan on the cover and nothing else. She turns to the first page, where CYGNUS UNIVERSITY is written in fine script. Below reads:
An occult institution where desire becomes magic.
Every paragon of academic and artistic achievement is not a man, but a mage. Not a woman, but a witch. What the world calls genius is merely magic in disguise, and if you are reading this, you are ready to wield it.
The next page lists the disciplines taught at Cygnus:
ASTROLOGIA: Ruled by Sidarphion, God of Stars and Nightmares
MATHEMATICA: Ruled by Caedisterra, God of Blood and Balance
MUSICES: Ruled by Dolericym, God of Song and Sorrow
RHETORIC: Ruled by Malevimus, God of Wit and Secrets
SCIENTIA: Ruled by Orteslux, God of Death and Flowers
The Astrologia section begins on the next page.
Students of Astrologia seek to understand the influence of celestial bodies on terrestrial events. Through our Hermetic approach, you will learn the divine order of the cosmos and engage in theurgic communication with your patron, Sidarphion, God of Stars and Nightmares. Upon graduation, you will have the power and knowledge to divine and define fate itself. You will become one of the greatest astrologers of all time.
A sharp breath escapes her.
When Claudia was twelve, her mother got sick. Not long before her mother died, Claudia looked out her window in the middle of the night and saw her standing in front of their home. Little Claudia ran down the stairs, out the door, and to her mother’s side.
“Momma?”
“Two months,” her mother said while she gazed up at the starry sky. “I have two months left, Starling.”
“The doctor said you’re getting better,” Claudia assured.
“No.” Her mother’s voice was slow and dreamy. “It’s written in the stars.”
Claudia dragged her mother back inside and wrote the incident off as some fevered delusion, but sure enough, two months later, she and her father were burying her. Since then, Claudia has been chasing answers. What did her mother see that night in the stars? And if Claudia had believed her, could she have done something to save her mother’s life?
Ten years later and she still doesn’t know.
As she reads, she feels the heavy glare of the old woman. Sensing she needs to make a purchase, she looks for the price of the book in its usual spot—penciled in the upper right-hand corner—but it’s blank.
“How much for this one? There’s no price inside.”
“Hm. Bring it here.”
Claudia walks the thin space between shelves and stops before the counter, handing over the little black book. Immediately, she wants it back. That book is meant to be hers. She hates every second that it’s not in her hands. The old woman holds her tiny spectacles far away from her face while she examines it. She grunts and turns the book upside down as if she can shake answers out of it.
“Mr. Aimes would’ve probably charged a penny or two for a book like that,” Claudia says. More like four or five pennies, but in Claudia’s defense, she used the word probably. It’s not a lie; it’s probable.
“Well, Mr. Aimes is not here.”
“Right.” Claudia tucks her chin and looks down at her black shoes. “I’m terribly sorry about your brother, Mrs. Schottstaedt. He was a lovely man.”
“You don’t have to lie, dear. He was a curmudgeon by the age of ten, but we loved him anyway.”
Claudia gives her a soft smile. “Well, curmudgeon or not, he ran this shop, which is my favorite place in the world.”
The old woman laughs and looks around at the dusty, dank store. “If this is your favorite place, you’ve got a whole lot more of the world to see.”
She bristles against that comment because it’s so true that it stings. She’s always longed to travel, to study, to wander and wonder. But she’s never had the courage to leave, or a direction in which to go. And in truth, she’s scared. Her home is a devil she knows—the world is a devil she doesn’t. She’s always forced gratitude upon herself, even in the worst of times, because she knows that life can get so much worse than this.
But when she looks at that black book in Mrs. Schottstaedt’s weathered hands, and when she thinks about Cygnus, she wonders: If life can get worse, can’t it also get better?
She grows more excited and determined by the minute. Something about this book makes her feel as if her whole life is about to change.
“If you’d like to throw out a starting price, we could go from there,” Claudia says cheerfully. Mr. Aimes used to lower the price after a bit of sweet talk. Perhaps Mrs. Schottstaedt will do the same.
After turning over every page, Mrs. Schottstaedt closes the book in defeat. “Sorry, dear. I don’t think my brother had any intention of selling this one. It must’ve made its way onto the floor by mistake.”
“Or maybe Mr. Aimes changed his mind about selling it?” Claudia suggests hopefully.
The woman tilts her head to the side and gives her a pitiful look. “I don’t think so.”
“He must’ve intentionally put it on the shelf and forgot to price it. He’d grown quite forgetful in recent months,” she counters.
“Yes, but—”
“And it seems the bookstore belongs to you now, yes? Surely you have no qualms about selling it to me.”
Mrs. Schottstaedt gives a throaty laugh that turns into a cough. “You’re mouthy. Does that ever get you into trouble?”
She tucks her hair behind her ears and shrugs. “Usually it gets me out of trouble.”
They both laugh. There’s a glimmer of recognition in the old woman’s eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Claudia Jolicoeur.”
“Jolicoeur?”
Claudia nods and braces herself for insults. Or worse, for the accusation that her father owes Mrs. Schottstaedt money.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Elise’s daughter, would you?”
Elise. The sound of her mother’s name is an old lullaby she hasn’t heard in years. Warmth rivers through her blood. Yes, she’s Elise’s daughter. No one else’s. For a moment, she pretends her father doesn’t exist. “Yes. I am.”
“I knew your mother when she was your age. You look just like her, you know.”
Claudia knows. Every piece she got from her mother is her favorite part of herself: Dark, wild hair. Cold green eyes. Full lips and an off-center smile. She looks most like her mother when she’s happy.
“Were you friends?”
“I was too old to be her friend, but I admired her spirit. It reminded me of myself when I was young.” Mrs. Schottstaedt gives her a too-long, too-sincere look, as if the woman is scrying in Claudia’s eyes. “You have that, too. That fire burning inside.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Oh, it certainly is,” she says with a wink. The old woman’s fingers tremble when she traces the outline of the swan on the cover of the book. A hint of a smile tugs at the corner of her thin lips.
“I’ll tell you what, Claudia. I’ll sell you this book for a penny if you promise me something.”
Claudia loves a bargain. “Absolutely. What is it?” There’s not much she would object to, especially in exchange for a very pretty book.
Excitement glitters in Mrs. Schottstaedt’s green eyes, lighter than Claudia’s by several shades but no less vibrant. “Apply,” she whispers, opening the book and presenting Claudia with a page in the back titled APPLICATION. “Promise me you will apply to Cygnus University.”
Up until today, Claudia had never heard of Cygnus, but this moment feels like fate coming to pass. Nothing is more transformative than the right book at the right time. Maybe, for once, the stars are aligning for her.
Recently, her father has been working nonstop to marry her off, and Claudia knows that her best interests won’t be factored into whatever deal he’ll be making on her behalf. If her father had it his way, Claudia would’ve been wed years ago, but her dowry is less than tempting—it’s nonexistent. Now desperately searching for a match, the only thing Lord Jolicoeur is looking at is money, and he’s after the type of wealth that only comes with age. Should Claudia’s fate be left in his hands, she’ll soon be wed to someone ghastly and certifiably ancient.
But if she gets into Cygnus University, she could escape this life and write herself a new one. She could change her stars for the better.
With a grin, she slides two pennies across the counter—one as payment, one as thanks. “You have a deal, Mrs. Schottstaedt.”
The old woman holds Claudia’s hands when she gives her the book. With a bright smile, she says, “Good luck.”
The last piece of Claudia’s application to Cygnus is to burn the book in which she found it. Somehow, some way, this is how the school will receive it. Claudia doesn’t question it—beggars for a different fate can’t be choosers. The application itself was easy enough; she gave her name, her chosen discipline of Astrologia, a spill of her blood along a dotted line, and a heartfelt letter about why she is deserving of the power that Cygnus offers. She wrote of her mother’s passing and how that grief will shape her into a worthy scholar. She wrote of how Cygnus’s book called to her in the bookshop. She wrote that she is not choosing magic—it is choosing her.
It’s October now. If she gets accepted quickly, she’ll be only a few weeks behind the other students who started in September. She’ll catch up fast.
She tosses the book into the fireplace in her room and follows it with a sizzling match. The flames turn bright blue and the book burns white as a wishing star before the fire dies with one brilliant flash. Every candle in her room dies with it. Claudia is left in the pitch-black dark, choking on thick green smoke that makes her head swim. Her vision swirls while her eyes adjust to the thin moonlight streaming through her window. She needs to clear the air or she’ll faint. Coughing violently, she trips over her pink wool rug, her white shoes, and the corner of her bed as she crosses the room. As soon as she opens the window, the smoke stretches out into the sky and scatters among the stars. She watches the night swallow the last lick of green ash in the air. A breeze as warm as breath combs through her hair.
She blinks.
The constellations are playing tricks on her. They’re trembling. Changing.
Watching.
She’s still dizzy from the smoke swirling in her brain, but she swears there are eyes in the stars staring down at her.
Exactly one month later, two things happen on the same day: First, in the morning, Claudia’s father informs her of her betrothal to Lord Fournier, a man sixty years her senior. She doesn’t panic—yet. There is still time for fate to change.
Second, in the evening, the postman hands Claudia an envelope with a swan on it—the same that was on the cover of the book she got from Mrs. Schottstaedt. She braces herself against the iron gate in front of her home, her steeled spine perfectly centered between cold black bars. She waits until the crunch of the postman’s steps fades. Whatever this letter brings, she needs to be alone to receive it. Pressing the envelope to her chest, she takes a deep breath and releases an anxious groan. This could be nothing. This could be everything. She tries to open it carefully, but excitement overwhelms her and she rips the letter out of its envelope.
Dear Claudia Jolicoeur,
Thank you for your interest in Cygnus University.
We regret to inform you that your chosen discipline, Astrologia, is no more. Sidarphion, God of Stars and Nightmares, abandoned us years ago, and with the loss of his power, Astrologia was proven futile and false. Thus, we are unable to offer you a place here. We wish you the best in your future endeavors. While fate is oft fickle, our decision is not.
You may not apply again.
Sincerely, High Sage Gieffroy Triche
Three times she rereads it, hoping that this is just a nightmare. She blinks tightly, willing herself to open her eyes to another world. Another life. Anything, anywhere else. She’s overwhelmed with nausea. She had not realized just how desperately she wanted this until now, until she was told she couldn’t have it. Whoever the god of stars and nightmares is, Claudia hates him and hopes he’s suffering. He destroyed her fate. He ruined the stars that have always called to her. He damned her to a life she doesn’t want and a man she doesn’t love.
Panic stains her senses. Her vision goes black. It feels like there’s glass in her veins, metal in her stomach, a fist around her throat. Burning, burning everywhere. She’d made a grave mistake—confusing a dream with destiny. They are almost never the same.
2
BETROTHAL
The Gods choose who can apply while the High Sage chooses who gets accepted.
Once rejected, always rejected, unless a God intervenes.
The Book of Cygnus: Admittance 1:14
Claudia’s twenty-third birthday falls like a scythe, slicing December in two. She’s in the sitting room waiting to meet her betrothed for the first time. While she waits for his arrival, she dangles a gray mouse by its tail like a pendulum—back and forth between life and death. Bishop, her white rat snake, stretches across the blue rug at her feet and opens his mouth for dinner. Usually, he’s upstairs in her room curled up in his enclosure, which is an old wooden trunk that’s too warped to close. Claudia brought him down with her today for emotional support, and for defense in case Lord Fournier is too eager to touch her. Bishop knows how to strike and run. He’s bitten Claudia’s father more than once, but never unprovoked.
“Get rid of that monstrous thing. You know I don’t approve and neither will your betrothed,” her father scolds while he paces the dim foyer. He has hated Bishop ever since Claudia found him three years ago hidden in the snow, his body as white as the harsh winter that would have killed him if she had not brought him inside. Her father’s hatred made her love Bishop all the more. She has a talent for loving anything her father hates—snakes, stars, stories. Most of all Claudia loves life, as cruel and cold as it can be. Whereas he does everything he can to escape it, she wants more of it, as much life as she can swallow, even if she chokes on it. She wants to taste it all.
The mouse twitches and turns until it can meet Claudia’s cold green eyes. Its tiny hands wring as if in prayer, and its black eyes glisten with fear. She pulls the mouse farther back. Claudia has fed Bishop this way for years without so much as a flinch, but this mouse looks different, like it’s begging her to let it live.
Bishop ate fairly recently. He will survive a few more days until Claudia can find him another meal—one whose death won’t make her feel so guilty. Surely there are older and uglier mice around here, and who knows the state of her newly betrothed’s home. It could be perfectly rife with delicious rodents. She could release this mouse and give it the chance that has been taken away from her.
There is a knock at the door. Claudia’s father snatches her arm. She drops the mouse directly into Bishop’s waiting mouth.
“No!” she yelps. Her father jerks her wrist, pulling her tightly to his side.
“No?” he growls.
The corners of her mouth fall when she glances over her shoulder. “I was going to save the mouse.”
Her father leans in, his acrid breath scraping the side of her cheek when he laughs. “You are no one’s hero.”
Her nostrils flare. “Am I not yours? Saving you from the debt you have wrought?”
“You’re the one indebted to me, you selfish girl.” His grip moves from her wrist to her ring finger. “You should have been married years ago. You were never meant to be my problem for so long. I had to find a way to keep you fed.”
Fed isn’t the word that Claudia would use. Alive, yes. But hardly fed. Her dresses lie like bedsheets around her frame. Hunger is a whetstone that has sharpened all of her features.
There is a second knock, this time louder with growing impatience. Claudia ushers Bishop under the couch. The mouse’s tail hangs from his mouth like a second tongue. Her father places a firm hand between her shoulder blades and shoves her toward the door.
She twists the knob slowly, terrified of the face that is waiting on the other side. When the door screeches open, it’s worse than she imagined. Lord Fournier is a shriveled man with spotted hands and thinning hair. A gray coat swallows his frame. It must’ve fit once upon a time, but he’s shrunken with age. His tired, lazy gaze roves over her body. He seems pleased, though his face is doubled over in wrinkles. His smile isn’t strong enough to reach his eyes.
“Lord Fournier,” her father says with a smile while he wraps a heavy arm around Claudia’s shoulders. “Allow me to introduce your betrothed—my beautiful daughter, Claudia Jolicoeur.”
The old man’s fingers tremble when he kisses the back of Claudia’s hand. “Hello, darling.” His voice sounds like wet skin sticking to itself. She winces. She’s not his darling. The title feels like shrugging on a too-tight coat.
He nearly loses his balance when Claudia retracts her hand. She hates that she pities him when he’s the one stealing her future, but he looks so weak. He could die from a tight embrace. All of these sad imaginations fill her mind: Old Lord Fournier eating alone, across from the empty chair where his true love once sat. Old Lord Fournier’s hands shaking while he throws back his morning medicine. Old Lord Fournier wishing his kids still lived close. He’s such a sad sight. She almost feels bad for him.
Almost.
“Shall we retire to the sitting room?” her father says when the silence stretches too long.
“Please,” Lord Fournier says, stumbling through the doorway, bracing himself on a gilded cane. Her father sits on a torn leather chair in the corner. Lord Fournier sits on the long sofa and sinks into the thin cushions. Claudia begins to sit in her mother’s old rocking chair, but her betrothed says, “Won’t you sit beside me, darling?”
Her father glares at her, eyes full of warning. Slowly, she moves toward the couch, toward the man who bought her before she knew she had been fitted with a price.
The conversation between the two men hums like wasps in her ears. Their words sound muddy when they talk numbers—what is Claudia worth, down to the dollar? She is pretty enough, with moon-pale skin, sparkly eyes, and a pouty smile. But can she manage a house? Does she know how to clean? Can she sit still enough without making a sound so that she can be admired by his colleagues as if she were a painting above a mantel? They discuss her age—plenty of time to give Lord Fournier at least three children if not more. They ask her to stand, turn, bend. They comment on the swell of her breasts, the width of her hips. Every inch of her is appraised.
She had once thought that she was just like her snake—sharp tongue, sharp teeth, always ready and able to strike. Now, as she stands before her father and her betrothed, still and breathless as stone, she wonders why she is not fighting back. At this moment, she should be wicked. Ugly. Undesirable. Whatever it takes to ruin her betrothal to this man. But she looks around their home filled with tattered curtains and worn furniture and empty glass bottles. She can’t stay here. Then she thinks of her harsh rejection from Cygnus University. What other choice does she have? Where else can she go? A marriage to a wealthy man is her only hope for a decent life. It is a miracle, as her father loves to remind her, that they were able to find a man of Lord Fournier’s station who would accept this proposition in the first place. Merciful, her father called him. Merciful is the man who would take a girl from a terrible life and give her a new one that may or may not be worse.
The men come to some sort of agreement about her fate. Now that Lord Fournier has approved of her, he will stay the night here in a guest room. Tomorrow, the two of them will be wed, and Claudia will be taken away.
Despite the wintry air, they take to the park for a promenade. The trees are thin as bones, dressed in stubborn black leaves. It’s so cold that the breeze turns white. Claudia’s donned multiple layers for warmth—tall boots, green cloak, black scarf—but this wind has teeth. It bites through everything from velvet to leather to skin. In places like London and Paris, the marital season is in the summer when it’s warm, but Kulden has its own customs. Here, the marital season begins at the end of the year in hopes that couples begin the new year as one.
Lord Fournier stumbles through the walk, so Claudia serves as his cane to steady him. His hot breath moistens her cheek. He won’t let go of her hand.
It’s humiliating.
Walking toward them is Genevieve Thornington, previously Genevieve Marlow, who lucked into marrying Lord Thornington, the richest man in town. Claudia’s father had once tried to pair her with him, but Lord Thornington declined for two reasons: He had no interest in paying off Lord Jolicoeur’s debt in exchange for a bride, and mainly, he found Claudia to be “far too disagreeable to be a wife.”
Claudia dislikes the term disagreeable. It’s too passive. It’s inherently reactionary. Claudia prefers to be thought of as opinionative, and argumentative when the situation calls for it.
Lord and Lady Thornington are a pair out of a Kulden postcard—white-blond, icy eyes, lips that look like wet wounds against their pale skin. Both dressed in fine garb in the same shade of yellow, they are like drops of sunlight gliding across the shoveled stone path. The newlyweds smile at Claudia and her betrothed when they pass by, then follow with snickering at their backs. Claudia’s cheeks burn. She wants to turn around and spit out insults, but she holds her tongue. She needs to make this betrothal work for her, and all she has to do is keep her composure until they say their vows. Once her future and her fortune are secured, she can open her big mouth again.
Until then, she’ll keep this tight smile plastered onto her face, even as her cheeks twitch and ache.
From across the park, an angry Lord Wexford—face red as his hair, exaggerated by his heavy black overcoat—eagerly spots the two of them and circles the stone path to speak to them. Claudia has met him several times, though never under happy circumstances. Her father owes him the most. Lord Wexford has sent threatening letters; he’s cornered Claudia and her father in town; he’s even shown up on their doorstep in the middle of the night demanding to be paid. In a drunken daze, Lord Jolicoeur once offered Claudia in lieu of money. Lord Wexford said no, for he’s already married and, in his words, “no woman is worth the amount you owe me.”
“Hello, Lord Wexford. You look rouged,” Claudia says mockingly. Lord Wexford doesn’t deign to look at her.
“Lord Fournier,” Lord Wexford says. “I spoke to Hubert”—Claudia winces at hearing her father’s name without the title; how little these people think of her and her family—“and he instructed me to speak to you about retrieving what I am owed.”
Lord Fournier nods. “Tomorrow, Lord Wexford.” He squeezes Claudia’s hand. “Once she and I are married, I will keep my word.”
With a tight scowl, Lord Wexford nods. “Tomorrow, then. No longer. I’ve already waited for the better half of a year.” He looks Claudia up and down. “Do right by him. You cannot grasp the magnitude of the favor he’s doing for your family.”
Claudia’s eye twitches. Lord Fournier is no savior—he’s a bargainer.
While they walk, Lord Fournier says, “Darling, I can sense your concern, and I’d like to offer some words that may put that at ease.”
Claudia smiles at him, hoping he’ll say something miraculous like I plan to give you lots of money and leave you alone forever! Or maybe Don’t worry, darling, I’m already terminally ill!
That would be perfect. She could escape with the Fournier fortune and fall for someone from his house staff—a handsome footman, or maybe have a forbidden affair with a gorgeous handmaiden. She gives him a dreamy, hopeful look while he clears his throat.
He looks down at her with tired eyes and a soft, thin-lipped smile. “You fear you will not be an adequate wife, for you’ve faced so much rejection.”
Claudia swallows down a laugh. She doesn’t fear being a bad wife—she doesn’t even want to be a good one. She doesn’t want to be a wife at all. No dismissal from a suitor has ever hurt her. The only truly painful rejection she’s ever received was the one from Cygnus University.
“But do not worry,” Lord Fournier continues. “From what I have seen, you are a good, quiet girl. You are submissive and obedient. You are polite, decently groomed, and a pleasure upon the eyes.” He pauses, narrowing his gaze to gauge her reaction.
She’s frozen. The way he just described her is everything she never wanted to be. Somehow, he reads her face as pleased, and he nods happily.
“See? Nothing to fear, darling. I’m confident you’ll suit all of my needs, and in turn, I promise to care for you so long as you are mine.”
Mine. His word loops in her mind. It’s the threat that wakes her up. She can’t accept this. He’s not offering her a life—he’s forcing her into a slow, sad, boring death. She can see it all now as if it’s already happened; she’ll surrender her body to this man, bear his children, and then he’ll die. If she has no boys, her father will take over Lord Fournier’s estate and Claudia will watch him drain another fortune. She’ll be too stretched and used and old to convince another man to take her hand, and she’ll be left in a worse position than she’s in right now.
There has to be another option. Something. Somewhere. Someone.
When they return home, Lord Fournier kisses her hand before he retires to his room, and she feels entirely numb. Once she and her father are alone, he says, “Good.” That’s all. Not as a compliment to her or a remark upon her behavior. Just an observation of the situation. No more debt. No more daughter.
Good.
Bishop slithers out from beneath the couch. Claudia carries him back to her room, noticing his slanted smile and his fat belly.
Her stomach churns. The mouse has been swallowed, and so, too, has she.
When Claudia Jolicoeur is rejected from Cygnus University, a devilish stranger named Dorian appears in her nightmares and offers her a bargain: he will get her into Cygnus if she learns how to free him from a prison of stars. He takes a bite of her soul to seal the deal, and Claudia wakes to a letter from the High Sage of Cygnus stating she will take the place of Odette Dufort, a Rhetoric student who passed away.
Her arrival raises suspicions, rumors that she had a hand in Odette’s death spread like wildfire, and Cassius MacLeod, the High Sage’s apprentice and Claudia’s fellow Rhetoric student, seems hellbent on humiliating her. Determined to clear her name, she searches for any evidence that could prove her innocence. When someone—or something—starts slipping her pieces of Odette’s diary, Claudia uncovers a horrifying truth: over the last century, celestial witches at Cygnus have been murdered. Odette was one of them, and Claudia could be next. For her own protection, Claudia needs to free Dorian—and fast.
By night, she studies the stars, slowly unraveling the mystery of Dorian’s prison. By day, she and Cassius wage rhetorical war as debate partners in class. What begins as a fierce rivalry devolves into something deeper, darker, and dangerously sensual. As Claudia inches closer to the truth, she must decide: would trusting Cassius be the last mistake she ever makes?