The Dagger and the Flame (The City of Fantome #1)

Chapter 32 Seraphine

Chapter 32 Seraphine

Sera wore her cloak as she walked across the river to the Saints’ Quarter, with Ransom’s warning still swirling in her head. She didn’t know who the other players in the game were – or how many more Daggers Dufort had assigned to kill her – but she sure as hell didn’t want to find out the hard way.

It was late afternoon when she set out from House Armand, the pale autumn sun gilding the city rooftops in soft amber light. There was a crispness to the air that made her draw her cloak tighter as she crunched through the leaf-strewn streets. Our Sacred Saints’ Cathedral towered over the sleepy streets of west Fantome, formidable in its beauty. It was a remarkable feat of architecture, with a grand limestone fa?ade and two rows of flying buttresses guarded by stern-faced gargoyles.

The church boasted twelve stained-glass windows at the front alone, one for each of the twelve original saints of Valterre. Seraphine peered up at them as she approached, catching the misted gaze of Saint Celiana, who had been painted on a floating seashell, playing a harp. In the window next to her, Maurius, Saint of Travellers and Seafarers, stood at the bow of a wooden ship, casting a fierce wind that blew the sails taut. Beside him stood a young, weeping Maud, Saint of Lost Hope, once worshipped for her ability to take on the sadness of others and unburden them of their worldly cares. She had been rendered with her shawl pulled tight around herself, her crystalline tears glistening in the dying sunlight.

Sera had never been inside Our Sacred Saints’ Cathedral before. Mama used to joke that if they ever set foot inside it, the revered saints of Valterre would sniff out the Shade on the pads of their fingers and send them up in flames.

That joke was no longer funny to Sera.

A push on the large oak doors revealed the dimly lit sanctuary within. Puddles of blue and red and yellow light danced along the marble floors, while hundreds of candles flickered in the alcoves. The beauty of this place took Sera’s breath away, and for a moment, she stood under the gazes of the saints and wished she was worthy of their attention. Wished she was a different sort of girl, from a different sort of life, where visiting a cathedral like this wouldn’t set her teeth on edge.

You have an air of destiny about you.

Fontaine’s words trickled down her spine.

The church was empty, save for a few people praying near the back. Sera trailed her fingers along the wooden pews as she drifted towards the altar, where twelve statues stood peacefully. They watched over the dais where priests and priestesses gathered to worship them every week.

She removed her cloak and sat down, two rows from the statue of Frederic, Saint of Farmers and Hunters, and waited. She let her mind drift, back to lazy days out in the plains, when she and Lorenzo would sneak away from their tutor’s cottage and hide in the cornfields, finding shapes in the clouds. They would stay like that for hours, making up stories, until they were laughing too hard to speak, or kissing too hard to breathe. Lorenzo had always wanted to be a farmer, to raise cattle in the plains, to keep chickens and in time, a brood of children, too. It was a simple life, but his eyes glowed whenever he spoke of it. Sera was too much of a daydreamer to settle so soon on what she wished to become, and she liked it that way – the future yawning out before her with a hundred different pathways to happiness.

Now, she felt all those possibilities slipping away, the destiny Mama had imagined for her closing around her like a vice. She thought of the Grim in Madame Fontaine’s cards and wondered where this future would lead her – if there was a pathway left for her at all.

In the storm of her worries, the pew creaked.

The air warmed as a figure sat down beside her.

‘I’ve always thought that statue of Saint Frederic makes him look constipated,’ remarked an all-too-familiar voice.

Sera bit back her smile. ‘Hello, stranger.’

Ransom turned to look at her. ‘Hello, Seraphine.’

‘You can’t kill me in a church,’ she said, meeting his gaze. Relieved to find it was not silver… Disconcerted to find it even more arresting in the flickering candlelight.

‘Dagger’s honour,’ he said, pressing a palm to his chest. ‘I thought we were past all that anyway.’

Sera hoped they were, but she couldn’t help being wary. Better to remain on guard.

Ransom had no such concerns. He turned towards her, his forearm sliding along the back of the pew until his fingers brushed against her shoulder. She ignored the flare of heat in her body, the way her skin warmed at the nearness of his touch. He smirked at the rising blush in her cheeks. And what a smirk it was. Saints, save me . ‘Tell me, spitfire. Why am I here?’

She drew a sharp breath, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. Lingered there. A black strand curled along his forehead and her fingers itched to push it back, to press her hand to his cheek and see if he might kiss it again. Ransom was distractingly handsome. He might not have his Shade, but he had that face, that voice. Other weapons. Other ways to disarm her.

She pulled back from him. ‘Have you ever killed anyone in a church?’

He blinked. ‘No. Have you?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve never killed anyone.’

‘Not for lack of trying.’

She dropped her gaze to where she had stabbed him.

He followed her line of sight. ‘Do you want to see my scar, Seraphine?’

Her throat tightened. ‘You can’t lift up your shirt in here,’ she said in a strangled voice.

‘So pious ,’ he said, with a chuckle. ‘But you’re probably right. I’d hate to scandalize our saints.’

She turned back to the statues, gathering her composure. ‘If you’re looking for unlucky number thirteen, Lucille Versini is not here,’ he said, reading her confusion easily. ‘For all his power, Hugo Versini never managed to get a statue of his sister into this place.’ He clucked his tongue, tipping his head back. ‘Not even a window pane. Her statue stands above his passage in Old Haven.’

‘I doubt she’d care,’ muttered Sera.

He hummed in agreement. ‘And anyway, Lucille didn’t possess any measure of magic. She wasn’t blessed like the saints of old. She doesn’t hold any lasting influence on this city.’

Not yet , thought Sera, working her way up to talking about the Lightfire. She was surprised he hadn’t brought it up yet but she sensed he was waiting for her to show her hand.

He chewed on his bottom lip, nipping at that white scar. She was seized by the urge to trace it with her tongue. She blinked the thought away and returned her attention to the saints, giving her eyes a break from the terrible beauty of him. She was not here to lust over a Dagger, easy as it was. She was here to ask a favour of him.

She wrung her hands, preparing to come to the point, but he stood up abruptly and went to the bay of candles at the side of the altar. He lit one taper, and then another, setting them side by side, among a sea of other people’s wishes.

Ransom dropped his head in silent prayer. Sera studied the towering shadow of his body flickering in the candlelight, the broad sweep of his shoulders and the curve of his biceps as he clasped his hands behind his back. Here was a devil standing under the eye of the saints, and he didn’t seem to care. In fact, he was acting like he belonged in their company.

She laughed.

He looked up, frowning.

‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘Who are you praying for?’

He turned back to the candles as if he hadn’t heard her, dipping his chin as he finished his prayer. Sera’s curiosity only grew, but she pressed her lips together, waiting.

He returned to the pew, sliding so close his leg brushed against hers. ‘What?’ he said. ‘No candles to light?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve had my fill of fire.’

‘Right. Sorry.’ He rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. ‘That was tactless.’

She blinked at the sincerity of his tone. He dropped his hands on his knees, and she marvelled at how big they were next to hers. His olive skin shone golden in the candlelight, but the shadow-marks looked darker than ever. She tracked a black whorl that peeked out of his sleeve and curled around his left thumb, like a wreath of thorns. The hands of a killer, she reminded herself.

Then why did she want to touch them so badly?

He watched her study them, his mouth a hard line.

She sat back, looking at the melancholic statue of Saint Maud. ‘Even if I did pray, I’m not sure anyone would hear me.’ She didn’t know why she was still speaking, but there was something about the silence in here that loosened her tongue. ‘I’m not sure Mama is with the saints.’

He jerked his chin up. ‘You don’t believe that.’

She smiled ruefully. ‘Have you forgotten who made all those monsters? And all the people they’ve killed?’

He frowned. ‘Nothing in this world is ever black and white. What we do is not always who we are.’

She snorted. ‘Is that what you tell yourself at night after you’ve murdered someone?’

There was a sudden whip of coldness between them. His lip curled and he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.

Behind them, pews creaked as worshippers left ahead of sundown. The church darkened, the candle flames flickering as if to fight the night sweeping in. Shadows danced around them, and idly Sera wondered how many times Ransom had ripped those same shapes off the wall and used them to choke the life out of someone. How many bad people he’d killed, how many good. She wondered if the regret in his eyes was a trick to snare her sympathies. If she should look at the marks on his hands instead.

She hadn’t come here to wound him. And yet he seemed to care about what she thought of him. Perhaps she had echoed the things he thought about himself. Things like monster, killer . Maybe that’s why he hated the shadow-marks on his body, why he wanted them gone.

‘The candles are for my family,’ he said, so quietly Sera had to lean forward to hear him. ‘My mother. My sister. It’s been almost ten years since I last saw them.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘They ran away… We all did.’ He scrubbed a hand across his jaw. ‘My father was a violent man. He terrorized us for years, and when we ran, he chased us.’

‘And he caught you?’ she guessed, from the haunted look in his eyes.

He nodded, but said no more, leaving her to wonder about the kind of monster his father had been. What other things they had in common. Absently, he traced his finger along the scar on his lip, and she had the sudden sense she knew where it had come from. Or rather, who.

‘Where is he now?’

‘Dead.’ The word was stone cold. And then, as though he couldn’t quite hold in the rest, he said, ‘He was my first kill. I was ten years old.’

Bile pooled in Sera’s throat. She could scarcely imagine a child taking on such a heinous task, then bearing the weight of the guilt. She looked at all those shadow-marks and wondered which one was the first. How many had come after.

‘I’m sorry you had to go through that,’ she murmured, thinking now of her own father. How she wished him dead too. However many things she had judged Ransom for, she would not judge him for that.

He looked up at her. ‘Why are you sorry? He was the victim.’

‘No,’ she murmured, holding his gaze. ‘I don’t think he was.’

He shrugged, looking away. ‘The candles are an offering to Saint Maurius. I pray that wherever they went, they found a safe haven. Somewhere far beyond Fantome.’

Sadness slackened his shoulders. It was an effort not to reach for his hand, and offer a measure of comfort. So she said instead, ‘I’m sure they did.’

He looked up at her again, something like hope catching in his eyes. And even though he was still a well-seasoned assassin and their truce teetered on the knife edge of their mutual curiosity, she felt like in that moment they were something else – two lost souls, left adrift in the same dark sea.

She went on, ‘I bet they hired a wagon and went south, through the lavender fields of Florenne and the sun-kissed valleys beyond. They’re probably in a white-stone village somewhere by the sea, living among the fisherfolk who sing to the waves to coax the shoals to shore.’

Ransom drew closer, his lips parted, as if to breathe in her story, and Sera continued, drawing them both deeper into the tale. ‘In the morning, they rise with the sun to weave nets along the strand, and in the afternoon, when the heat of the day passes, they stroll along the beach and harvest mussels by the shoreline. They throw nets and catch crabs, watch the sea turtles slumbering just beyond the surf, where the jellyfish swim.’

Ransom’s chuckle was low and breathy. ‘Anouk is terrified of jellyfish. I threw one at her when we were children and she never got over the fright.’

‘Anouk.’ Sera smiled at the name. ‘Maybe she’s finally outgrown her fear. Maybe she has a pet jellyfish of her own that she’s named after you.’

Ransom’s laughter burst out of him, catching flight and soaring up to the roof. It was music she could listen to over and over again. ‘Can’t you picture it?’ she said, joining in. ‘Ransom the jellyfish. The Dagger of the Sea.’

‘It has a certain terrifying ring to it,’ he said, still chuckling. ‘Although Anouk never called me Ransom. That’s not my real name.’

‘Oh.’ She supposed that made sense. Ransom was an unusual name to give a child.

She could tell by the twist of his lips that he didn’t like it. ‘I was the price of my family’s freedom.’

Ransom.

Sera bristled at the cruelty of it. ‘Dufort gave you that name.’

‘Dufort took me in. He saved my life. He can call me whatever he likes.’

Sera couldn’t keep the bite from her voice. ‘And he can have your soul while he’s at it.’

He only shrugged. ‘If that’s the price of freedom.’

‘And how is that freedom working out for you, Ransom ? Are you enjoying your life as a Dagger?’

‘Are you enjoying yours as a Cloak?’ he parried.

The tension swelled, joining flame and shadow, as they stewed in the consequences of their decisions. ‘You’re not going to tell me your real name, are you?’

He looked at her – really looked at her – like he was considering it. It was like staring into the eye of the storm, trying to find the sunlight on the other side of it. ‘Then I really would have to kill you.’

‘Fine,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t want to worsen my odds.’

‘No,’ he said quietly.

‘The lullaby,’ she said. ‘How do you know it?’

‘I used to sing it to my sister when our father came home drunk from the tavern. Anouk was training to be a ballerina. She used to call herself the dancing swan. She always wanted to fly.’ His smile was edged with pain. Sera felt the same sadness inside her, that ache for a different, kinder life. ‘In the end, she flew away.’

Sera reached into the pocket of her coat and removed the music box she had felt him covet the other night in the Hollows. The song they had come to share. She placed it on the pew between them. ‘For you.’

He stared at it. Then at her. ‘You’re bribing me.’

‘Maybe,’ she said, tracing her finger along the wooden lid. ‘Or maybe it’s a gift.’

His fingers twitched like he wanted to take it. He resisted, and turned towards her, the fullness of his body blocking out the rest of the church, and all those statues watching over them. ‘Tell me your proposition, Seraphine.’

‘It’s about the monsters.’

‘I figured.’

‘You know my mother made them. Whatever her reasons were, it doesn’t matter.’ She wouldn’t tell him. Perhaps he had already figured it out. ‘I have to destroy them. I have to free them. But to do that, I need to make more Lightfire.’

‘So, make more,’ he said.

‘I intend to.’ A breath of hesitation. ‘But I need your help.’

‘So that’s why you lured me here.’

‘ Lured is a strong word. I’m hardly a siren,’ she felt compelled to point out. His eyebrows rose, as if to say, Aren’t you? Ridiculous. She couldn’t make this Dagger do anything he didn’t want to do, and they both knew it.

‘What is it that you need from me, Seraphine? I don’t know how to make Lightfire.’

‘But you want it,’ she said, quietly. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Yes.’ The word throbbed between them. He leaned closer, his scent surrounding her – woodsmoke and sage, and a hint of wild mint on his breath. His gaze dropped to her mouth. ‘Badly.’

Sera scrambled for her words before they eddied away. ‘Lucille Versini is the one who discovered Lightfire. Mama managed to crack the recipe but without her, I can’t work it out. I need Lucille’s journal,’ she said, all in one hurried breath. ‘I know it’s buried with her in the catacombs.’

He cocked an eyebrow. ‘You only know that because I told you.’

‘For which I’m very grateful.’ She flashed a smile. ‘I have to read it, Ransom. I have to see if it holds the answers I need.’

‘So, you would have me play Cloak?’ he said, eyes flashing with amusement. ‘You want me to thieve for you.’

She jutted out her chin. Too close to his face, those dancing eyes and teasing mouth. ‘Do you want to rid Fantome of these monsters or not?’

‘Of course I do,’ he said, without missing a beat. ‘But you’re asking me to break into the sacred crypt of Lucille Versini. Which means going against the rules of the Order, and Dufort himself. And don’t forget, I’m supposed to be killing you.’

Fair points.

‘And all for the price of a lullaby,’ he added.

‘And Lightfire,’ she reminded him. ‘I have an artificer I trust. Whatever we make, I’ll give you half of it. You can do what you want with it. Swallow it. Bathe in it.’

He cocked his head. ‘Together?’

Her cheeks flamed. ‘I’m serious, Ransom. Bring me the journal, and let me try.’ At his silence, she went on, frustration sharpening her words. ‘Or return to your hovel with the rest of the vermin and let this city rot. Let yourself rot, too, until those shadow-marks run so deep they eat your soul.’

‘You’re asking me to rob a crypt,’ he said through his teeth. ‘Can you give me a damn minute to consider the risks?’

‘I’m asking you to do the right thing for once in your life,’ she said, voice rising. ‘Here’s a tip, Ransom: if you want to actually atone for all the depraved shit you’ve done and be the kind of man your sister would be proud of, then it’ll take more than erasing those marks on your hands.’

He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. ‘And do you think killing all those monsters in one fell swoop will atone for the depraved shit your mother did?’

She prodded him in the chest. ‘Don’t talk about my mother.’

He caught her finger. ‘Don’t talk about my sister.’

She shook him off, glaring at him.

He glared right back. ‘If you’re not careful, spitfire, I’ll go back to killing you.’

She didn’t know what possessed her but before she could think better of it, she grabbed his hand and pressed it against the hollow of her throat. He let her do it, his calluses rough against her skin. Her pulse raced against them. His breath caught as he noticed, and she went utterly still, letting his fingers curl around her neck.

He watched her through lowered eyelids, waiting for her to flinch.

‘Go ahead, Dagger.’ She held his gaze, daring him to do it. Something feral burned in his gaze, and for a fleeting moment, she didn’t know what he wanted: her body, or her corpse. His fingers twitched. Slowly, so slowly, he slid his palm up her neck and brushed his thumb along her jaw.

‘Wicked game,’ he breathed against her lips. ‘Have you ever kissed anyone in a church, Seraphine?’

She closed her eyes, her chest aching, Her skin was so hot she felt like she would catch fire under his touch. She was putty in his hands. His to kill or kiss, to torture as he liked. When she opened her eyes to his molten gaze, she saw that she was torturing him too.

Something flitted across the back of her mind. ‘The journal,’ she remembered.

‘I’ll get you the journal,’ he said at once, and she thought perhaps he had already intended to do it.

She smiled. ‘There. Was that really so hard?’

His own lips curved. There was a slow beat of hesitation, and in the sliver of space that remained between them, she felt the heat of his desire raging against her own.

Then the church bells rang out, making her jump.

Ransom’s face shuttered. ‘I should go,’ he said, more to himself than to her.

Seraphine nodded. ‘The journal…’

‘Yes. The journal.’ He jumped to his feet, taking the music box with him. ‘I’ll let you know when it’s done. In the meantime, go home and try to stay out of trouble.’

All she could do was stare after him as he strode from the church, clutching that little wooden box to his chest, like it was the other half of his heart. Her bribe accepted, their deal made, even if there was no kiss to seal it.

Seraphine couldn’t help the crushing weight of her disappointment as she slid from the pew and followed him.