Chapter 11 Seraphine
The morning after the Strix blotted the skies above Valterre, a black carriage arrived at the gates of House Armand.
Spotting it through her bedroom window, Sera pressed a kiss to Pippin’s head. ‘Be good while I’m gone, Pip.’
The others were waiting for her in the garden. Val and Anouk, with their faces made up and their hair freshly curled, Theo with a satchel full of steelfire, and Ransom with a face full of murder.
At the doorstep, where Mercure and the others had come to wave them off, Tobias was still pleading his case. ‘I’m part of the Order of Flames. I don’t see why I can’t go too!’
‘This is a matter for the saints of Fantome,’ said Mercure.
‘Theo doesn’t even have any power!’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ said Ransom.
‘Not this again,’ sighed Anouk. ‘I can’t deal with an entire journey of you two sniping at each other.’
‘I’m minding my own business.’ Theo made a point of rattling his satchel. ‘And all these very sharp weapons.’
‘Is that supposed to be a threat?’ sneered Ransom, removing his steelfire blade from his coat. ‘Don’t forget what you armed me with.’
Theo narrowed his eyes. ‘Point that thing at me one more time and I’m confiscating it.’
Ransom’s smile was a scythe.
Anouk punched her brother in the arm. ‘Do not make me ruin my curls.’
‘Maybe I should go instead of Theo,’ said Tobias, coming down the step.
Paola yanked him back. ‘Your cousin has gold blood, which means he’ll be a whole lot safer at the ball than you.’
More bickering. More childish threats.
Tuning it all out, Sera went to check on the coachmen as they loaded up the carriage, making sure all their costumes were packed inside the chest. Mercure’s fleet of seamstresses had arrived yesterday afternoon, carrying enough fabric to fashion the sails of an entire armada.
They’d worked through the night, turning all those beautiful bolts of silk and satin into costumes that would allow them to blend seamlessly into Prince Andreas’s masquerade ball.
Their cloaks and masks were tucked safely inside Theo’s satchel, along with an entire arsenal of weapons, including lock-picks and daggers, pocket knives and necklaces strung with beads of Lightfire.
The journey was too long to pass in full regalia; they would have to stop somewhere near the Appoline to get changed.
Mercure looked towards the carriage, her wringing hands betraying her anxiety. ‘Be careful,’ she warned them. ‘And follow your instincts.’
Beside her, Fontaine was stone silent. Her milky eyes were trained on Theo.
As the sun rose above the Hollows and storm clouds gathered in the west, they climbed inside the carriage and waved goodbye.
Taking her seat by the window, Sera drew back the curtain back and watched House Armand disappear in the morning mist, as though it had never been there at all.
Val and Anouk wasted no time in divvying up Theo’s arsenal. On the bench across from Sera, Ransom was unusually quiet.
Nudging his foot, she said, ‘Nervous?’
His fingers twitched. ‘Impatient.’
As dawn bled into a dreary afternoon, they passed through the morning bustle of Fantome and onwards through the sleepy village of Everell, leaving the city by Wayfarer’s Gate.
The plains of Valterre passed by in smears of grey and green and brown, as they trundled past village after village, looking nervously for the Silver-tongue’s banners.
Sera didn’t notice she was chewing on her fingernails until Ransom leaned over and said, soft enough that the others wouldn’t hear, ‘He has no power over you. He can’t get into our minds.’
It wasn’t their minds she was worried about.
As saints, their magic might make them immune to Andreas’s powers of persuasion, but not to his soldiers.
Steelfire would make the job easier, but any blade could hack through a saint.
And from what she knew of Urnica, their king and his Stargrazers were a brutal sort.
‘I know,’ she murmured.
Ransom’s eyes burned with sudden intensity. ‘I won’t let him hurt you, spitfire.’
She knew that too.
As the day wore on and evening draped itself across Valterre, chatter in the carriage died away. After stopping for food at a tavern, Sera dozed off, surrendering to the blackness of her dreams.
She woke to the weight of Ransom’s hand on her knee. ‘Are you all right?’
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. ‘Are we there yet?’
Outside, a murky patchwork of fields whipped by, the clouds heaving with the promise of rain.
‘Another hour or so.’
Anouk and Val were fast asleep. Having drunk a large pitcher of ale between them, Sera was hardly surprised.
Theo was watching her from across the carriage. ‘You were thrashing in your sleep.’
‘Are you feeling well?’ said Ransom.
There was such a fog in her head, but it had been there for weeks now. A constant she was getting used to. ‘I’m fine. Any sign of the Strix?’
Theo shook his head, returning his gaze to the window. ‘Skies are too cloudy.’
‘Good.’
Ransom kept his eyes on her. She could almost feel him taking in every detail: her mussed hair, the stripe of drool on her chin, the smudges under her eyes.
She shot him an admonishing look. ‘Relax.’
He flopped back in his seat, muttering, ‘A foreign concept.’
Soon, the spires of the Appoline appeared on the dark horizon. Sera’s stomach churned, anticipation curdling into nerves as Ransom nudged his sister awake.
Theo flicked Val on the nose.
They groaned in unison.
Time to get dressed.
Ransom couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Sera.
Not since she’d emerged from the abandoned cattle shed a half-mile from the Appoline, wearing a floor-length gown of gossamer silver.
Her white bodice cinched tightly at her waist, skirts tumbling to the ground in a spill of satin.
Her heart-shaped neckline was pinned with white feathers that rose to a high collar around her neck.
Pearlescent combs swept her blonde hair back from her face, leaving behind just a few artful waves, and her eyes were rimmed with silver glitter to better blend with her mask: a slender canvas of snowy feathers.
Tonight, she was a dove.
A fitting symbol.
A taunt to the Silver-tongue Saint.
‘Seraphine.’ It seemed to be the only word Ransom was capable of conjuring. He shook his head, languidly dragging his gaze over every part of her. ‘I must have strayed into a dream.’
She was experiencing a similar out-of-body sensation. That, and the urge to drag him behind the cattle shed for a heated moment alone.
He was a study of menacing beauty, clad in a suit the same ink black of his tousled hair, with lapels adorned with onyx gemstones.
His shirt collar was crisp and low, pinned together with a silver talon that echoed the lining of his waistcoat.
His sharp-toed boots were high and black, made from the same leather as his eye mask.
The shadows that clung to him were wings of his own making.
Not a dove but a raven.
The reckoning that would come before peace.
In her sleek indigo gown and metallic mask of green-and-blue feathers, Anouk looked like a beautiful preening peacock.
Val, meanwhile, had chosen a slinky black dress that sparkled as she moved. And a matching mask pinned with fine silver whiskers. An alley cat on the prowl.
Theo, who was the last to emerge, wore a suit of deep green satin, and a serpentine mask wrought with shimmering scales.
Ransom huffed a laugh. ‘Suits you, Versini.’
‘Says the angel of death.’
‘Raven, actually.’
‘Oh, you’re raving, all right.’
‘Everyone, shut up and compliment me,’ said Val, giving an elaborate twirl. ‘I made the whiskers myself.’
‘They’re so sharp,’ said Anouk, stroking one.
‘Which reminds me.’ Theo shook out his satchel, and they swooped on the spoils, arming themselves with steelfire. As they donned their cloaks and returned to the carriage, hope took wing in Sera’s chest.
Ransom held out his hand. ‘Ready, spitfire?’
‘As I’ll ever be,’ she said, taking it.
He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. ‘Let’s give him hell.’
The Silver-tongue’s banners greeted them as they turned onto the grand driveway of the Appoline University.
At the official guard post, the prince’s golden rose flew alongside the black-and-red star of Urnica.
The banner underneath read:
Welcome, Neighbours, to the Ball of Saints
Drink, and be merry!
Curling her lip, Val said, ‘Oh, we’ll be merry – just as soon as you’re choking on your own blood.’
Anouk pouted. ‘I hope I don’t get any on my dress. I’ve never owned anything so fine.’
‘Hoods up,’ Theo reminded them as they approached the guard post. It was thronged with Rose-bearers. Ransom’s shadows moved like smoke, and he absorbed them just in time to evade the passing inspection.
Swords drawn and eyes glazed, the prince’s soldiers rounded the carriage, peering inside the windows. The coachmen played their part well, posing as delivery men of a case of fine brandy for the prince’s esteemed guests.
After a tense moment, the gates groaned open and they continued along the last quarter-mile of the tree-lined drive. String music wafted through the night air, joining with the excited chatter of Urnican delegates come to dance with the Silver-tongue Saint.
In the falling dark, the Appoline looked like a moody oil painting, the bonfires in the outer courtyard casting a warm glow across the ivy-clad stonework.
As they approached the final pair of black gates, the oak trees leaned over them as though they were conducting their own inspection. Sera sniffed. There was smoke on the wind.
Ransom stiffened in his seat. ‘What are they burning?’
Val stuck her head out of the window, craning to see through the iron bars. ‘Books,’ she said, drawing back. ‘He’s made pyres of all the books!’
Anouk’s horrified gasp drew Sera’s attention to the other window. Knuckles white along the ledge, she was staring up at a raft of dark blue flags, hanging from the overhead branches.
Only—
No. Sera’s stomach turned.
Not flags.
Robes.
The scholars of the Appoline were hanging from the trees.