Page 102 of The Dagger and the Flame
‘Like hell you were.’
By the time they reached the clearing, a chill had settled into Sera’s bones. Her breath clouded as she pulled her arms around herself, regretting not grabbing a coat on her way out.
Ransom frowned as he looked her over. ‘I should be warming you up.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, waving his concern away. She cleared her throat, coming to her news. ‘We figured it out, Ransom. We cracked the recipe for Lightfire. I’ve been waiting to tell you.’
Waiting for you to come to me.
‘Sorry. I’ve been avoiding the Hollows,’ he said uneasily. ‘Lark’s been on my ass since he got back from Bellevue Castle and I was afraid he’d follow me here.’
Lark.Sera turned the name over in her mind, trying to imagine the pair of silver eyes that went with it. ‘Is he another player in the game?’
A grim nod. ‘You’re his mark now too. And we have a deadline.’
Sera leaned against a tree to steady herself. Just when she had scrambled out from under one assassin, she found another waiting in the wings. She would never be free of the Daggers. She would never be free of Dufort. ‘Ransom, there’s something I—’
‘I’m going to talk to Dufort,’ he said at the same time. ‘I’m going to ask him to let you go.’
Sera’s eyes widened in horror. In three quick strides she was on him. If it hadn’t been for the wall of shadows that surgedup between them, she might have shaken him in her urgency. ‘Have you lost your mind?’
‘I think I’ve finally found it.’ He set his jaw, resolute in his decision, and Sera got the sense he had spent the last few nights poring over it. ‘Once the monsters are gone, the city will go back to the way it was. Whatever… hatred Dufort held for your mother will die, along with the monsters she made. It doesn’t have to damn you, too. I won’t let it. When I speak to Dufort, when I reason with him—’
‘He’ll kill you too,’ she cut in. ‘You’re not thinking clearly, Ransom.’
His frown sharpened. ‘I’m thinking clearly for the first time in ten years, Seraphine.’
She was already shaking her head. ‘It’s not going to work. And if you try, you’ll only damn yourself.’
‘Then I’ll damn myself.’ He bit off a curse. ‘Or maybe I’ll tell him you’re already dead. Leave the city, Seraphine, lie low somewhere up north. Eventually he’ll forget about you.’
‘He won’t,’ she said, with rising frustration.
‘Of course he will,’ he retorted, just as hotly. ‘Do you know how many marks Dufort presides over at any given time? How many Daggers work under him? You’re just one wayward farmgirl from the plains.’
‘You don’t know him like I do,’ Sera snapped.
‘I’ve known him for half my life,’ he snapped back. ‘He’s like a father to me.’
Sera released a strangled laugh.
‘In six months he won’t even remember your—’ Ransom began.
‘STOP!’ The word exploded from her with such force, he stumbled backwards. Shadows swarmed the clearing, flaring behind him like a terrifying pair of wings. But Sera was not afraid of him. She was afraid of his naivety. She was afraid of what Dufort would do to him because of it. ‘Just…stop.’
He stared at her, hurt and confusion in his eyes.
‘Gaspard Dufort is never going to forget about me,’ she said again. Slowly. ‘There’s nowhere I can go that will ever be far enough away from him. Not while he has the king’s ear. Not while he holds Fantome in his fist.’
Ransom stilled. ‘Why?’
Such a small, quiet word.
Above them, the clouds opened, scattering rain across the clearing. A gauze of mist fell and it seemed to Sera that a part of Ransom already knew exactly what she was going to say. His body had already stiffened to weather the blow, his bright eyes wide and unblinking.
She made her tongue work, forcing the words out before shame got the better of her. ‘Because Gaspard Dufort is my father.’
Silence swept through the clearing.
