Page 113 of The Dagger and the Flame
Don’t react.
She lay perfectly still, listening to the thud of his footsteps around her, the bark of her father’s voice, so familiar it raised the hair on her arms. She pushed her fear away, closed the door to her memories and bolted it shut.
Breathe.
Even with her eyes shut, she could feel the chaos all around her. The lingering mustiness of old bones and damp stone told her she was in the catacombs. Cloakless and concussed. And by the sound of things, there was a monster in here somewhere.
I hope it kills you, Dufort.Sera could feel his nearness, crackling in the air. One wrong move and he would strike her down. Which begged the question – why the hell wasn’t she dead already? She tried not to frown and give herself away as she recalled those last moments in the alleyway, pressed up against Ransom, gasping between kisses… then the blow on the side of her head.
Had he betrayed her after all?
She bit down on her tongue, fighting to keep her brow from furrowing.
‘MOVE, YOU IMBECILES, BEFORE THEY TEAR THIS WHOLE PLACE DOWN!’
The patter of footsteps around her faded as more distant screams rang out.
It occurred to Sera that she should move, too. Mama’s monsters might have followed her to the catacombs but she no longer had her cloak to command them. Which probably meant she was in just as much danger as the rest of them. She subtly flexed her hands, her feet. They were unbound. Apart from the dull ache in her head, she was in good shape. Fighting shape.
She cracked an eye open and slowly, carefully, turned her head. She was in a great cavernous room, which was all but deserted now. A small mercy. As a chorus of shouts echoed through the catacombs, the last of the Daggers scattered, making for the north passage.
Dufort stalled in the doorway, a hand braced on either side of the arch as he looked out on the chaos, listening to the screams of his Order as they died to defend him.
Rotten coward.
Sera’s hand inched across her hip, finding the outline of the switchblade in her pocket. She exhaled in quiet relief. For the first time in her life, she had an open shot at Dufort. She would never again be this close to her father.
She sat up, slipping the knife from her pocket and flicking it from its sheath. She drew her arm back, angling it towards the back of his head.
A hand curled around her wrist.
She tipped her head back to see Ransom standing over her, a warning in his eyes.Wait.
No.No.She was done waiting.
Sera struggled against him, desperately trying to free her hand. It was reckless, she knew. An impossible shot. The signature on her own death warrant, but she might as well be dead already.Please, she screamed at him with her eyes. Silent tears burned, as eighteen years of pain and anger and frustration all bubbled to the surface. She was so close. So achinglyclose.
‘It will take a lot more than a blunt pocket knife and your shitty aim, Seraphine.’ Dufort’s voice rose over the distant commotion. He had turned around, and was watching them struggle from the doorway. He smirked at Ransom. ‘Impressive foresight, son.’
Son.Sera nearly retched at the word. She cut her eyes at Gaspard, channelling a lifetime of hatred and disgust into herglare. Here he stood at last – her constant nightmare, a terror far worse than the skulls that haloed him. ‘You are no father.’
‘Well, you would know, Seraphine.’ He flashed his gold filling as he came towards her, but there was no warmth in his smile. Fury shone from the metallic sheen of his eyes, the Shade in his system smothering their soft cerulean blue. ‘Let’s not pretend you’ve been much of a daughter either.’
Sera felt Ransom stiffen.
‘What kind of daughter did you expect?’ she said, curling her lip. ‘The kind that hugs you after you tried to strangle her mother on her ninth birthday? The kind that picks blackberries to make you a pie with the same wrist you broke in one of your Shade-fuelled rages?’ Sera’s voice hitched, matching the shrill of panic around her. She could hurl a hundred knives at him, and it still wouldn’t be enough to equal the pain he had caused her. ‘The kind that lies down at your feet to die after you murdered the only person – the only parent – who ever cared about her?’
‘Dramatics,’ he said, nostrils flaring. ‘Just like your meddlesome mother. Everything is dark and bad and evil. And anyone who drinks from the darkness is evil, too.’ He curled his lip, matching her expression with disconcerting ease. ‘I secured anempirefor her, and she turned her nose up at it.’
‘You secured a fucking tomb,’ spat Seraphine. ‘Lie down and die in it.’
‘That’s exactly what your mother said,’ he remarked, coldly. ‘And tell me, little firefly, where is she now?’
Anger ripped out of Sera like a scream. ‘I SWEAR I’LL KILL YOU!’
She bucked and thrashed but Ransom would not let her go. And yet she felt him trembling against her, the heat between them surging. Was it his anger or her own?
‘I wouldn’t have had to terrorize you if your mother could hack this world,’ Dufort went on – like it mattered, this twisted narrative he told himself. ‘But Sylvie never saw the beauty in the darkness, the possibility of what we could have been together. All she cared about was that fucking dead Versini girl and her dreams ofLightfire.’ He spat the word. ‘I wanted to make a name for myself – forall of us– and Sylvie wanted to destroy everything. She wanted to make a stand against Shade. Against the whole Versini legacy. Againstme. Andyou—’ He raised his finger, and shadows slithered from the walls around him. ‘Youhad the reckless stupidity to stand beside her.’
