Page 124 of The Dagger and the Flame
Live, it whispered from the deepest reaches of her soul.Live and burn the darkness away.
The voice did not belong to Mama. It was older, softer… born of another age entirely. As Sera hit the grass with a hard thud, blackness crashed over her like a wave, and in it, she swore she glimpsed the face of Saint Oriel.
She swore that she was smiling.
Chapter 47Ransom
Ransom spent the pearls Seraphine gave him not long after she left. He used the first one on three monsters scrapping at the far end of the west tunnel, and the second on a straggler who had made it all the way down to the crypts.
After a thorough sweep of the catacombs, he returned to the Cavern, steeling himself for what he would find there. He had seen enough bodies in the tunnels, but he knew the true horror of tonight still awaited him.
It was too quiet in the Cavern, where the metallic tang of blood mixed with the sulphuric stench of Shade. While the surviving Daggers picked through the detritus of their home, clearing aside the fallen rubble and broken furniture, Ransom walked among the dead bodies, looking for his friends. Terrified of finding them.
He knelt to inspect the body of a woman crumpled on her side, her sleek black hair gleaming in the light of an oil lamp that had somehow survived the brawl. She flopped onto her back and he loosed a breath of relief. It wasn’t Nadia, but a barmaid he vaguely recognized from the Lucky Shell. Another victim of Sylvie’s poisoned wine.
He searched on. Most of the dead were Daggers much older than Ransom, their bodies marked by extensive black whorls. Most of the others were dressed like dockhands, merchants and fishermen still in their seal-skinned boots. Monsters, once. Corpses now.
Just like Dufort. Ransom’s thoughts returned to the moment he had found Seraphine slumped in that tunnel beside her father, both of them so pale and still he’d thought she was dead too. Crushing, bone-deep terror had lanced through him at the sight. Even now, he could still feel it gnawing at the edges of his heart. The relief when her eyelids had fluttered had been so profound he had forgotten all about Dufort’s body lying six feet away.
Dufort’s death had not shocked or distressed Ransom as he once imagined it would. Even now, his thoughts skipped past the dead man to Seraphine, forging her way to the Aurore with a herd of monsters at her back. He tried not to dwell on the very real possibility they might turn on her at any moment. That a rogue creature could destroy the promise of freedom they had made to each other. The promise of tomorrow, and the adventures they would find beyond the darkness of Fantome.
He worried for his friends too. He regretted brawlingwith Lark earlier, and was relieved that Nadia had hauled them apart. He had to find them to apologize, to explain everything.
Three Daggers carried Dufort’s body into the Cavern, laying him down by the fireplace. An uncomfortable hollow yawned inside Ransom as he peered down at the Head of the Order, a man he’d once thought of as indestructible. He waited for a pang of guilt, of grief, but he felt neither.
What do you want to be, boy, brave or broken?
I want to be free. Ransom turned from the body.Now I am.
But at what cost?
Thirty-six dead Daggers so far, by Ransom’s count, including those lying in the tunnels. A third of the Order destroyed in one night. His stomach twisted at the thought of Lark and Nadia, still missing. He turned on his heel, searching the faces of the figures moving around him.
Abel hobbled towards him, the lines on his face carved still deeper by worry. ‘Have you seen Collette? I’ve searched all the tunnels.’
Ransom shook his head, and Abel staggered on, repeating the question to everyone he passed. Another pair of Daggers drifted over. Ren, with a deep gash on his cheek and Caruso, some of whose long black hair had been ripped out at the root. ‘The Cloaks will answer for this bloodbath,’ snarled Caruso.
More Daggers came until twenty or so of them were crowding around the body of Dufort, as if they were expecting him to rise from the dead and tell them what to do next.
‘The bodies,’ someone said at last. ‘We need to start taking them out.’
‘Good thing we’re surrounded by graveyards,’ muttered Caruso.
‘Has anyone seen Lark and Nadia?’ asked Ransom, but they shook their heads, pairing off to start carting out the bodies.
Ransom returned to the north passage, where he found Lisette pressed against the wall, as if she couldn’t bear to go inside the Cavern. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her blonde hair was caked with blood.
‘So much death,’ she murmured, holding her arms around herself. ‘Why did they come here? Why did she do this to us?’
‘It was Dufort,’ said Ransom. All this death – this horror – started and ended with Dufort. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Everyone is dead.’ She stared past him. ‘The Order is destroyed.’
‘Have you seen Nadia? Or Lark?’
She slowly shook her head. ‘Not since he went after the girl.’
Ransom froze. ‘What?’
