Page 34 of The Dagger and the Flame
‘They’re trackers,’ Sera realized. ‘Lose your cloaks! Your gloves! They can scent Shade!’
‘We have to run for it!’ Val ripped off her cloak and cast it over the first dog, temporarily blinding it. They made it to the second, and Bibi did the same thing. This way they managed to reach the stairs, where two more dogs were waiting for them. Sera grappled at her cloak but it was fastened too tightly and her hands were trembling wildly. In a fit of panic, she took off her glove and waved it in the air, desperately trying to distract the vicious creatures. Val and Bibi seized the chance, throwing themselves over the banister and landing on the floor below with a rattling thud.
Sera tried to follow them but one of the dogs caught her by the end of her cloak. She spun around, desperately swatting it with her glove. ‘Get off me!’
‘Sera!’ Bibi called up in a strangled voice. ‘Val’s twisted her ankle!’
‘Help her get outside!’ she shouted back. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’
The lie was shrill, echoing all the way down the stairwell. She wasn’t even close to getting out of here. The dogs had caught her and for all his skill and patience, Albert had not prepared her for this in self-defence class. She was screwed.
Sera kicked out and the dog growled, releasing her cloak. She ran for the library. The dogs bounded after her. She shoved the nearest shelf, sending a shower of books toppling to theground. It bought her five seconds. She clambered over the desk, then tipped it over, buying another five.
But there was no way out. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. She backed up against the stained-glass window, brandishing the letter opener.
‘Stay back!’ she yelled.
The dogs started to bark again, the commotion so loud she could have sworn it would wake everyone in Fantome. It was only a matter of time before the nightguards came. They would find her body ripped to shreds in a puddle of blue moonlight, the stupid cloak still fastened at her throat.
The dogs prowled towards her.
Sera closed her eyes and gripped the golden teardrop around her neck.
Mama, help me.
Suddenly, she felt something against her back. A crack in the window – a point of weakness. And there, at her side, a toppled chair.
The only way out wasout.
The drop alone might kill her.
But, maybe… whispered a voice inside her.Maybe it won’t.
Sera didn’t have time to think. She pocketed the knife, picked up the chair and swung it with all her might. The window shattered in a shower of colourful glass.
Chapter 10Ransom
Everything was going well until Ransom knocked over the flowerpot. It tumbled from the roof of Villa Roman and shattered in the garden, startling a stray cat.
Shit.
He froze, half expecting the back door to fly open and the girls to spill out in a panic. A minute passed, and then another, the slow heave of his breath puncturing the silence. He could sense them below him, winding their way through the dust-laden halls of Villa Roman, poking their heads into rooms where kings and queens had once sat.
The dirt on Pascal’s grave was still wet. Cordelia Mercure was certainly quick off the mark. Ransom wondered what precious treasure she had sent them for.
Take only what your cloak can carry, and your conscience canbear.He recalled Armand Versini’s famous words with wry amusement. Over the years, the Cloaks had rather stretched their founder’s cardinal rule. Once, on a rainy midnight in Fantome, Ransom and Lark had spied five Cloaks carrying a seven-tier chandelier across the Bridge of Tears. And there were rumours that as a young initiate, Cordelia Mercure herself had stolen a pair of flamingos from the Menagerie Zoo.
No matter. Whatever the treasure tonight turned out to be, Seraphine Marchant would not be bringing it back to House Armand. She would not be returning there at all.
As the new moon poured its light along the banks of the Verne, Ransom sank into a crouch. His fingers were buzzing, the Shade strong inside him. It had been weeks since the incident at Rascalle, when Saint Oriel had mocked him with that lullaby, an unexpected echo of his former life. Time had blunted the sharp edge of the memory, allowing him to reclaim his senses.
Seraphine Marchant was the longest-running mark he had ever hunted, cloistering herself inside the Order of Cloaks these past few weeks, as if she knew he was coming for her. Like a fool, he’d given himself away. At least that’s what he’d thought at first. But as he stalked the Hollows, night after night, waiting for the farmgirl to step out of her sanctuary, he started to hear things. Troubling things. First, news of a Cloak found murdered down by the harbour, his lips black with Shade. Perhaps Seraphine had not been hiding from him in particular – all the Cloaks were hiding from the Daggers.
Rumours were spreading like wildfire: the Daggers were out of control. Gaspard Dufort was finally losing his grip on hisOrder. There were other rumours too: whispers of monsters rising from the sewers to stalk the streets at night, people being snatched from their gardens, disappearing without a trace. Ransom brushed them off. He didn’t believe in monsters.Hewas the monster. But monsters or no, one thing was plain – the ordinary folk of Fantome were facing something far more sinister and dangerous than the Daggers.
Dufort, of course, was furious. The Head Dagger had become so incensed at the mounting reports, he dragged every single member of the Order in for questioning. He could be heard bellowing at them at all hours of the day and night, his rancorous rage rattling through the catacombs of Fantome until no one in Hugo’s Passage could get a wink of sleep.
Despite the Daggers’ nightly patrols, the rogues were still at large. They were making the Order look careless, sloppy. And after what Gaspard had done to Sylvie Marchant, the other smugglers were getting nervous. There was trouble in the catacombs. Trouble in Fantome.
