Page 54 of The Dagger and the Flame
Sera’s heart hitched. She tried to sound brave, but her voice broke when she said, ‘Please don’t hurt him.’
The Dagger blinked, then frowned. ‘What would be the point of saving him, only to hurt him?’
She swallowed thickly. She didn’t know what kind of trick this was, but she refused to believe it was an act of kindness. Not from the Dagger who had killed her mother, then tried to kill her. She squeezed her necklace, silently begging for its protection, but it only offered a dim pulse of warmth.
‘Please,’ she said again. Her heart was a drum pounding in her chest. She was going to be sick if he didn’t set Pip down. She was going to cry, her knees already threatening to buckle. ‘Leave him out of this.’
Slowly, so slowly, as if he was trying not to startle her, the Dagger set Pippin down. If Sera hadn’t witnessed the gentleness with which Ransom placed him on the street, she wouldn’t have believed him capable of it.
Pippin bolted towards her, and she rushed to scoop him up, pressing her face into his scruff. The Dagger watched her all the while, shadows absently wreathing his ankles and crawling up his legs.
When Bibi’s voice rang out behind her, Sera forced herself to speak. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.
His eyebrows rose. ‘Is that how you usually say thank you?’
She took a step away from him. He let her do it. She took another, slow and careful. And then a third.
‘Consider this a peace offering, spitfire,’ he said, casually digging those violent hands into his pockets. ‘Next time, we’re going to talk about that antidote.’
Sera frowned at the word. Not power. Not magic.Antidote. She wanted to call after him, but the Dagger was already gone, melting into the night as though he had never been there at all.
Chapter 19Ransom
Down in the harbour, twenty-three ships floated in the moonlit dark. Their sails were furled, their lamps extinguished, as they tried to hide from the monsters of Fantome. Seawater lapped against the dock, casting the faint scent of brine into the air. A still night so far. Unlike yesterday, when the screams were so loud, Ransom could hear them all the way up on Merchant’s Way.
‘It’s too quiet down here,’ said Nadia, her stiletto-heeled boots clacking along the boardwalk. She tightened the belt on her black trench coat, her gaze darting around. ‘Even the gulls have flown away.’
‘Clever birds,’ muttered Ransom, flipping his collar up to stave off the chill. Not for the first time in his life, he had the sudden, stirring desire to fly away from here too. Away fromDufort and his endless demands, away from the spitfire that plagued his nightmares. Away from the monsters that seemed to spring up from nowhere. All this danger was beginning to feel like it was part of the same web, only Ransom couldn’t figure out where he sat within it – was he the spider or a fly?
And what in hell’s teeth was Seraphine Marchant?
Orphan and runaway.
Liar and artificer.
He cast his gaze out to sea, thinking of their conversation from last night, how she had begged him in the street, not out of fear for herself but the dog in his arms. The dog he had almost killedseveralnightguards to save. In her desperation to save the mutt, she had revealed a naked terror Ransom hadn’t seen in her before. He had hated the sight of it.
It was dangerous territory he found himself in now. Too close to guilt, a hair’s breadth from empathy. He should have killed her in that alleyway by the Aurore and buried his curiosity with her corpse. He had known it even then, but that smart mouth had got the better of him.
She had broken his nose for it. A reward for his stupidity. In a flare of panic, he had flung that rum bottle and she had tripped, falling backwards with a hard crack. They had stood, then, glaring at each other in the slick of their own blood. And when he saw that red line dripping down her neck, smelled the metallic tang mingling with the lemon blossom on her skin, it had turned his stomach. He had thought of Mama, sewing her own cuts closed over the sink too many times to count, and in that moment, as he towered over Seraphine Marchant, he didn’t feel like a Dagger. He felt like his father.
For that reason alone, he was glad he saved the dog.
Not that it had garnered a shred of trust from her. That damn necklace remained a mystery he itched to untangle. Every time he glimpsed his reflection marred by all those black whorls, his thoughts returned to it. To what she could do for him, if she only stopped running. But then, perhaps she was smart enough to know that once she surrendered what he wanted from her, she was dead anyway.
Seraphine.
He was not yet done with her.
Lark, walking by Nadia’s other side, picked up a rock and threw it into the sea. It soared over a sailing boat and landed with aplonk.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Nadia.
‘Seeing if there are any monsters who want to come out to play,’ said Lark, firing another. ‘Don’t they usually come up from the sea?’
‘They come from everywhere,’ said Ransom.
And yet, they still hadn’t caught one. Lisette was patrolling the north of Fantome with her own band of Daggers, while Caruso and Raphael took the quarters to the east and west. Tonight, Ransom had accompanied Lark and Nadia down to the harbour. They had come to investigate the Lucky Shell, a tavern at the far end of the boardwalk, where sailors congregated after long weeks at sea to listen to jaunty shanties and drink until the sun came up. Several nights ago, a monster had torn through it, sending its patrons fleeing in horror. The proprietor, Kipp, hadn’t been seen since. And as a staunch ally of the Daggers, his fate – like his coin – was of great importance to Dufort.
