Page 59 of The Dagger and the Flame
Her Dagger was pacing in the shadows just beyond the boundary of House Armand, as if he was hoping she would simply surrender her mistrust and stroll outside to meet him. Hand over her necklace and bare the column of her neck, let him rip her throat out and be done with it.
She raised her middle finger, hoping he could see it.
He stopped pacing, angling his head to one side.
She raised her other middle finger, for good measure. Then waved them back and forth.
His teeth gleamed in the dark. He raised his own hand, crooking his finger at her. She read the invitation in the slow taunt of his smile.Come here, Seraphine.
Like hell she would. Insufferable asshole.
She turned around and grabbed her book, refusing to be drawn into his obsessive little game. She started to read, eager to lose herself in someone else’s adventure. It was no use. The Dagger was ruining her concentration, andclearlyincapable of taking a hint. Every time she glanced up from her book, she saw that moon-bright gaze shining in the dark. She read the same page three times, and still had to go back over it.
Enough.
She grabbed her notebook from her dresser. It had been a gift from Bibi following their success at the apothecary, the cover engraved with an etching of Saint Oriel. She ripped out a page, grabbed her pen and wrote:
Get a hobby, stalker.
She folded the paper into a dart and opened her window, firing it with the skill she had honed back in the plains when she and Lorenzo used to exchange notes across the study room whenever their tutor was distracted. It glided over the garden path and across the hedge, disappearing into the shadows beyond.
She returned to her book, reading the same page for a fourth time. Three minutes went by, and embarrassment roared inher ears. What had she been thinking, trying to write to an actualassassin? Making a pen pal out of Mama’s murderer and expecting him to reply! How utterly, completely—
There was a soft rap at the window. Pippin barked. Sera leaped to her feet. The paper dart had returned to the windowsill. He must have placed it there with a shadow.
She snatched it up, scanning the words scrawled beneath hers in small, neat script.
You are my hobby, Seraphine. Do you want to come out and play?
Sera slammed the window shut with such force, it rattled in its frame. She pulled the curtains, then leaped away from them for good measure. She crumpled the note and flung it at the wall, her cheeks so hot, she felt like an ember.
Bad idea. Terrible plan. Foolish game.
She flopped back into bed, setting her book aside. She pulled the duvet up to her chin, staring blankly at the ceiling. Trying not to think of his beautiful cruel face, hear the purr of those words in his gravelly voice.Do you want to come out and play?
‘No,’ she said, to the ceiling. And herself. ‘I don’t want to play.’
The teardrop at her throat tingled, reacting to the flood of her adrenaline.
She scrunched her eyes shut, willing sleep to find her. When it did, she was back in that alleyway by the Aurore. Ransom was there too, pressing her against the wall with the hard planes of his body, his broad hands on her waist, her blood on his lips.
Chapter 21Seraphine
As the morning mist clung to the rain-spattered rooftops of the Hollows, smearing the greying dawn light, Seraphine grabbed her satchel and her dog and set off for the plains, Dagger be damned. He had to sleep some time.
She went by foot into the heart of the city before heading north, to where a towering stone arch marked the border between civilization and wilderness. There, she managed to hitch a ride on a passing milk wagon returning from the city. Soon, the plains unfurled before her, the sky rendered in lavish strokes of amber and pink, the yawning sun stretching its golden fingers over the horizon, beckoning her home.
When the farmer dropped her off a couple of hours later at a familiar fork in the road, Sera offered him three coppersand thanked him for the ride. The wagon trundled on, and so did she, letting Pippin lead her towards their little farmhouse which had, for many years, squatted amidst a patchwork of cornfields and vineyards, overlooked by rolling green hills that belonged to wandering sheep and bleating goats.
Sera knew it was gone. Burned to ash and embers. And yet, a small, wistful part of her hoped it might appear once they rounded the hill, her heart gladdening at the sight of its modest white frame and bright yellow door, the wooden porch-swing creaking in the wind. But when she cleared the hill, her heart sank. The blackened shell of her house marred the picturesque landscape behind it. The thatched roof was destroyed, the beams straining against the mild breeze.
Pippin stopped, sniffing at the air like he could smell the wrongness of what had happened here. She picked him up, holding him against her chest to soothe the ache in her heart as she drifted up the garden path.
Mama’s body was long gone, burned to ash and swept away in the wind. All that remained was the burn mark in the wood, a reminder of where she had died with her hand flung out towards the garden as if, even in death, she was warning Sera to run.
Run little firefly, and never look back.
Sera sank to the floor beside that awful black mark, dropped her head into her hands and wept. Hours passed without her noticing. She wept until her tears ran out and her throat ached, until her eyes stung and her chest loosened. She wept until the little bead at her throat pulsed, its quiet warmth kissing the space above her heart until Seraremembered why she had come here. Until she remembered that she must go on.
