Page 60 of The Dagger and the Flame
She stood up and began carefully picking through the detritus of her former life. Everything was destroyed: their furniture and food, their clothes and books, even Pippin’s chew bones. The fire had demolished Sera’s favourite fairy-tale books and maps of the world as well as Mama’s most treasured tomes on alchemy and artifice, greedily devoured the towering stack of encyclopaedias she had spent decades collecting.
Sera gripped the straps of her satchel as she followed Pippin into the back garden, where a handful of lavender bushes had survived the fire. Pip relieved himself in one. She turned away, and noted with some surprise that their garden shed was still standing.
She kicked the door until it yielded. Pippin scurried inside and she followed, leaving the door ajar. There wasn’t much in here except for Mama’s old tools: two shovels, a rake, a couple of trowels and a stack of baskets they had used to collect grapes in the vineyard. The rest was in the Vergas’ barn a half-mile away. Save for a couple of misshapen wine bottles and crooked labels that bore the name of Mama and Maria’s wine,Nectar of the Saints,there was little else to look at. Certainly no Shade. Though Sera doubted any of Mama’s vials would have survived the fire. The Daggers weren’t foolish enough to burn the house and leave the magic behind.
And anyway, Sera hadn’t come back here for Shade. She frowned. Whathadshe come for? Answers. A sign from Mama. A pathway out of the ruination around her, and a reason to walk it.
A flicker drew her eye to the teardrop glowing at her throat. Theo had forged her a better chain for it two nights ago, after inspecting it at length to no avail. It was double-clasped and made from true gold. Near-impossible to break. She smiled now at the gesture, relieved to have shared her secret with someone she could trust, even if it mystified him.
Pippin pawed at the threadbare rug, until a corner of it came away. Sera sank into a crouch. There was a crack in the floorboards, just wide enough to slide her thumb into. She did so, pulling until three of them gave away at once. A trapdoor.
She glanced up at Pippin. ‘Clever mutt.’
The door hid a small crawlspace, just wide enough to fit a crate. Sera pulled it up, surprised to find it stuffed with five leafy heads. Boneshade. She might have mistaken them for cabbages had it not been for the golden glint of the bloom. The roots were gone, long ago ground into Shade, but strangely, the leaves were still perfectly intact, and glowing faintly in the half-light. Why had Mama kept them down here? How had they survived so long?
A better question: why had Mama hidden them in a place that not even Sera knew about? The bloom of the boneshade plant was always discarded. It wasn’t remotely valuable.
Sera’s frown deepened. It must have been valuable to Mama.
She stuffed the blooms into her satchel, then rifled through a set of jars until she came to the one Pippin was growling at. It was chock full of round berries. Pippin barked when she tried to open the lid so she set it aside, obeying the instinct that told her not to open it.
She continued her excavation, still unsure of what she waslooking for. She had the uncanny sense that she was peering into a secret pocket of Mama’s life and she couldn’t help hoping there might be something in here that was meant for her. A note, perhaps. Or an explanation for the magic she wore around her neck. A map of the world without Mama.
No such luck.
Nothing here meant anything to Sera. At the bottom of the crate, wedged between two slats, she found a narrow book that looked almost like a pamphlet. It was so old and well thumbed, the binding had come apart. Now it was more of a scattering of yellowed pages and faded ink. Sera had to squint to make out the title.
The Lost Days of Lucille Versini, Saint and Scholar
The book was ancient. At least two hundred years old judging by the print and size. Sera turned it over, examining it. Mama had often spoken of Lucille Versini, not as the saint she had become after her untimely death but as the scholar she had been – however briefly – in life. The youngest person to ever study at the Appoline, and to spearhead her own research. Sometimes, Sera got the sense that Mama was jealous of the young Versini girl, not for her fame but for the opportunity she had been given – to go to a place where knowledge was treasured, and innovation was celebrated.
Lucille’s story had always struck Seraphine as unbearably tragic. She had barely scratched the surface of her own potential when her life had been cut short, her research extinguished aseasily as blowing out a candle. What did Mama have to be jealous of?
She flicked through the pamphlet, intrigued by the pencil marks inside. Entire passages had been circled and underlined, sometimes two or three times. Most of the ink was too faded for words to be discerned, but her gaze snagged on one word –Lightfire.
The back of her neck began to prickle.
She heard acrunch.A sound she had heard a thousand times before. Someone was moving – no,skulking– through the flowerbed.
Ransom was here.
Sera slipped the tattered pages of Lucille Versini’s life into her satchel with one hand, and, as she stood up, reached for a trowel with the other. Another crunch, closer now. She leaped outside and hurled the trowel.
There was aclunk, then a strangled shout. ‘Agh! What the hell, Sera?’
She blinked the figure into focus. He was bent double, with one hand clasped over his eye and the other braced on his knee. She flinched as she noticed the generous crop of golden curls, his fraying blue plaid shirt, those long suntanned arms. They had wrapped around her more times than she cared to count.
She flung her hands up. ‘I’m sorry, Lorenzo! I thought—Never mind. Are you all right?’
Lorenzo straightened. ‘I figured you might be angry with me,’ he said, dropping his hand to reveal an angry welt above his left eye. ‘But I wasn’t expecting assault.’
‘It was an accident.’
He pressed his lips together. Full lips that tasted like sunlight and cider. ‘There was nothing accidental about that aim.’
She swallowed. ‘Pip—’
‘Don’t blame the dog. You always blame the dog.’
