Page 70 of The Dagger and the Flame
The paper dart returned almost at once, and though there were only three words on it, she could almost taste the sadness laced inside them.
Already there, Seraphine.
She knew then that he was gone. That the conversation was over, the game finished, and somehow, she had won.
And yet, for hours afterwards, she found she couldn’t sleep.
Chapter 25Seraphine
At breakfast the following morning, Sera filled Bibi in on everything she had missed the day before. She listened, enraptured, and by the end was more than eager to help Sera plunder the Grand Versini Library and uncover the lost recipe for Lightfire.
Later that day, they set off with Val in good spirits, leaving Theo behind to tinker with the bloom Sera had brought back from the plains.
It was dusk by the time they reached the Scholars’ Quarter, where the Grand Versini sat in a pool of dying sunlight. Barely a stone’s throw from the Marlowe, the library occupied its own sprawling courtyard, which boasted a magnificent fountain built in honour of Celiana, Saint of Song and Poetry, whosemarble likeness spouted water into a large stone pool filled with copper coins.
Bibi fished a coin from her pocket. ‘Shall we make a wish?’
‘Personally, I’d rather pilfer that fountain than add my hard-earned copper to it,’ said Val, frowning at the water like she really was considering it.
‘If you steal those wishes, Saint Celiana will smite you.’ Bibi chucked a copper in, closed her eyes and whispered under her breath. Then she smiled. ‘I’ve got a good feeling about that one.’
After what had happened to Mama, Sera hardly believed in wishes, but she didn’t believe in ruining the moment, either. So she fished a copper from her pocket and listened to the satisfyingplinkas it hit the water. Her wish was a single word:Lightfire.
A handful of people were milling about on the steps of the Grand Versini, but the patrolling dayguards were already cautioning them to hurry home before the sun set. For that was when the monsters came out to hunt, and judging by the number of dead bodies that had been turning up over the last few days, they were hungrier than ever.
Oh, Mama, what did you do?
In the shadows of a nearby lane, they slipped on their cloaks. Once they were folded safely into the dark, they crept out of the alley and up the imposing marble steps of the Grand Versini, slipping seamlessly from one shadow to the next.
They convened in the reading atrium on the third floor, where a balcony looked over the entryway three floors below, and waited for the stragglers to leave. The librarians packedup, stowing the last of their books and grabbing their satchels, eager to beat the darkness home. After one last patrol of every floor, they extinguished the lanterns and left through the front door, closing and locking it behind them.
Silence, then.
The last rays of sunlight slipped through the arched windows, setting the entire atrium aglow. Bibi pulled her hood down, her floating head appearing behind a nearby armchair. ‘Too easy.’
‘Don’t get cocky,’ warned Val. ‘We’re only halfway there.’
‘Why can’t we ever celebrate the small victories?’ moaned Bibi.
‘Because that’s when things usually go to shit.’
They found a spiral staircase at the back of the fourth floor, and climbed it. Sera pressed her ear against the door at the top, listening for movement, but there was only the sound of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears and the tell-tale creak of the stairs as her friends climbed up behind her. She tried her lock pick, twisting and jiggling it just as Theo had taught her.
Click!
Her heart hitched as the door yielded. She slipped through the crack, into the sprawling darkness. The top floor was much larger than she was expecting, at least twice the size of the dining quarters at House Armand. The low ceiling was criss-crossed with wooden beams. The air up here was cold and stale, a faint ray of light spiralling down from a row of narrow windows.
Sera drew her cloak tighter as she drifted inside, listening forsigns of life. But the stacks at the Grand Versini were deserted. And in total disarray. There were bookshelves and boxes everywhere, tattered chairs and broken tables, cracked lamps and even a disused printing press.
‘What a dump.’ Val’s voice echoed in the silence. ‘How are we going to find anything in here?’
‘Divide and conquer,’ said Sera, slipping off her hood and gloves, and removing a box of matches from her pocket. She grabbed three oil lamps from a nearby shelf, and handed one each to Val and Bibi. ‘I’ll start on this side. Bibi you start in the middle, and Val, you can begin at the other end of the stacks. Shout if you find anything useful.’
Bibi took off in a clatter of determined footsteps, with Val trailing close behind. Sera hovered near the door, craning her neck at the surrounding shelves. It was difficult to know where to begin. Most of the books up here were dusty and falling apart at the spine, and there were hundreds of old penny papers that had turned stiff and yellow with age.
She tried to be methodical with her search, clearing one section of shelves before moving on to the next, stacking and arranging books and pamphlets as she went.
Bibi hummed as she worked and every so often, Val announced her boredom with a long-suffering sigh. A couple of hours into the search, Sera was beginning to lose hope when Bibi’s voice rang out. ‘I found a cane! I think it belonged to Hugo! In a box of old penny-paper clippings about the Daggers. It was hidden under the stack.’
