Page 8 of The Dagger and the Flame
Desperation makes the Dagger.
Power keeps them.
Leaving the Hollows, he passed a pair of oblivious nightguards on patrol and took a detour through Lazenne, a sleepy neighbourhood lined with old manor houses and leafy oak trees. Sometimes, at night, he wandered these quiet manicured streets, imagining a life where he woke every day to the chorus of birdsong and the smell of freshly baked bread. He would descend a winding staircase to find Mama sipping her favourite orange-and-bergamot tea. Anouk would be browsing the penny papers in a chair by the window, reading about horrors so far from their perfect little lives, it felt like peering through a looking glass into another world.
Sometimes Ransom wandered until his heart ached, just to remind himself it was still there.
He crossed the Bridge of Tears as the clock tower chimed three. The Shade was beginning to wear off. Exhaustion would soon set in, magic giving way to an all-too familiar feeling of gloom. Sleep couldn’t come soon enough, he thought, as he turned west towards Old Haven, just as a sharp whistle came from above. He jerked his head up just in time to glimpse a shape falling from the sky. It toppled him with a strangled yelp.
Ransom rolled over, swinging blindly. The shape laughed, and the sound was a familiar wheeze.
Ransom groaned. ‘Lark, you bastard.’
Lark leaped to his feet, offering his hand to Ransom. ‘Takes one to know one.’
Ransom kicked out, catching his ankle.
Lark caught himself before he fell. ‘Nice try,’ he said, fixing the collar of his dark blue pea coat. Messy waves of auburn hair stuck out from underneath a grey top hat, his normally forest-green eyes blazing silver in the dark.
Ransom rolled to his feet, assessing his oldest friend and brother-in-arms as they stood apart from each other at almost the same height. ‘Where are you coming from? And why are you wearing that ridiculous hat?’
‘Casimir Manor.’ Lark’s pearly teeth flashed in the dark. That dimpled smile was made for mischief – breaking rules, and breaking hearts. Lark was far too charming to be a Dagger, and he knew it, too. Maybe that was why he liked to flout the rules. He removed the top hat, twirling it by the rim. ‘The crusty old count barely blinked. Light work. I couldn’t resist the souvenir.’
‘Common thievery, Lark?’ Ransom’s brows rose. ‘Doesn’t that make you a Cloak?’
‘It makes me an opportunist. I would have stolen his grand piano if I had any hope of carting it out of there.’
‘Good luck explaining that to Dufort.’
‘I was going to say it washed up in a storm.’
Ransom snorted. ‘And with that shit-eating grin, he’d probably believe you. A copper says you can’t get the hat in the Verne.’
Lark threw the hat. They watched it sail across the bank and fall down, down, down into the rushing river, where it floated swiftly away.
‘Too easy,’ said Lark, holding his hand out expectantly.
Ransom smiled, tossing him a copper. Now, Gaspard Dufort wouldn’t see that ridiculous top hat sitting on Lark’s head, engraved with Count Casimir’s initials, and backhand him all the way to the Aurore. The rule was simple: Daggers and Cloaks stayed out of each other’s way. Daggers didn’t thieve and Cloaks didn’t murder. A minor distinction that had caused a family war so bloody that, over two hundred years later, the underworld still spoke of it in hushed tones.
‘Was the countess there?’ Ransom asked, as they turned for Old Haven.
‘His wife was out of town. His mistress was warming her spot,’ said Lark, with a derisive snort. ‘The old dog.’
‘Dead dog,’ muttered Ransom, thinking involuntarily of the girl and her mutt.
‘Mama will be pleased,’ said Lark, patting the coins in his inside pocket. ‘Twenty silvers means twice as many chickens for the farm. And just in time for winter, too.’
Ransom kicked a stray pebble, ignoring the twist of envy in his gut. Not for the provincial farm, which would soon be overrun with chickens, but for the kind-faced woman who collected their eggs and welcomed her son home every Sunday for brandy-and-butter cake. Sometimes, Ransom went along too, eagerly sharing Lark’s family life, like a beggar eating the crust off a heel of bread. ‘Doesn’t she ever ask where the chickens come from?’
Lark clucked his tongue. ‘Morals don’t make soup, Ransom.’
And that was the crux of it. Lark didn’t give a shit about his mortal soul. His mother was the centre of his world, andhis two younger sisters were his moon and sun, and he made no bones about it. Madame Delano had never quite recovered from the same fever that took Lark’s father. Her lungs were heavy and she was slow on her feet, but the bills came thick and fast, and the girls grew like beanstalks. So, at twelve years old, for the sake of his family, Lark had gone to work, telling his mother he had got a job delivering penny papers in Fantome.
Seven years later, and despite the fact his arms were now covered in permanent whorls of shadow, the painful, ever-expanding tattoo that came courtesy of the Shade he regularly consumed, she still pretended to believe him. Lark Delano was the most lavishly gilded paperboy in Fantome. They often laughed about it. Bad luck had made Lark a Dagger, but their friendship was Ransom’s good fortune. He didn’t know what he would do – what he would be – without it.
‘Did you find your mark?’ said Lark.
‘She’s at House Armand.’
