Page 86 of The Dagger and the Flame
He looked up, frowning.
‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘Who are you praying for?’
He turned back to the candles as if he hadn’t heard her, dipping his chin as he finished his prayer. Sera’s curiosity only grew, but she pressed her lips together, waiting.
He returned to the pew, sliding so close his leg brushed against hers. ‘What?’ he said. ‘No candles to light?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve had my fill of fire.’
‘Right. Sorry.’ He rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. ‘That was tactless.’
She blinked at the sincerity of his tone. He dropped his hands on his knees, and she marvelled at how big they were next to hers. His olive skin shone golden in the candlelight, but the shadow-marks looked darker than ever. She tracked a black whorl that peeked out of his sleeve and curled around his left thumb, like a wreath of thorns.The hands of a killer,she reminded herself.
Then why did she want to touch them so badly?
He watched her study them, his mouth a hard line.
She sat back, looking at the melancholic statue of Saint Maud. ‘Even if I did pray, I’m not sure anyone would hear me.’ She didn’t know why she was still speaking, but there was something about the silence in here that loosened her tongue. ‘I’m not sure Mama is with the saints.’
He jerked his chin up. ‘You don’t believe that.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘Have you forgotten who made all those monsters? And all the people they’ve killed?’
He frowned. ‘Nothing in this world is ever black and white. What we do is not always who we are.’
She snorted. ‘Is that what you tell yourself at night after you’ve murdered someone?’
There was a sudden whip of coldness between them. His lip curled and he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.
Behind them, pews creaked as worshippers left ahead of sundown. The church darkened, the candle flames flickering as if to fight the night sweeping in. Shadows danced around them, and idly Sera wondered how many times Ransom had ripped those same shapes off the wall and used them to choke the life out of someone. How many bad people he’d killed, how many good. She wondered if the regret in his eyes was a trick to snare her sympathies. If she should look at the marks on his hands instead.
She hadn’t come here to wound him. And yet he seemed to care about what she thought of him. Perhaps she had echoed the things he thought about himself. Things likemonster, killer. Maybe that’s why he hated the shadow-marks on his body, why he wanted them gone.
‘The candles are for my family,’ he said, so quietly Sera had to lean forward to hear him. ‘My mother. My sister. It’s been almost ten years since I last saw them.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘They ran away… We all did.’ He scrubbed a hand across his jaw. ‘My father was a violent man. He terrorized us for years, and when we ran, he chased us.’
‘And he caught you?’ she guessed, from the haunted look in his eyes.
He nodded, but said no more, leaving her to wonder about the kind of monster his father had been. What other things they had in common. Absently, he traced his finger along the scar on his lip, and she had the sudden sense she knew where it had come from. Or rather,who.
‘Where is he now?’
‘Dead.’ The word was stone cold. And then, as though he couldn’t quite hold in the rest, he said, ‘He was my first kill. I was ten years old.’
Bile pooled in Sera’s throat. She could scarcely imagine a child taking on such a heinous task, then bearing the weight of the guilt. She looked at all those shadow-marks and wondered which one was the first. How many had come after.
‘I’m sorry you had to go through that,’ she murmured, thinking now of her own father. How she wished him dead too. However many things she had judged Ransom for, she would not judge him for that.
He looked up at her. ‘Why are you sorry? He was the victim.’
‘No,’ she murmured, holding his gaze. ‘I don’t think he was.’
He shrugged, looking away. ‘The candles are an offering to Saint Maurius. I pray that wherever they went, they found a safe haven. Somewhere far beyond Fantome.’
Sadness slackened his shoulders. It was an effort not to reach for his hand, and offer a measure of comfort. So she said instead, ‘I’m sure they did.’
