Page 116 of The Rebel and the Rose
‘Easy,’ said Nadia, grabbing his wrist.
‘What if one of the sisters starts trouble?’
At this, Nadia snorted. ‘They’re acolytes, not Daggers. They don’t know the definition offun, let alone danger.’
The door creaked open. A tall reed-thin woman with a pale pinched face occupied the frame. Her blue robes were embellished with gold thread, and she wore a structured veil that added several inches to her height. Around her neck, dangled a thick gold necklace that Ransom recognized as the bleeding heart of Saint Alisa. A more ostentatious version than the one his own mother used to wear beneath her vest, only taking it out to pray when he or Anouk fell sick.
By the innate imperiousness with which the old woman looked them over, Ransom assumed she was the Mother Superior. With a hideous scowl, she said, ‘You’re late.’
Ransom’s brows shot up. The pious old bat had some nerve.
‘We’re Daggers. We arrive when we arrive,’ he said, endeavouring to be somewhat polite, though the urgency of his task was pulsing in his ears.
Find the acolyte.
Kill her.
Bury her body.
‘You’re Mother Madeline, I take it,’ he said, noting her impatient nod. ‘We’re here about the saint.’
She hissed through her teeth. ‘Donotcall her that. There is only one saint on this island and it is Saint Alisa. We hold her spirit eternally close. All others are arrogant pretenders and shameless vultures.’
‘Tell us how you really feel,’ mocked Caruso.
‘It makes no odds to us how you think of her,’ said Nadia, matching the old woman’s impatience. ‘We’d like to get back to the mainland in time for supper, though.’
Humming in disapproval, Mother Madeline glanced over her shoulder. ‘Come away from the priory. You’ll set the sisters on edge. I’ll show you to the girl.’ Ducking inside to fetch a lantern, she quickly shooed them off the doorstep, locking the door behind her.
Faces watched them from the windows as they followed Mother Madeline across the little island. She led them west, to where the trees thinned and a peninsula jutted into the lake like a crooked finger. It was there that the famed prayer towerof Ra’azule had once stood. A fact confirmed by the mounds of ivory rubble now winking at them through the mist.
The wind howled, shoving at their backs and chasing the fog across the water until the sky cleared. Silver-spun moonlight splintered through the clouds and danced along the marshes. With a bolt of jarring clarity, Ransom was reminded of last night, how the moonlight had slipped in through the window in his bedroom and danced across Seraphine’s body, joining with the soft sheen of her skin until she glowed like a fallen star.
Seraphine.
Spitfire. Lover. Saint.
His.
A gasp stuck in his throat, his heart hitching painfully at the realization that she was not here. That he had left her without a word. That she didn’t know where he was. The wrongness of their cleaving was a barb in his chest, poking, piercing—
Find the acolyte.
Kill her.
Bury her body.
And then go home, laying waste to the promises they had made in the moonlit dark and instead returning to the catacombs, where he would await the prince’s next command.
Fuck.
That pain came again, like a pickaxe in his skull. Instead of his own voice, he heard another. Smooth as silk and dark as night.
Find the acolyte.
Kill her.
Bury her body.
