Page 5 of The Rebel and the Rose
The minutes crawled. Flinging a stick for Pippin, Sera watched the three-legged terrier run after it like a little greybullet. Her lips curled into a slow smile. The smell of the pine trees and the long grass brushing against her shins, the trill of birdsong and the wide bowl of the pale sky all reminded her of home. Closing her eyes, she imagined herself back in the plains, standing in the garden of her old life, playing fetch with Pip. Somewhere behind her, Mama was tending to her flower baskets, pruning the dead leaves and planting daffodil bulbs to flower in the spring.
It was so real this memory. This feeling. Home.Happiness. Sera’s chest warmed, her cheeks prickling with the sudden nearness of her magic. This strange, unpredictable force had taken root inside her three months ago atop the Aurore Tower. She had come to know it as a kind of fire. A flame lit from within, though she did not understand how it worked, or what it wanted from her. Sometimes, when she was sad or scared or angry, it burned like a bonfire in her heart. But at other times, it was cold and slumbering somewhere beyond her reach.
A gift she couldn’t quite unwrap.
A magic that fascinated and confounded her in equal measure.
A secret only her closest friends knew about.
‘Mind you don’t fall into my lake, Trouble. Old Othilde won’t be fishing you out. I have not bent these creaky knees in twenty years.’
Her eyes flying open, Sera spun around. Othilde Eberhard was standing in the reeds, wearing a pair of bright red rain boots. Thin as a rake and short as one too, the rest of her was swaddled in an oversized plaid coat. Her long white hair was stark against her olive skin and billowing freely in the wind.
‘I have come to my decision.’
Seraphine blinked. ‘That was quick.’
Was it? How longhadshe been standing out here, lost in thought? And where had Bibi wandered off to?
Othilde crooked a pale brow. ‘How long did the other smugglers take to consider your offer?’
‘I haven’t visited very many,’ Sera admitted. After she’d fled Fantome and found refuge in Halbracht with Bibi, Val and Theo, she’d barely had time to catch her breath. Within a matter of weeks, winter had whipped up with such a fury, it had made travel down from Halbracht almost impossible. Her grand plans for Lightfire – for Fantome – had only recently kicked up again. ‘But the one before you chased me from his garden with an iron skillet so…’
‘So, clever old Othilde was not on top of your recruitment list, then.’
Really, it wasn’t a matter of preference but proximity. ‘How does top five sound?’
‘Sounds like horse manure.’ Othilde jerked her head, as Pippin came striding back, stick in mouth. He dropped it at her feet. She surrendered a dusty smile. ‘Did you bring the mutt to sway me?’
‘That depends… Did it work?’
She picked up the stick and threw it. ‘All my life, I have lived by the man-made darkness of this kingdom,’ said Othilde, as Pip took off again. ‘But I have heard the whispers of Lightfire. Rumours of a Fantome that might have been, if Lucille Versini had had her way.’ She shook her head, regret misting her brown eyes. ‘I never believed those stories until the monsters came. IfI had known…’ She trailed off, her lips twisting. ‘Perhaps I would have devoted my life to a better cause. A better world. The one our saints left behind.’
‘There’s still time to reach for that world,’ said Sera, without judgement. It was never simple, the business of Shade smuggling. For many, it simply meant surviving. Crawling out of poverty and pain and hardship and clinging onto life by your fingertips. She would not judge Othilde for the same choices her own mother had made. ‘There’s still time to make your mark on Fantome, Othilde.’
They had Mama to thank for that. Sylvie Marchant had given her life to the pursuit of Lightfire. In the end, she had died because of it, nearly dragging Fantome down with her. Months had passed since the monsters she had poisoned began their reign of terror in the city. Hundreds of families were still in mourning. And as for the Order of Daggers… Sera still had no idea how many had perished on the night the monsters ripped through the catacombs… How many would still be alive if she had climbed the Aurore Tower when she was supposed to and set all those monsters free.
She tried not to think about it. At least when she was awake. When she slept, nightmares plagued her. When she wasn’t falling from that clock tower, she relived that awful day on the Aurore over and over again, recalling all too vividly the moment she had been struck by lightning up on the tower, how she had pressed her hand against the chest of the Dagger that had come to kill her.
Lark Delano.
She had scoured him to death with her touch.
Seraphine was no Dagger.
But shewasa murderer.
Her fingers twitched at the memory.
Othilde’s shrewd brown eyes missed nothing. ‘I think there’s time enough for both of us.’
Sera’s smile was strained. ‘You should know, the Daggers will be displeased at losing another smuggler. The Cloaks, too. They’ll see your decision as an act of—’
‘Treason?’ Othilde snorted. ‘What do I care?’ She turned to watch Pip emerge from the reeds, this time with three sticks in his mouth. Enterprising little thing. ‘I chart my own course. And Dufort is dead. Ignorant brute that he was. Never bothered to wipe his feet when he came here. Slurped his tea like a dog. I hardly know the one who usurped him. And I sure as hell don’t fear him.’
‘Ransom.’ Something inside her lurched at his name, but Sera could never tell if it was hope or dread that caused the strange tugging sensation in her chest. ‘He’s called Ransom.’
Her hand twitched again, like it was reaching for the memory of him.
