Page 65 of The Rebel and the Rose
There were maps, too. So many they littered the floor.
Ransom looked up from the ledger he was thumbing through. ‘This whole book is full of Beauregards. Births and deaths. Their final resting places.’
‘Saint Oriel’s descendants,’ said Sera. She wondered if Fontaine was in there somewhere.
‘Maybe he was after her final prophecy. He was clearly obsessed with the second coming,’ said Nadia, who had just pulled a biography about Saint Oriel from the prince’s satchel.‘Spare me these spoilt rich men and their never-ending quests for greatness.’
Theo leaned in to have a look, his shoulder brushing hers as he examined the cover. Annoyance prickled at Sera. Whatever merriment he had enjoyed with Caruso and Nadia in their carriage three days ago had dissolved their ire towards him. But every time Nadia locked eyes with her, Sera felt like the Dagger was imagining her slow and painful demise.
‘So many Havelocks,’ Theo muttered, turning back to the ledger he had been flicking through. ‘Why is that name so familiar?’
‘It’s the family name of Saint Maurius,’ said Ransom, setting down a raft of papers.
Sera’s brows rose. If Oriel was her own favoured saint, then Maurius, Saint of Seafarers and Travellers, was Ransom’s. She had watched him pray to him once, in Our Sacred Saints’ Cathedral. Not for himself but for his mother and his sister Anouk. That they had found safe haven somewhere far beyond the cruel fists of his father and the dark underbelly of Fantome, that one day he might be reunited with them again. As the Head of the Daggers, and a slave to the thrall of Shade, he was further from that dream than ever.
Theo scrubbed his jaw. ‘The Oriel obsession makes sense to me, but why the interest in Maurius?’
Again, it was Ransom who answered. ‘Maurius was Oriel’s scribe. In the last days of her life, he came back to her, here in the Appoline. Maurius wrote down Oriel’s final prophecy when she was too weak to write it herself.’
‘Why?’ said Nadia.
Ransom looked right at Seraphine. ‘Because they were lovers.’
Oh.
She looked away, sharply. It was strange to imagine Saint Oriel like that. Not as some untouchable, divine being, but as a hot-blooded woman who was loved and cherished by another, kissed and caressed, and even tended to by him in the last hours of her life. There was something so gently human about it.
‘How do you even know that?’ said Theo.
Ransom shrugged. ‘My mother told me a long time ago.’ And then quieter, as if more to himself, he added, ‘She was a hopeless romantic.’
Theo was stunned into silence. Sera couldn’t tell if it was the revelation about Maurius and Oriel, or the fact that Ransom Hale had just revealed something incredibly personal to a man he openly loathed. In a handful of words, he had revealed the glimpse of a mother who had once confided things in him. Someone who had loved him, when he was a boy and not a Dagger.
Returning to his search, Theo unfurled another map. A double spread of Valterre marred with several black crosses. He spread it against the wall.
‘He’s marked all the towers in the kingdom.’ Sera recalled Fontaine’s fevered murmurings. The storm will choose new saints to crown, where three stone towers crumble down. ‘He must have known the storm would change everything. He was probably waiting for it his whole life.’
‘Waiting for power,’ said Nadia. ‘And now he’s using it to tear the kingdom apart.’
Maybe he has a good reason. A better vision.
She kept those mutinous thoughts to herself. But Nadia rounded on her, like she could hear them. ‘What about you? What magic did you wrench from that storm?’
‘I didn’t take anything,’ said Sera, stiffening.
At least not on purpose.
‘More lies from our own resident saint,’ Nadia spat. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t notice what you did to Ribauld back at the market? That I wouldn’t put two and two together after the golden handprint you scoured into Lark’s chest?’
‘Nadia,’ warned Ransom. ‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Why?’ she challenged. ‘It’s not like she doesn’t know what she is.’
‘It’s complicated.’ Theo’s eyes darted to the entryway, like he was afraid a rogue scribe might be listening in. ‘Now is not the time or place to get into it.’
Nadia folded her arms. ‘When were you planning on dealing with this conflict of interest?’ she challenged, without bothering to keep her voice low. ‘Before or after we murder the other living saints of Valterre? It seems to me that you and Andreas are cut from the same cloth.’
Sera kept her face blank, even as her heart smashed against her ribcage.
