Chapter 10 Ransom

Chapter 10 Ransom

Everything was going well until Ransom knocked over the flowerpot. It tumbled from the roof of Villa Roman and shattered in the garden, startling a stray cat.

Shit.

He froze, half expecting the back door to fly open and the girls to spill out in a panic. A minute passed, and then another, the slow heave of his breath puncturing the silence. He could sense them below him, winding their way through the dust-laden halls of Villa Roman, poking their heads into rooms where kings and queens had once sat.

The dirt on Pascal's grave was still wet. Cordelia Mercure was certainly quick off the mark. Ransom wondered what precious treasure she had sent them for.

Take only what your cloak can carry, and your conscience can bear. He recalled Armand Versini's famous words with wry amusement. Over the years, the Cloaks had rather stretched their founder's cardinal rule. Once, on a rainy midnight in Fantome, Ransom and Lark had spied five Cloaks carrying a seven-tier chandelier across the Bridge of Tears. And there were rumours that as a young initiate, Cordelia Mercure herself had stolen a pair of flamingos from the Menagerie Zoo.

No matter. Whatever the treasure tonight turned out to be, Seraphine Marchant would not be bringing it back to House Armand. She would not be returning there at all.

As the new moon poured its light along the banks of the Verne, Ransom sank into a crouch. His fingers were buzzing, the Shade strong inside him. It had been weeks since the incident at Rascalle, when Saint Oriel had mocked him with that lullaby, an unexpected echo of his former life. Time had blunted the sharp edge of the memory, allowing him to reclaim his senses.

Seraphine Marchant was the longest-running mark he had ever hunted, cloistering herself inside the Order of Cloaks these past few weeks, as if she knew he was coming for her. Like a fool, he'd given himself away. At least that's what he'd thought at first. But as he stalked the Hollows, night after night, waiting for the farmgirl to step out of her sanctuary, he started to hear things. Troubling things. First, news of a Cloak found murdered down by the harbour, his lips black with Shade. Perhaps Seraphine had not been hiding from him in particular – all the Cloaks were hiding from the Daggers.

Rumours were spreading like wildfire: the Daggers were out of control. Gaspard Dufort was finally losing his grip on his Order. There were other rumours too: whispers of monsters rising from the sewers to stalk the streets at night, people being snatched from their gardens, disappearing without a trace. Ransom brushed them off. He didn't believe in monsters. He was the monster. But monsters or no, one thing was plain – the ordinary folk of Fantome were facing something far more sinister and dangerous than the Daggers.

Dufort, of course, was furious. The Head Dagger had become so incensed at the mounting reports, he dragged every single member of the Order in for questioning. He could be heard bellowing at them at all hours of the day and night, his rancorous rage rattling through the catacombs of Fantome until no one in Hugo's Passage could get a wink of sleep.

Despite the Daggers' nightly patrols, the rogues were still at large. They were making the Order look careless, sloppy. And after what Gaspard had done to Sylvie Marchant, the other smugglers were getting nervous. There was trouble in the catacombs. Trouble in Fantome.

Right now, Ransom's trouble was directly underneath him. After weeks of waiting, he was going to come face to face with her again, and this time, there would be no lullaby.

A bell sounded, unsettling a flock of river gulls. The tiles rattled under his feet as he stalked across the roof. He heard dogs barking. Trackers, most likely.

Girls' voices began to scream.

The back door burst open, sending a frightened fox skittering through the bushes. He peered over the roof and saw two girls hobbling through the garden. Cloakless. One redhead, one with purple hair. And… was that a tiara ? The girl was cursing and limping, while the redhead was crying so hard she couldn't speak.

No sign of Seraphine. But by the sickening growls in the building below him, Ransom guessed where she was. Though dead or alive, he couldn't tell. He watched the other two girls scramble over the railings with a ripple of disgust. He couldn't imagine leaving Lark or Nadia to such a grisly fate.

‘Stay back!' Seraphine's voice cut through the night.

Ransom anchored himself to the drainpipe and looked down. He could trace her outline as she stood against the stained-glass window. Not only was she alive, she was fighting for her life.

The dogs were almost upon her. Hell's teeth , they were going to savage her.

A chair sailed through the stained-glass window, shattering it into a million pieces. It was followed, almost immediately, by Seraphine Marchant. She screamed as she leaped through the falling glass, soaring over a stone balustrade and skidding down the sloping roof.

The end of her cloak snagged on the horn of a gargoyle, bringing her to an abrupt stop in mid-air. For a moment, she hung half-choked from the sculpture, her feet dangling helplessly above the Verne. Then a look of determination came over her reddening face, so fierce it made Ransom laugh.

Here was a girl determined to live.

And ten feet above her stood the assassin who had been sent to kill her. He was not unaware of the unfairness of that. And he was impressed by her. He was compelled, despite himself, by the fire in her eyes and the hiss of her breath as she flung her arm up, reaching for the end of her cloak.

It seemed a shame to kill her.

The mark is just a mark. Dufort's voice echoed in his head.

Ransom set his jaw. This was about his survival, too.

She twined her fingers in her cloak, using the twisted material as a rope to pull herself up. To his mounting surprise, she managed to reach the gargoyle, grabbing its horn with one hand, and throwing her free arm around its neck. Her feet scrabbled for purchase as she clambered onto the balustrade, caught between the narrow walkway and the roof.

Ransom had hesitated long enough. With the Shade coursing through his veins, he reached inwards for that familiar mask, the cold impassivity he had spent years cultivating – the bravado that allowed him to be a Dagger. To be ruthless and unfeeling, and entirely in control.

Then he pulled a shadow from the roof and swung down to the balustrade.

It was a soundless landing, barely six feet from where his mark was kneeling with her cheek pressed against the gargoyle. He sauntered towards her, stepping into a shaft of moonlight.

He sensed the exact moment she saw him. Her body stiffened and she hugged the gargoyle closer, as though it could save her. He heard her breathing become fast and shallow, caught the whispered plea between her lips, but when she looked up at him, there was no fear on her face. Just that same fierce determination. And beneath it, a glowing ember of hatred.

‘ You, ' she breathed.

Ransom rolled his neck, sinking into the game. ‘Me,' he said, with a feral smile.