Chapter 3 Ransom

Chapter 3 Ransom

It was midnight in the city of Fantome, and Ransom Hale was on the hunt. Not that anyone noticed him, sauntering through the deserted streets in a high-collared charcoal coat, dark trousers and leather boots, his inky black hair curling in the rain.

Tonight, the mark was a girl. He had been tracking her from the outskirts of the city, long after she fled the burning farmhouse. She had been easy to spot even from a distance. Her pale face was marred with soot and the ends of her hair were singed black. Her low sobs had reached him on the wind. A wretched, sorrowful sound.

He kept his eyes on her as he stealthily crossed the Bridge of Tears. She was still crying, clutching helplessly at her chest like she was afraid her heart might fall out. In another life, Ransom might have felt sorry for her. He might have felt the loss of her mother as keenly as he had suffered his own, but he had been taught long ago that a good Dagger did not indulge in sympathy. And Ransom was one of the best.

And yet, tonight, he felt uneasy. The girl was younger than he had been expecting. Much younger than any of his previous marks. As he followed her into the Scholars' Quarter, using the night's shadows to climb a nearby building and swing seamlessly from one rooftop to the next, he wondered if they were close to the same age.

Gaspard Dufort doesn't kill innocents , he reminded himself. The Head of the Order of Daggers might be ruthless, but he was not without a soul. If he were, he wouldn't have taken Ransom in almost ten years ago and raised him as his own son.

According to Dufort, the girl's name was Seraphine Marchant, but Ransom preferred to think of her simply as his mark. It was always easier that way. Dufort hadn't mentioned the dog. Pitiful little thing.

She collapsed on a bench in the square, her head falling like she was in prayer. Ransom leaned against the clock tower on top of the Marlowe to study her. She was a short, fine-boned creature, with large eyes and long hair the colour of summer wheat. She was wearing a dark coat that reached to her knees, and scuffed boots, laced up the middle.

For a long time, she was still.

The dog yipped and darted around her feet, trying to rouse her from her trance. The girl was unmoved. Defeated by what she had glimpsed out in the plains, or lost in the maze of her own terror. Or perhaps she was simply praying to Saint Maud of Lost Hope.

Whatever she was doing, it irritated him.

‘Get up,' he muttered. ‘Get up and run.'

Let me chase you.

She raised her head, as if she had heard him. She was fiddling with something around her neck, her mouth twisting nervously. She reminded Ransom of the doll his sister used to play with. Dainty, breakable. An easy mark.

But why was she a mark at all?

The dog growled. Right at him.

Shit. Ransom ducked behind the clock tower. If the mutt had spied him, his Shade must be wearing off. He reached into his pocket and removed a glass vial, the black dust inside shimmering faintly as he unstopped it. He downed it in one go, his eyes watering at the sulphuric burn. His throat spasmed as he fought the urge to retch. It never got easier. Some day, when his luck ran out and the nightguards finally got brave enough to pick him up, the scientists at the Appoline would cut open his body to find all his organs grey and shrivelled. Rotted through with Shade. A hollow space where his heart had once been.

That was the fate of every Dagger, sooner or later.

The fine powder worked its way down Ransom's gullet. He closed his eyes, weathering the full-body shiver as shadows unfurled inside him, flooding his veins, and lacing the bones in his ribcage. He tasted the promise of death on his lips as he flexed his fingers. The shadow-marks across his hands began to move, darting like fish in a pond. When his eyes burned silver, he knew it was done. The darkness was his to command.

He was seized by a familiar rush of adrenaline. Before the gloom came the heady rush of power. And the power of Shade was intoxicating. Night fell away like smoke clearing in the breeze until he could see as far north as the Aurore and count every merchant vessel bobbing down south in the harbour.

When Ransom stepped out from behind the clock tower, the girl was gone. Her footsteps echoed in the silence. She was heading east, towards the Hollows. He stalked to the edge of the Marlowe and pulled a shadow from the next building. He caught it like a rope, swinging himself down to the ground.

His landing was clean, soundless. He grinned, sweeping his hair back. The chase was his favourite part of a job. It turned Fantome into his own personal playground, every building a ladder, every shadow a slide.

But this one would take longer than most. Dufort had warned him not to kill tonight.

Watch her, first. I want to know where she goes. What she does.

Ransom let himself enjoy the chase as she led him deeper into the Hollows. Hell, he even enjoyed it when she flung a flowerpot at him. Terrible aim. Good survival instincts. The best way to evade a Dagger was to hide behind a Cloak. And he was impressed by how quickly she found her way to House Armand. The mutt must be a tracker.

Not that it mattered. It would take more than the pity of Madame Mercure to protect the girl now. Dufort had marked her. It was only a matter of time before he gave the final order.

Satisfied with what he had gleaned, Ransom turned for the long walk home. Shadows squirmed under his skin, his fingers itching to kill, kill, kill.

He dug them into his pockets, ignoring the familiar pull. In an hour or two, he'd be himself again. Magic was a game of restraint. To consume it at all was to place one foot in hell. Something the Cloaks never dared to do. There was nothing more lethal than swallowing too much Shade, or doing it too fast. Those who got drunk on their own power risked turning on their friends or themselves just to satisfy that itch: kill, kill, kill.

Ransom was so lost in thought he hardly noticed the man lunging from a nearby alley. His eyes were wild, his skin red and scoured. He reeked of alcohol and sweat and was brandishing a peeling knife. ‘Hey, rich prick. Empty your—' The threat died in his throat when he glimpsed the silver rings in Ransom's eyes.

Big mistake.

Adrenaline surged through Ransom's body. His hand shot out, catching the man by the throat. The drunkard screamed as shadows crawled up his neck, spreading their poison. His eyes rolled, turning black.

A kill from a Dagger takes ten heartbeats.

Ransom dropped the man after eight.

He collapsed in a puddle, his hands at his throat. ‘Mercy…' he gasped out. ‘Mercy.'

Ransom's fingers twitched as he stared down at him. ‘Not mercy,' he said, in a low growl. ‘I don't kill for free.'

The man whimpered.

Rankled by a familiar prickle of revulsion, Ransom turned on his heel and left the Hollows behind him. Better to be feared than to fear , he reminded himself. Gaspard Dufort had told him that the day he took him in. Ransom had spent the first ten years of his life living in terror. He would kill a thousand times just to keep from going back to that place.

Desperation makes the Dagger.

Power keeps them.

Leaving the Hollows, he passed a pair of oblivious nightguards on patrol and took a detour through Lazenne, a sleepy neighbourhood lined with old manor houses and leafy oak trees. Sometimes, at night, he wandered these quiet manicured streets, imagining a life where he woke every day to the chorus of birdsong and the smell of freshly baked bread. He would descend a winding staircase to find Mama sipping her favourite orange-and-bergamot tea. Anouk would be browsing the penny papers in a chair by the window, reading about horrors so far from their perfect little lives, it felt like peering through a looking glass into another world.

Sometimes Ransom wandered until his heart ached, just to remind himself it was still there.

He crossed the Bridge of Tears as the clock tower chimed three. The Shade was beginning to wear off. Exhaustion would soon set in, magic giving way to an all-too familiar feeling of gloom. Sleep couldn't come soon enough, he thought, as he turned west towards Old Haven, just as a sharp whistle came from above. He jerked his head up just in time to glimpse a shape falling from the sky. It toppled him with a strangled yelp.

Ransom rolled over, swinging blindly. The shape laughed, and the sound was a familiar wheeze.

Ransom groaned. ‘Lark, you bastard.'

Lark leaped to his feet, offering his hand to Ransom. ‘Takes one to know one.'

Ransom kicked out, catching his ankle.

Lark caught himself before he fell. ‘Nice try,' he said, fixing the collar of his dark blue pea coat. Messy waves of auburn hair stuck out from underneath a grey top hat, his normally forest-green eyes blazing silver in the dark.

Ransom rolled to his feet, assessing his oldest friend and brother-in-arms as they stood apart from each other at almost the same height. ‘Where are you coming from? And why are you wearing that ridiculous hat?'

‘Casimir Manor.' Lark's pearly teeth flashed in the dark. That dimpled smile was made for mischief – breaking rules, and breaking hearts. Lark was far too charming to be a Dagger, and he knew it, too. Maybe that was why he liked to flout the rules. He removed the top hat, twirling it by the rim. ‘The crusty old count barely blinked. Light work. I couldn't resist the souvenir.'

‘Common thievery, Lark?' Ransom's brows rose. ‘Doesn't that make you a Cloak?'

‘It makes me an opportunist. I would have stolen his grand piano if I had any hope of carting it out of there.'

‘Good luck explaining that to Dufort.'

‘I was going to say it washed up in a storm.'

Ransom snorted. ‘And with that shit-eating grin, he'd probably believe you. A copper says you can't get the hat in the Verne.'

Lark threw the hat. They watched it sail across the bank and fall down, down, down into the rushing river, where it floated swiftly away.

‘Too easy,' said Lark, holding his hand out expectantly.

Ransom smiled, tossing him a copper. Now, Gaspard Dufort wouldn't see that ridiculous top hat sitting on Lark's head, engraved with Count Casimir's initials, and backhand him all the way to the Aurore. The rule was simple: Daggers and Cloaks stayed out of each other's way. Daggers didn't thieve and Cloaks didn't murder. A minor distinction that had caused a family war so bloody that, over two hundred years later, the underworld still spoke of it in hushed tones.

‘Was the countess there?' Ransom asked, as they turned for Old Haven.

‘His wife was out of town. His mistress was warming her spot,' said Lark, with a derisive snort. ‘The old dog.'

‘Dead dog,' muttered Ransom, thinking involuntarily of the girl and her mutt.

‘Mama will be pleased,' said Lark, patting the coins in his inside pocket. ‘Twenty silvers means twice as many chickens for the farm. And just in time for winter, too.'

Ransom kicked a stray pebble, ignoring the twist of envy in his gut. Not for the provincial farm, which would soon be overrun with chickens, but for the kind-faced woman who collected their eggs and welcomed her son home every Sunday for brandy-and-butter cake. Sometimes, Ransom went along too, eagerly sharing Lark's family life, like a beggar eating the crust off a heel of bread. ‘Doesn't she ever ask where the chickens come from?'

Lark clucked his tongue. ‘Morals don't make soup, Ransom.'

And that was the crux of it. Lark didn't give a shit about his mortal soul. His mother was the centre of his world, and his two younger sisters were his moon and sun, and he made no bones about it. Madame Delano had never quite recovered from the same fever that took Lark's father. Her lungs were heavy and she was slow on her feet, but the bills came thick and fast, and the girls grew like beanstalks. So, at twelve years old, for the sake of his family, Lark had gone to work, telling his mother he had got a job delivering penny papers in Fantome.

Seven years later, and despite the fact his arms were now covered in permanent whorls of shadow, the painful, ever-expanding tattoo that came courtesy of the Shade he regularly consumed, she still pretended to believe him. Lark Delano was the most lavishly gilded paperboy in Fantome. They often laughed about it. Bad luck had made Lark a Dagger, but their friendship was Ransom's good fortune. He didn't know what he would do – what he would be – without it.

‘Did you find your mark?' said Lark.

‘She's at House Armand.'

He barked a laugh. ‘ Hell's teeth. She's a Cloak?'

‘No.' Ransom frowned. ‘Not yet, anyway.'

‘Then she's clever,' said Lark thoughtfully. ‘Good luck with that.'

‘I don't need luck,' said Ransom, half-convincing himself. ‘I like a challenge.'

They walked on, the crisp autumn leaves crunching under their boots. The rain sputtered out, leaving behind a lingering mist. It scattered the light from the Aurore, bathing the streets in a golden haze.

‘Why did Dufort burn the house?' Ransom wondered aloud. ‘Wasn't it enough to just kill Sylvie Marchant?'

Lark glanced sidelong at him. The silver glint in his eyes was fading, revealing the green beneath. He looked tired, now. Tense. ‘How should I know?'

Ransom ignored the bite in his friend's voice. ‘And why didn't he just stay there and wait for the girl?'

‘Why don't you ask him?'

‘Because he'd probably set me on fire, too.'

A good Dagger did not indulge in curiosity. It was a waste of time and conscience. Worse – it encouraged hesitation. And in the art of assassination, a split second of hesitation could be the difference between life and death.

And yet, as they wandered the deserted streets of Fantome, where the rats fled at the sight of them, Ransom's mind whirred. When was the last time Gaspard Dufort had even got his hands dirty? And why would the highest-ranking Dagger in Fantome leave a fire in his wake? There was nothing quick and clean about an inferno.

Sylvie Marchant must have been important. So, what did that make her daughter?

Well, shit. Despite his better judgement, Ransom was curious.

At last, they reached Old Haven, home to the oldest neighbourhoods and most weather-worn graveyards of Fantome. Plumes of smoke curled up through the grates in the cobblestones, each one a whisper of the fireplaces that burned far beneath them, and the life that thrummed there.

They came at last to the town statue of Lucille Versini, Saint of Scholars. Carved from white marble, the young woman clutched a book to her chest as she looked north towards the Aurore.

An angel, guarding the gates to hell.

Ransom used the dregs of his Shade to pull his shadow from the cobblestones. He cast it around Saint Lucille's neck and tugged. The statue groaned as it leaned back until its unseeing eyes looked up at the stars. Beneath its pedestal was revealed the entrance to the catacombs of Fantome. Home of the Order of Daggers.

Ransom released the noose and followed Lark down the steps. Above them, the statue of Saint Lucille keened as it returned to its feet, sealing them in. They paused at the bottom of the stairwell, where an archway of skulls marked the entrance to Hugo's Passage. Above it, the immortal words of the elder Versini brother had been carved into stone:

Those who refuse to wield the dagger are doomed to die by its blade .

Ransom pressed two fingers to his chest, making a sign of respect as he ducked underneath the archway and walked into the darkness.

Home, at last.