Chapter 38 Seraphine

Chapter 38 Seraphine

Ransom came to her later that night, as though he could sense the threads of her plan coming together. Or perhaps it was the break in the torrential rain that let him finally venture beyond the shelter of Hugo's Passage. Whatever the reason, Seraphine's heart leaped when she spotted him outside her window, pacing in the dark.

Tonight, she didn't reach for her pen. Instead, she tugged a sweater on over her pyjamas and laced up her boots before hurrying downstairs. She ran for the gate, silently thanking Saint Maurius for holding off the rain.

Ransom was leaning against the wall across the street, his quicksilver eyes shamelessly drinking her in as she locked the gate behind her.

‘You came back,' she called out.

He cocked his head. ‘After that kiss, did you really think I could stay away?'

She grinned as she jogged to meet him.

He stiffened, raising his hands. ‘Careful. I've taken Shade.'

‘I can see that,' she said, stopping a foot in front of him. ‘You look like you've swallowed the moon.'

‘I wish I could spit it back out again,' he said, frowning. ‘I didn't expect you to come outside. I thought you would write…' He bit off a swearword. ‘Now, I can't even touch you.'

Sera almost laughed. How far they had come in just a few short weeks. From wanting to murder each other to wanting to… well, just wanting.

‘I'll try not to tempt you too much,' she said, flashing him a wicked grin as she turned and beckoned him to follow her.

‘Impossible task,' he said as he pushed off the wall. ‘Even the back of your head is mesmerizing.'

Sera snorted, glad he couldn't tell how violently she was blushing. She led him to the end of the street, far from the glare of House Armand and through a thicket of trees so old they used to shed their leaves during the Age of Saints. They crowded in on her, tall and gnarled and creaking in the rising wind. Mulch clung to her boots as she wove between the trunks, seeking out the small clearing she had discovered not long ago with Pippin.

Ransom followed her, his shadows trailing behind him and upending the fallen leaves. ‘If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were luring me into this forest to kill me.'

‘I can think of far better things to do with you in this forest,' she tossed over her shoulder, swinging her hips for good measure.

He stifled a groan. ‘You promised not to tempt me.'

She smirked at him. ‘I was referring to the art of conversation.'

‘Like hell you were.'

By the time they reached the clearing, a chill had settled into Sera's bones. Her breath clouded as she pulled her arms around herself, regretting not grabbing a coat on her way out.

Ransom frowned as he looked her over. ‘I should be warming you up.'

‘I'm fine,' she said, waving his concern away. She cleared her throat, coming to her news. ‘We figured it out, Ransom. We cracked the recipe for Lightfire. I've been waiting to tell you.'

Waiting for you to come to me.

‘Sorry. I've been avoiding the Hollows,' he said uneasily. ‘Lark's been on my ass since he got back from Bellevue Castle and I was afraid he'd follow me here.'

Lark. Sera turned the name over in her mind, trying to imagine the pair of silver eyes that went with it. ‘Is he another player in the game?'

A grim nod. ‘You're his mark now too. And we have a deadline.'

Sera leaned against a tree to steady herself. Just when she had scrambled out from under one assassin, she found another waiting in the wings. She would never be free of the Daggers. She would never be free of Dufort. ‘Ransom, there's something I—'

‘I'm going to talk to Dufort,' he said at the same time. ‘I'm going to ask him to let you go.'

Sera's eyes widened in horror. In three quick strides she was on him. If it hadn't been for the wall of shadows that surged up between them, she might have shaken him in her urgency. ‘Have you lost your mind?'

‘I think I've finally found it.' He set his jaw, resolute in his decision, and Sera got the sense he had spent the last few nights poring over it. ‘Once the monsters are gone, the city will go back to the way it was. Whatever… hatred Dufort held for your mother will die, along with the monsters she made. It doesn't have to damn you, too. I won't let it. When I speak to Dufort, when I reason with him—'

‘He'll kill you too,' she cut in. ‘You're not thinking clearly, Ransom.'

His frown sharpened. ‘I'm thinking clearly for the first time in ten years, Seraphine.'

She was already shaking her head. ‘It's not going to work. And if you try, you'll only damn yourself.'

‘Then I'll damn myself.' He bit off a curse. ‘Or maybe I'll tell him you're already dead. Leave the city, Seraphine, lie low somewhere up north. Eventually he'll forget about you.'

‘He won't,' she said, with rising frustration.

‘Of course he will,' he retorted, just as hotly. ‘Do you know how many marks Dufort presides over at any given time? How many Daggers work under him? You're just one wayward farmgirl from the plains.'

‘You don't know him like I do,' Sera snapped.

‘I've known him for half my life,' he snapped back. ‘He's like a father to me.'

Sera released a strangled laugh.

‘In six months he won't even remember your—' Ransom began.

‘STOP!' The word exploded from her with such force, he stumbled backwards. Shadows swarmed the clearing, flaring behind him like a terrifying pair of wings. But Sera was not afraid of him. She was afraid of his naivety. She was afraid of what Dufort would do to him because of it. ‘Just… stop .'

He stared at her, hurt and confusion in his eyes.

‘Gaspard Dufort is never going to forget about me,' she said again. Slowly. ‘There's nowhere I can go that will ever be far enough away from him. Not while he has the king's ear. Not while he holds Fantome in his fist.'

Ransom stilled. ‘Why?'

Such a small, quiet word.

Above them, the clouds opened, scattering rain across the clearing. A gauze of mist fell and it seemed to Sera that a part of Ransom already knew exactly what she was going to say. His body had already stiffened to weather the blow, his bright eyes wide and unblinking.

She made her tongue work, forcing the words out before shame got the better of her. ‘Because Gaspard Dufort is my father.'

Silence swept through the clearing.

Ransom stood frozen. The only sign he had heard her at all was the pooling of shadows at his feet and the horror in his silver eyes.

‘So if he truly is like a father to you,' she went on, in a cold voice, ‘then you should know he likes to kill his own children when they get in his way.'

Ransom's eyelids fluttered.

Sera swallowed, ignoring the silent river of her tears as he stared and stared at her. Waiting for her to take it back. To smile and say it was a sick joke. But the truth had sat in her heart for so long, it had begun to crush her. The man who had once held her as a baby, rocked her in her crib and sung lullabies to her at night, the man who had loved her to distraction – who had loved her mother to ruin – was the same man that Ransom thought of as a father.

But Dufort was no father. He was incapable of thinking beyond his own desire. The lure of the Daggers had snatched him away before Sera had learned to walk, and all those years he spent descending the ladder into darkness, her mother had fought to pull him back up. She had fought to scour away the shadows that barbed his heart, only to fail. Only to die.

Gaspard Dufort did not want to be saved. He wanted to rule, like a king. And he was willing to cut down anyone foolish enough to stand in his way.

‘Aren't you going to say something?' said Sera, hating the yawning silence.

‘If I speak …' said Ransom very, very slowly. Darkness swarmed the clearing, the gathering tide of his anger. A branch snapped behind him, torn to the ground by one of his shadows. And he hadn't so much as blinked. ‘If I even dare to move right now, I'm afraid I might tear this entire forest down so I can shove every fucking branch down that bastard's throat.'

The wind howled and the earth shook, the leaves trembling at their feet. But Sera wasn't scared. She marvelled at the fullness of his power, and how it tangled with his emotions. ‘You're angry.'

His nostrils flared. ‘There is no word for the depth of this feeling, Seraphine.' His voice was as cold as death, the forest so dark, she had to strain to see him. ‘Rage. Horror. Betrayal… Rage .'

‘Don't hide it,' she said, quietly. ‘Let me see you.'

He opened his fist and the shadows receded in a rush, rustling the leaves as they scattered. His gaze softened as it found hers, and now the look on his face was one of pain.

‘I don't understand,' he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Please help me understand.'

She blew out a breath, the rain spattering her cheeks as she slumped against the tree. It was such a long and awful story, and she hated it almost as much as she hated her father. She hated that once upon a different lifetime, he might have been a good man. That the three of them might have lived a happy life together, far from the darkness that had destroyed them. She hated it so much she tried not to think of it at all. She certainly never spoke of it. But for this moment, and this man, she blew the cobwebs off the sorry tale her mother had told her only once, a very long time ago.

‘My parents met over twenty years ago in a tavern in the Hollows,' she said with a sigh. ‘A pair of orphans, both barely seventeen. They were runaways, searching for a better life. They saw each other across the bar and that was it. They danced all night and fell in love by morning.' She gave a little shrug. ‘I suppose it was simple at the start.'

Ransom wasn't blinking.

‘They found salvation in each other, a reprieve from the shitty childhoods they'd crawled their way out of. Two lost souls, bound up in each other. They decided they would make something of themselves together. A family. Then a fortune. But for a pair of orphans with no schooling or real-life experience, the only way to survive in the Hollows was to turn to Shade. So, that's what they did.' Sera didn't blame them for it, even now.

‘Only my… Dufort wasn't content with smuggling. Every time he bottled Shade, his fingers itched to try it. To taste it.' She closed her eyes, cursing her father's avarice. ‘It changed him. It changed who he wanted to become. It wasn't enough to be a good husband or a loving father any more. To have a house out in the plains, a good horse, and a field of sheep… He wanted a dynasty. He wanted to be remembered.'

She raked her damp hair from her face, turning her gaze to the shadows at Ransom's feet. They were creeping closer, as if they were listening to her story.

‘So, my father became a Dagger. And he was good at it. Really good.' Her lip curled, and she didn't bother to hide her disgust. ‘And then he changed some more. He stopped laughing and started shouting. He stopped kissing Mama and stared hitting her. Stopped playing teddies with me and started shaking me like one. He got cruel… violent.' A shudder wracked her, and Ransom jerked forward, his hands outstretched, before remembering the poison inside him.

He stalled a foot away.

‘Mama kicked him out. She kept working but she refused to sell to his Order. She didn't want him anywhere near me. Near her. We moved again and again, but he always found us. He wanted her to know that no matter where we went or how far we travelled, we still belonged to him. Sometimes, I think it was a game to him. A chase.' Her voice broke and she pressed her fists against her eyes, trying to blanch away all those memories of him stomping back into their lives, sending the birds skittering to the skies with the boom of his voice. ‘I wish we'd gone further. Gone north over the mountains and through the low hills, travelled until the road ran out and taken a boat over the horizon. But Shade was all Mama knew. It was our livelihood. And he would have found us eventually.'

Ransom was so still, he looked like a statue, but the sadness in his eyes told Sera he was listening, that he understood.

‘At first, Mama thought she could save him from himself.' It was so crushingly obvious to Sera now, so heart-rendingly simple… That light in her mother's heart, the flame that he had kindled in that tavern all those years ago had become the first spark of her ambition. ‘When that didn't work, she tried to save us from him. I think that's why she became so obsessed with Lucille Versini, why she was so hell-bent on rediscovering Lightfire.'

‘An antidote,' said Ransom, softly. ‘All Lucille ever wanted was to save her brothers from the darkness.'

Sera nodded. ‘But the closer Mama got to that recipe, the closer he got to her…' She lifted her chin, finding the silver in his eyes fading, shards of green and gold shining through. ‘My father didn't want to be free, Ransom. He didn't want to let go of his power.' She raked her gaze over the black marks on his neck, the inky spill across his hands, and knew that while Ransom had grown to hate his shadow-marks, Dufort wore his own like badges of honour.

‘When he changed – when he got cruel – that hope in Mama turned to rage. She realized that the man she fell in love with was never coming back. That this new one, this Dagger, was a danger to us. And as long as he lived, we would never truly be free of him.'

Ransom was nodding now. Hadn't he lived through some version of this himself? Hadn't he killed his own father for the same reason?

‘Mama knew she would have to destroy Dufort to save us. So, she made monsters to bring him to heel. Discovered the secret of Lightfire and set the stage for his demise.' Sera's heart felt so hollow now she pressed a hand against it just to feel it beat. ‘But he got to her first.'

Ransom looked away, hissing a curse.

‘And now he's going to kill me,' she finished, through chattering teeth. ‘And there is nothing you can do to stop him.'

They were both soaked to the bone, the rain falling so hard she struggled just to make out his expression.

He raked his hands through his sodden hair. ‘Seraphine.' Her name broke on his lips. She could feel him straining against the last of that Shade, aching to hold her. ‘I'm sorry,' he whispered. ‘I'm so sorry. I know that life you lived. That brand of fear is worse than any shadow. Stronger than any magic. I'm sorry for all of it. For my part in it.'

She inched closer. There was such anguish on his face now. It burned through the last of his Shade and then his eyes were clear, and he was looking at her as though he could see her – truly, fully – for the first time.

He reached for her and she went to him, crying as he folded her into his arms and pressed his lips to her hair. ‘I won't let him hurt you again. I swear it.'

She laid her forehead against his chest and listened to the thunder of his heartbeat. ‘Then bring him to me,' she said, against the damp planes of his chest. ‘Tomorrow when the clock tower strikes ten, bring Dufort to the entrance to Hugo's Passage.'

She didn't say the rest – what she planned to do with all those monsters before she got rid of them, the freedom she intended to wrest from her father's cold dead hands. She didn't have to tell Ransom that. He heard it in her voice. He had done the same thing to his own violent father ten years ago.

‘ Please, ' she said.

She scrunched her eyes shut, listening to the sawing of his breath as she waited for his answer… It seemed to take an age, the rain falling with a vengeance, the mud thickening beneath their boots. And then he sighed and gripped her tighter, whispering into her hair.

‘I'll bring him to you.'

She curled her fists in his collar and dragged his mouth to hers, the press of her lips saying the words for her. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

He raised his hands to cup her face, drawing back from her just enough that she could look up at him. Droplets hung from his dark lashes and slid like tears down his cheeks.

‘I'll help you,' he murmured, kissing her softly. ‘We'll help each other.'

She traced the whorl of black along his collarbone, then pressed a kiss there. He groaned into her hair. She took his hands in hers, and brushed her mouth against those too. Slowly, gently, her lips skimmed his rain-spattered skin, every kiss a promise of freedom.

‘Seraphine.' Her own name was a promise on his lips. ‘My spitfire.'

Moonlight shone through a broken cloud and flooded the clearing, as though the saints themselves were peering down on them. As they stood together in the rain, shivering between soft, stolen kisses, Sera couldn't help but think there was an air of destiny about this moment too.