Chapter 6 Ransom

Chapter 6 Ransom

‘Dufort wants to see you,' said Nadia, poking her head around the door to Ransom's bedchamber. Her brow was furrowed, the look on her face flitting between concern and curiosity. ‘Is everything all right?'

‘I suppose I'll find out,' croaked Ransom, as he sat up in bed. A glance at the clock on the wall told him it was late evening. He must have drifted off to sleep. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, and cleared his throat.

Nadia lingered in the doorway, her brown skin glistening in the lamplight. Her sleek black hair was scooped into a high bun, revealing the scythes of her cheekbones and the smudge of kohl underneath her eyes.

‘Heading out?' said Ransom, noting her belted tawny coat and high black boots.

She nodded. ‘I need a stiff drink. Long week. Scrappy mark.' She had the scrapes on her cheek to prove it. Unusual for Nadia, who was quick on her feet, and even better in the air with shadows to swing from. Her mother had been a dancer in the Hollows, her father some rich wandering rake. If she hadn't been orphaned so early in life, Nadia might have been a dancer too. She might have had a life above the catacombs, a future far beyond the gritty underworld of Fantome.

‘Who was it?' said Ransom.

‘Some brainless mercenary who had the gall to blackmail the king's cousin.' Nadia never learned the names of her marks, never hesitated at the strike. She never slept afterwards, either. Not unless Lark slipped into her room and sang her to sleep. Ransom always pretended not to hear him, but sound carried a long way in the catacombs and most nights the other Daggers cracked their doors to listen, too.

‘I'm meeting Lark and Caruso in a tavern over on Merchant's Way.' She bit her lip, frowning. ‘Unless you want me to stay and wait for you…?'

‘I'll be fine.' He rolled to his feet and stretched, working out the kink in his neck. He was still wearing the navy cashmere sweater he had worn to the marketplace. It was rumpled now, and sleep had left a sour taste in his mouth. He needed to wash and change. ‘Tell Lark to stay out of trouble.'

‘Sure. I'll tell the moon not to rise while I'm at it.' Nadia was still frowning. She clearly wanted to stay, to dilute whatever foul humour Dufort was in. Ransom hadn't seen the fearsome Head of the Daggers since he had handed him his mark nearly a week ago.

Without warning, an image of wide blue eyes, framed by long black lashes, flashed through Ransom's head. One eye was half bronze, as though whatever divine being had painted Seraphine Marchant had run out of sky, and had to reach instead, for earth. She looked all the more interesting for it. And he was a fool for admitting it. For noticing it at all.

‘Go,' he said to Nadia.

She offered a parting smile for courage.

He turned to the mirror on the wall, tracing the black whorl jutting above the round collar of his sweater. It stung faintly, reminding him of just how deep the mark had burrowed. All the way down to his soul. He was not yet twenty years old and already the shadows were inching up his chest, reaching like thorns for his neck. The marks were jet black against his olive skin, a constant reminder that no matter where he went, he could not outrun the reminders etched across his body.

This is what you are. This is what you will always be.

And one day, the poison in your bones will take you too.

He turned and peeled off his clothes, trying to ignore the desperate hum of his own conscience.

He replayed the afternoon in his head and heard himself say, like a blundering fool, Why did the swan dance?

Why the hell did he ask her that?

Why did he say anything at all?

He had been so surprised at coming face to face with her at the Rascalle that he had broken one of Hugo Versini's cardinal rules. Never talk to the mark.

Now, the mark had seen his face up close.

And he had seen the blue of her eyes, smelled the lemon-blossom scent of her skin. Ransom had known it was a mistake, but the second he saw that wooden box slip out of her pocket, he couldn't help himself. He wanted to know what was inside, to see if it might be a clue to Dufort's interest in her, the smuggler's daughter. But it was so much worse than that. A ballerina, dancing to a sad, familiar song. The same one he used to sing to Anouk when their father dragged his temper through their house. The one she had sung back to him the night before they lost each other: ‘The Dancing Swan'. It was an antidote to fear. A promise of freedom.

And Seraphine had played it for him under the Saint of Destiny. The only one of the thirteen saints Ransom ever bothered to pray to. Not Calvin, Saint of Death. Or Maud, of Lost Hope. But Oriel, weaver of fate. Oriel, cruel and cunning. What a wicked little game. And yet, in that moment, he had wanted to play it.

So, he let himself speak to the mark. And worse than that, he let her name slip.

If Dufort found out, he'd have Ransom's head on a platter.

He washed and changed in a hurry, running his hands through his damp hair to settle the unruly strands. His bedchamber was small but comfortable. He had everything he needed down here. The stone floor was covered by a fine sheepskin rug, the bed piled with woollen blankets to help stave off the chill that lingered in the catacombs. Oil lamps flickered on the walls, illuminating the framed sketch on his bedside table.

It was a portrait of Mama and Anouk, giggling with their heads pressed together. Ransom had drawn it on Anouk's seventh birthday. It was little more than a child's rough rendering but he had managed to capture the light of their smiles. On long nights, when Shade left behind its terrible gloom, Ransom held the portrait close to his heart and imagined a life where they would be together again, far from the darkness of Fantome and the long shadow of everything he had done since they left. Though he knew the shadows would never truly leave him, not now they were stamped on his body. Every kill a black mark on his skin, a fresh notch on his soul.

He shrugged on his coat before slipping out of his room. His bedchamber was located in the north-west tunnel of the catacombs, a stone's throw from Nadia's and Lark's, as well as those of a handful of other younger Daggers who had been recruited shortly after Ransom joined the Order. Around the time Dufort figured out just how malleable broken children were. What perfect weapons they made.

It was a short walk down the main north passage to the Cavern, the sprawling underhall where the Daggers congregated to eat, drink, and play games. Gamble, if they were feeling lucky. Gamble even if they weren't. Ransom preferred to spend his evenings off above ground, wandering down by the harbour to watch the night ships come in, on a rooftop with Lark or in a tavern somewhere with Nadia and Caruso.

There were other Daggers – older ones – who stayed permanently underground now, only venturing above ground when a new mark required them to. And even then, the coin had to be good. Over time, and after hundreds of vials of Shade, they had come to shun the daylight, the sun burning their faces even in winter, their eyes stinging even on a cloudy afternoon. For some, even the light of the Aurore made their skin itch. And as for summer – it was hotter than hell.

Ransom hated to think of himself becoming like that – afraid of the sunlight, afraid of living – but he knew all too well it was a consequence of the path he had chosen. He told himself he would stop before the shadows crawled up his neck, straining to meet the white scar that sliced his bottom lip, but after ten long years, he still couldn't find the will to leave. He didn't know where to go. There was no one waiting for him outside this life, and he was afraid of the unknown. Of his aloneness in the world.

So, he stayed and he killed, and he retched, and he slept in the smothering gloom, because that was all he knew. And in a strange way, it was comfortable.

Gaspard Dufort was waiting for him in the Cavern. The hall was empty, save for a couple of Daggers playing chess by the fire: Abel, the oldest of all of them at seventy, and his granddaughter Collette, who had joined only recently. A single black mark laced her left wrist. In time, it would grow and the song in her laugh would dull. Not Ransom's problem. He had a much bigger one.

Dufort was sitting in his favourite armchair at the back of the Cavern, one leg propped on the knee of the other. His sandy hair looked amber in the flickering light, the sides shaved so short, Ransom could see the shape of his skull, the top pulled into a loose knot on the crown of his head. His usual scattering of fair stubble had grown into a scruffy beard since Ransom had last seen him.

Dufort drummed his fingers along the armrest, the silver skull ring on his left hand catching the lamplight. It had belonged to Hugo Versini, once. Design-wise, it was a little on the nose.

‘You look tired, Ransom,' said Dufort, his gold tooth flashing. ‘Have I been overworking you?'

Ransom shook his head as he sank into the armchair opposite him. ‘I was asleep.'

The Cavern walls were hung with tapestries for warmth, and the room smelled of pipe smoke and rum. Rows of skulls watched over them from the domed ceiling, relics from the reign of Hugo Versini himself. In the beginning, the founding father of the Daggers used to take the heads of his victims and hang them from the Bridge of Tears. Thankfully, the tradition had not lasted long beyond his death almost three centuries ago. Now, even the steeliest of Daggers could not stomach such a thing.

And yet the skulls remained, reminding them of the old adage: Those who refuse to wield the dagger are doomed to die by its blade.

A handful of words that had cleaved the Versini brothers apart; a story – and a warning – that Ransom had come to know almost as well as his own. The Versini boys had grown up in the northern mountain village of Halbracht, not far from the border of Farberg. A place so remote, the villagers used to cast their dead in the region's Hellerbend River. But the Hellerbend was rough, the water hardened with minerals that dissolved the bodies and their bones. Over time, strange plants sprouted along the banks, their leaves golden as the summer sun, their roots black as a starless night.

Boneshade.

It was the Versini brothers who first discovered how to dig up the boneshade root, cut it, mix it, make magic from it.

Not the magic of old, however: the force that had flowed through the blood of the saints of Valterre, the power that had built a kingdom up from nothing and filled it with light. This was merely a remnant of that power. A powdered promise of darkness. Shade, the Versini brothers called it. To swallow it was to control every shadow, to become a deadly weapon, poised to kill with just one touch. To wear it meant to disappear entirely, to blend so seamlessly with the night you could take anything from anyone.

Bored of their provincial life in the mountains, the Versini brothers were eager to make something of themselves, to climb the ranks of urban high society and amass the kind of wealth their ancestors could only have dreamed of. To initiate a Second Age of Magic, and crown themselves as gods.

They brought their new magic to Fantome, to exhibit and then sell, but the people there rejected the strange darkness, rejected the brothers and turned in prayer to their saints. The Versinis were shunned by society and threatened by the royal guard, who hounded them day and night. Over time, they grew bitter, their youthful idealism twisting into resentment.

They stopped trying to sell their magic and kept it for themselves, recruiting the damned and forgotten drifters of Fantome to their guild. And so began a year-long reign of terror, where the threat of Shade hung like a thundercloud over Fantome, fuelling hundreds of thefts and murders until the brothers brought the city to its knees.

Not gods, but monsters.

The Versinis were no longer shunned, but feared. By the people and the royal guard, and even the king himself. With such fear came power. Freedom to mould the city as they liked, so long as they kept the secrets of Shade close to their chests.

Over time, Hugo and Armand carved out a vibrant underworld, where they traded crime for coin, amassing hundreds of wealthy patrons looking to thieve and murder without sullying their own hands.

They grew richer, greedier. But power brought its own problems, and as the brothers got older, they began to argue about the limits of their magic, wondering what the Shade was poisoning in the very core of themselves, and what sacrifice it required of their bodies. Armand's guilt weighed heavy on his conscience, the pain of regret burrowing as deep as the black whorls on his skin. He no longer wished to kill for power, and to eventually give his own life for it. He wanted to live, truly and fully. But Hugo had committed wholly to the darkness, and could see no point in stopping now. To him, stealing a coin was no different from stealing a life, and indeed, it was the threat of death – of murder – that truly kept them in power, that kept the royal guard of Valterre from dragging them off to the gallows.

The brothers fought ceaselessly, eventually separating their followers into two different orders: the Daggers and the Cloaks, both guilds secreting themselves away to opposite sides of the city, for a while maintaining a precarious truce.

Things took a deadly turn when their sister, Lucille, a light in both their lives, and one of the brightest scholars in Fantome, tried to intervene. Ever the idealist, the youngest Versini sought to find a way to reconcile her brothers by eliminating the influence of Shade entirely, so that she might end its terrible hold over her family. Now enrolled at the prestigious Appoline University, seventeen-year-old Lucille secretly started to study the anatomy of the boneshade plant in a bid to create an antidote to it.

But the Versinis had spies in every corner of Valterre.

When Hugo found out about Lucille's research, he flew into a rage. Fuelled by Shade and fearful of the consequences of an antidote, he hunted down his interfering sister and lashed out at her. In ten heartbeats, Lucille Versini was dead. The light in the brothers' lives was extinguished, and the last thing that bound them to each other was gone.

When Armand crossed the Verne to avenge his sister's death, Hugo met him on the banks of the river. In the fight that followed, Hugo proved the stronger. When it was over, he hung Armand's body from the Bridge of Tears for ten days and ten nights, so that every Cloak, Dagger and soldier of Valterre would know exactly who ruled the city.

For a time, all was silent in the underworld of Fantome. Until, propelled by grief and a determination to preserve his legacy, Armand's lover, Florentine, took up his mantle, and a new Cloak ascended to power. The Orders settled once more into an uneasy truce, born from a single guiding principle: You stay out of my way, and I'll stay out of yours.

In the centuries since, the Cloaks had been demanding the return of their founder's body, but the Daggers had sworn ignorance as to Armand's final resting place. The only grave inside the catacombs, aside from Hugo's own, belonged to Lucille. For, in his guilt, the Founder of the Daggers had built his little sister a tomb, then did for her what he could not do for himself. He made her a saint.

Unlucky number thirteen.

Not that many in Fantome recognized her piety. After all, Lucille was not magic-borne, like the original twelve saints of Fantome. She wasn't blessed, but cursed by her brothers.

And as for the skulls – well, they were part of the furniture. When Lark and Ransom were still boys, they used to hide them in each other's beds. The night they did it to Nadia, fresh from her first kill, she got such a fright she nearly strangled both of them with their own shadows.

‘Sleepwalking, are you?' Dufort clicked his fingers, snapping Ransom back to the present. ‘Or am I boring you, son?'

Ransom shook his head, hating how his heart warmed at that word – son . ‘I was just thinking about the Versini brothers.'

‘Don't tire your mind.' Dufort crooked an eyebrow, stretching the shadow-mark that sliced through it. Black whorls crawled up his neck and across the right side of his face, like a hand reaching around to smother him. Tonight, the Head Dagger was dressed all in black, but his blue eyes were clear. ‘We have business to discuss.'

‘I know,' said Ransom. ‘I've been busy.'

‘Music to my ears.' Dufort raised his hand and a moment later, a tray was set down, bearing a metal teapot and two cups. Dufort poured the hot water, then removed a vial of Shade from his pocket. He tipped half of it into the first cup, then looked at Ransom, eyebrows raised.

‘No, thanks,' said Ransom.

‘Suit yourself.' Dufort shrugged, then added the rest to his own cup.

Ransom watched him drink. ‘Are you hunting tonight?'

He smirked over the rim of his cup. ‘Is that judgement I detect in your tone?'

‘I don't know why you stomach the stuff when you don't have to.'

Dufort licked his teeth. ‘What can I say? I've developed a taste for it.'

‘I'd sooner drink sewer water.'

‘Go ahead.' Dufort's eyes gleamed silver as the shadows invaded his body, pushing all the light to the surface. ‘Tell me about the girl.'

‘I caught up with her on the outskirts of Fantome.' He grimaced at the memory of her stricken face, how she had convulsed on that bench in the Scholars' Quarter like the grief was cutting her in half. ‘I tracked her to the Hollows. She went to House Armand.'

Dufort pitched forward. ‘Did she find it?'

Ransom nodded.

Dufort's demeanour shifted from calm to irritable. He tapped his right foot as he drank. ‘I should have guessed. Did Cordelia let her in?'

Again, Ransom nodded. It had been a long time since he had seen Dufort unsettled like this. Usually it took the death of a Dagger, or a botched kill, to bring gravel to his voice. Perhaps that vial of Shade was stronger than it should have been.

Ransom went on. ‘I followed her down to the Rascalle this morning. She went with two Cloaks. They were performing Sleights in the marketplace.'

Dufort looked up. ‘The girl, too?'

‘No.' Ransom frowned, recalling the way Seraphine had shied away from the challenge, hovering uncertainly at the edge of the square, her little dog clutched to her chest like a teddy bear. ‘She was way out of her depth.'

Dufort snorted, downing the last of his Shade. ‘She's a smuggler's daughter, Ransom. She's not as innocent as she looks.'

‘Maybe not.' Ransom recalled the way she had looked up at him in the marketplace, like a fly caught in a spider's web. How wide her eyes had been, how her voice had quivered when she spoke, a rosy hue flushing her cheeks. He didn't know if he was defending the girl, or his impression of her when he said, ‘But she's no Cloak, Gaspard. She's a pussycat, afraid of her own tail.'

‘Then you're the foolish mouse,' snapped Dufort. ‘That troublesome urchin found her way to House Armand without any help. She's clever.' He looked away, lips twisting. ‘Too clever.'

‘Who is she?'

‘Sylvie Marchant's spawn. A loose end.'

‘Why is she so important to you?'

‘Because she could end up being a thorn in my side.' There was such bitterness in his voice, his face. ‘Just like her mother.'

Ransom wanted to ask about the fire at the farmhouse, but given how quickly Dufort's mood was souring, he thought better of it. The Dagger kept the shadows inside him on a strong leash, but if his temper flared, it might slip. And Ransom only had ten heartbeats to flee. ‘I think the girl just wants to survive,' he said, instead.

‘It's not your job to tell me what the girl thinks. It's your job to tell me what she does.' He sat back, a swarm of shadows gathering at his feet, wreathing his chair, kissing his ring. Here sat the true king of Valterre, drunk on his own power. ‘I've heard enough.'

Ransom got up to leave.

‘Kill her.'

Ransom froze, half out of his chair. Hadn't Dufort heard a word he'd just said?

‘She's young,' he said, slowly, cautiously. ‘We don't kill—'

‘You kill who I tell you to kill.'

Ransom sat back down, compelled to argue despite the silver gleam in Dufort's eyes. Why was he fighting this so hard? Was it really over a music box and a shred of pity? Or because she was so far from his usual type of mark – criminals and degenerates, embezzlers and debt-ridden gamblers from some of the most entitled families in Valterre. This girl was so close to Ransom's age, they might have been friends in a different life. ‘She has a dog.'

Dufort laughed roughly, as though Ransom had cracked a joke.

Ransom scrubbed a hand across his jaw.

Dufort looked him over. ‘Is there a problem?'

Ransom said nothing. There was a problem, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was.

Dufort's nostrils flared. ‘I've chosen to trust you with this mark, Ransom. It's important to me. Just as you are. You've shown great promise these past ten years, son .' That word again, like a leash. ‘I see a lot of myself in you. That's why I'm close to naming you as my Second. If you play your cards right, some day the Order will be yours. The city, the king's ear, all the riches you could ever dream of… But—' He paused, twisting that thick ring around his finger, once. Twice. ‘If you don't think you can do this little task, then I'll give the mark to Lisette. Or—'

‘I'll do it,' said Ransom. ‘Of course I'll do it.'

The truth was, there was nothing he wouldn't do for Dufort. After all, he was the one who had found Ransom wandering the streets of Fantome ten years ago, his bottom lip split open, his left eye so swollen, he couldn't see out of it.

That was the day after Ransom's mother had fled Fantome with his little sister. Papa had caught the three of them at the entrance to their village, and panic had made Ransom foolish. Slight-framed and trembling at just ten years old, he had turned back. While his mother ran, Ransom made a shield of his body and grabbed a brick, ready to fight. When he came to in an abandoned stable six hours later, he still had the brick in his hand. Mama and Anouk were long gone.

Gaspard Dufort found Ransom the following morning, sitting alone on the banks of the Verne with a gruesome split lip, begging for scraps of pastries. He looked him up and down, then tossed him a cinnamon bun. Ransom devoured it in seven seconds, wincing through the pain of each bite. When he finished the last sugary mouthful, Dufort crouched down and asked him one simple question:

What do you want to be boy, brave or broken?

That night Ransom had his first taste of Shade.

And then he killed his father.

With ten short words on the banks of the Verne, Gaspard Dufort had turned Ransom from a boy into the youngest Dagger in the history of the Order. He had been watching over him ever since, grooming him for greatness. Ransom owed his life to Dufort, and he would not soon forget it. Neither would Dufort.

‘Good,' he said now, smirking. ‘Let me know when it's done.'

Ransom was about to excuse himself when a shout echoed down the tunnel and exploded into the Cavern. Nadia arrived a moment later, still trying to catch her breath. Lark was behind her, wearing a look of such horror, Dufort leaped to his feet.

‘Pascal Loren has been murdered,' said Nadia.

Ransom started at the name. Though Pascal himself was a brash man, with a proclivity for drinking and gambling which had more than once carried him to the brink of destitution, the Lorens were long-standing friends of the Crown as well as stalwart allies of the Daggers. They paid handsomely for the Order's services, which had ensured their protection over the years.

Dufort stalked across the Cavern, dragging his cape of shadows with him. ‘Pascal is untouchable.' His silver eyes were wild, their expression violent. Nadia stiffened as she noticed them.

‘We came across him ourselves,' said Lark, subtly positioning himself between Nadia and the nearest of Dufort's shadows. ‘He was down by the harbour. A crowd had already formed by the time we got there. He was grey, from head to toe. His eyes were black. His lips too.'

Ransom followed Dufort to the huddle by the door. ‘So, it was a Dagger, then.'

‘Of course not,' snapped Gaspard.

Ransom frowned. ‘Do you think a Cloak decided to try their hand at murder?'

Dufort bristled. ‘Cordelia Mercure wouldn't dare move against the Lorens.' He sounded unsure, unsettled.

Nadia and Lark shared a meaningful glance.

‘The locals…' Lark began, nervously. ‘They spoke of a monster…'

Dufort curled his lip. ‘What kind of self-respecting Dagger believes in monsters, Lark? Repeats the stuff of fairy tales?'

Nadia cleared her throat. ‘They said it came up from the sea, crawled from the underside of that abandoned ship…'

‘That ship is none of our concern,' said Dufort, waving a hand in dismissal and sending his shadows skittering up the walls. ‘Neither are its dead sailors.'

‘ Missing sailors,' said Lark. ‘There were no bodies retrieved. And now we hear of this monster…'

‘Then show it to me,' barked Dufort. ‘If you are so sure of this delusion.'

‘It was gone by the time we got there,' said Nadia. ‘This can't all be a coincidence. The supply chain of Shade has been compromised. With Sylvie Marchant out of action…' She swallowed thickly. ‘Who knows what happened to her store of Shade? Anyone in Fantome could have got their hands on it.'

Dufort spat, ‘Do you really think I would have left an ounce of Shade behind at that farmhouse?'

That was clearly a rhetorical question. It occurred to Ransom that the problem might have originated with an ambitious smuggler. This wouldn't be the first time a trader decided to deal outside the ranks of the Daggers and Cloaks, despite the underworld's strict rules. But whenever that happened, it usually ended swiftly in death and witlessness. The former for the smuggler who dared to sell the Shade, and the latter for the untrained patron foolish enough to consume it. And that still didn't explain the sightings of a monster. Or thirty missing sailors.

‘It doesn't matter where the Shade came from,' said Lark. ‘If there's something out there, killing our allies—'

‘ Sloppily, ' Nadia interrupted. ‘And in public .'

‘— then don't you think we should find them?' Lark finished.

Dufort clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Finally. A good idea from one of you.' He took a vial from his pocket and pressed it into his hands. ‘Twenty silvers for the rogue by morning. A gold sovereign if you find them before midnight.'

Lark's green eyes widened, and Ransom knew he was counting chickens for Mama in his head. Emboldened by the challenge, they both left as quickly as they had arrived. Ransom made to follow them, but Dufort pulled him back.

‘ You, ' he said, raising a warning finger. ‘Find the girl and kill her.'

Then he turned from Ransom and stalked out of the Cavern, dragging his shadows with him.

‘What about the dog?' Ransom called after him.

Dufort's cruel laugh echoed down the stone passage. ‘I could do with a new rug.'