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There had always been a darkness in Mama, and Seraphine feared that if she looked directly at it, it might become a part of her, too. It might destroy their careful little life.
For it was in the falling shadows of Fantome that the Cloaks and Daggers roamed. The rival guilds, one of thieves and the other of assassins, were both powered by Shade—the
The Daggers consumed Shade in small doses, temporarily turning their bodies into deadly weapons where one touch alone could kill. The Cloaks never consumed Shade. Rather, they wore it, allowing them to blend in with the night and take from it whatever they wished. They might have considered themselves nobler than their rivals, but to dance with Shade at all was to tempt fate.
Magic was a game of restraint. To consume it at all was to place one foot in hell.
Desperation makes the Dagger. Power keeps them.
Sometimes Ransom wandered until his heart ached, just to remind himself it was still there.
The rule was simple: Daggers and Cloaks stayed out of each other’s way. Daggers didn’t thieve and Cloaks didn’t murder.
Bad luck had made Lark a Dagger, but their friendship was Ransom’s good fortune.
was a far cry from the practical clothes she wore out in the plains; pale, loose-fitting shirts to keep off the heat of the sun in the cornfields, leathers to ride Scout bareback, her boots always laced high enough to protest her trousers from the mulch in the vineyards.
theory: dufort is her dad 🤯
“I don’t know him,” said Sera, her chest tight.
real dad…?
Take only what your cloak can carry, and your conscience can bear.
Those who refuse to wield the dagger are doomed to die by its blade.
“You,” she breathed. Ransom rolled his neck, sinking into the game. “Me,” he said, with a feral smile.
He was a foot taller than her, broad-shouldered, with strong arms and long legs. Then there were those violent, quicksilver eyes and the arsenal of shadows at his disposal. He was Death itself.
“And what will my death earn you? A pat on the back from Dufort? A kiss on the forehead at bedtime?”
Now, the Dagger was just a man. She was a flame.
“Keep the souvenir. Courtesy of Sylvie Marchant.”
His father had a heart after all. It only took ten beats to kill him.
“You were either going to kill your father, or that vial of Shade was going to kill you. Truth be told, I’ve never used it on a kid before.”
When the world is at its darkest, we must reach bravely through the shadows to find where the light blooms.
Could she burn all the poison away, so that he could crawl out of this cruel place and leave behind the yawning hollow of darkness that would one day swallow him whole?
What would you give for another chance at freedom? What would you risk to go all the way back? He dropped his head, caressing that little patch of unblemished skin. Everything.
And there she was. His spitfire.
“Because sometimes it takes a monster to destroy a monster,”
Maybe I want to burn, spitfire.
“Seraphine!” He skidded to a halt in the middle of the courtyard, shadows trailing in his wake. “Don’t make me drag you back to me!”
He just wanted to go home. That’s all he had ever wanted.
All these weeks, the Dagger hadn’t just been seeking her. He was seeking freedom from himself, from all the terrible things he had done.
The monsters bow to the power of Lightfire. Become the flame and destroy the dark, Seraphine.
Content are the souls who submit to the winding strands of fate. Blessed are those who dare to spin their own.
The gentle caress of her hand against his cheek, how her trembling breath had feathered his skin, her mouth so close, he could almost taste her. He would not sleep easy tonight. Or perhaps ever again.
Seraphine Marchant didn’t just have the power to free Ransom. She had the power to free the entire city.
Ransom had been fighting for his life for as long as he could remember, trying to wrench power from men far stronger—and crueler—than him, and yet somehow, he felt most alive when he was standing in the glaring spotlight of that bronze-flecked gaze and sustaining insults from that sharp, lashing tongue.
Seraphine was a spitfire. And Ransom wanted to burn.
The saints did not service the needs of those already in hell. His wishes were not made to be answered.
He heard her answering laugh on the wind, and wished he could bottle it.
He stared at the sketch underneath her words. A woefully out-of-proportion stick man, with a generous sweep of black hair and a giant goofy face. A little nick in the center of his smile marked the scar on Ransom’s lip. Something inside him glowed, warm and bright, and he knew if there was a mirror before him now, he’d find himself with that same goofy smile on his face.
She tracked a black whorl that peeked out of his sleeve and curled around his left thumb, like a wreath of thorns. The hands of a killer, she reminded herself. Then why did she want to touch them so badly?
“I bet they hired a wagon and went south, through the lavender fields of Florenne and the sun-kissed valleys beyond. They’re probably in a white-stone village somewhere by the sea, living amongst the fisherfolk who sing to the waves to coax the shoals to shore.” Ransom drew closer, his lips parted, as if to breathe in her story, and Sera continued, drawing them both deeper into the tale.
“I was the price of my family’s freedom.” Ransom.
Reminds me of Heartbreak High "Child of an Addict and Self-Harmer. CA$H."
Anouk was training to be a ballerina. She used to call herself the dancing swan. She always wanted to fly.” His smile was edged with pain. Sera felt the same sadness inside her, that ache for a different, kinder life. “In the end, she flew away.”
“Next time I have to sneeze, I’ll just implode instead, shall I?” “I wish you would.” “No. You don’t.” And that was the problem.
Seraphine was so much more than a thorn in his side. She was a thorn in his soul.
“If you touch her, I will fucking kill you.”
He was covered in ash, his hands streaked with her blood. She was sure she looked even worse, but by the way he was gazing at her she’d never have guessed.
“For ten years, I’ve prayed to Saint Oriel,” he said, as if he was telling her a secret. “Asking her for a better life than this one. For a kinder fate. The courage to chase it. I never really believed she could hear me down here in the dark, or that even if she could, she would ever bend her ear to the pleas of a Dagger. I almost gave up.” He laid his forehead against hers. “And then you came barreling over the horizon like a runaway sun. You shattered the darkness, Seraphine. And I realize now that all these years I wasn’t wishing for freedom. I was wishing for you.”
Or maybe he was a fool, after all. Maybe he had just sold out his Order for a chance to taste the sun. And the sun had burned him. Burned them all.
His heart was lost to him; one piece of it buried with Lark in Old Haven, the other three scattered far beyond Fantome.
“The strands of destiny are not yet done with you.”
