Page 18 of The Rebel and the Rose (The City of Fantome #2)

Ransom had been expecting the king’s request from the moment he arrived at the Summer Palace.

He was, after all, a trained assassin. The best in Fantome, with an entire Order under his thumb.

It’s why he’d brought Nadia and Caruso. If the king wanted something done – and that something was personal – then Ransom was taking two of his best Daggers with him.

He had not, however, been expecting to come face to face with Seraphine Marchant. As he’d sat drumming his fingers in that sweltering, overwrought dining room, he hadn’t been thinking about her at all. For once.

When the door swung open, he’d pitched forward in his seat, as though tugged by some invisible force between them. The sight of the troublesome spitfire bound and trembling like a prisoner on her way to the gallows, kindled in him a rage so quick and violent his mind had emptied entirely.

When the guard yanked the sack off her head, revealing a gruesome patchwork of cuts and bruises across her bloodless face, a roar of fury gathered in his chest. He fought it with every ounce of his control, even as his fingers itched for the Shade he had surrendered upon his arrival.

He had been doing so well.

Until he saw the bruises on her neck.

Something inside him had snapped. A red mist clouded his thoughts, and he forgot what side he was on.

In truth, he didn’t care. He was on his feet in one heartbeat, squaring up to those soft-jawed brutes in the next, his mind tunnelling until all he could hear was the satisfying thwack of his fist striking their faces over and over again.

He could have lost his own head for it and destroyed the Daggers’ good standing with the Crown while he was at it, but by the time he was pummelling the breath out of those smarmy assholes, he found he didn’t care much for his own head.

Seeing the spitfire again had punched a hole in all that careful resentment he had been stockpiling over the winter.

One look at her, sitting on the other side of that table with her chin raised like a battle-worn princess, had made him weak for her all over again.

Had he taken Shade tonight, every soldier in that room would be dead.

When the king arrived, Ransom’s blood was still fizzing with adrenaline.

Bertrand had called him a beast for it.

Ransom had felt like one.

He still felt like one.

And try as he did, he could not keep his eyes off her . He had been starved of Seraphine Marchant for far too long. Her delicate heart-shaped face. Those searing blue eyes flecked with bronze. That soft, smart mouth.

The spitfire was bad for his concentration. Bad for his blood pressure. Bad for business.

She’s the enemy .

Three times, Nadia had pinched his leg under the table.

Reminders that Seraphine Marchant was not one of their own.

All winter, she had been methodically dismantling their trade, screwing with their livelihood, and now the king himself had all but accused her of being a rebel, a potential traitor to the Crown.

No, Seraphine Marchant was no friend of the Daggers.

She was a threat: to the Order and to the kingdom. To his own furious heartbeat.

But there was a greater, more powerful enemy at play now.

‘So, just to be clear, you want us to kill someone who might be an actual, literal saint?’ said Caruso, with a flatness that told Ransom he was struggling to believe it.

‘I want you to kill a traitor,’ said the king. ‘Do you have a problem with that, Dagger?’

‘No.’ Caruso shrugged. No great moral quandary there. Saint or sinner, a mark was a mark. ‘I like a challenge.’

‘Me too,’ added Nadia, after a beat. ‘The sooner the city settles, the better.’

‘Hale?’ asked the king.

They were hardly in a position to refuse, and Ransom was already long past morality. Stamped and damned, and waiting for hell. He dipped his chin. ‘Consider it done.’

Killing the king’s nephew wasn’t just about money, though the reward would be considerable. It was a matter of their continued protection. The freedom to go on doing whatever the hell they liked, without consequence.

The silence across the table was palpable.

The Shadowsmith’s face was like stone, his tanned skin marbled with bruises. Versini , the king had called him earlier. He’d plainly hated it. Which made Ransom warm to it.

‘Flames?’ prompted the king. ‘Lost your tongues?’

Seraphine hesitated, looking to Versini. ‘We’re not assassins, Your Majesty.’

‘But she is a killer,’ said Nadia, coldly. ‘She just does it for free.’

Seraphine cut her eyes at her. ‘I don’t hurt people, for sport or coin.’

Ransom stifled a groan. Couldn’t she see there was no choice here? The king hadn’t extended an offer to them; he had given an order. And if she refused it, she wouldn’t walk out of this place alive. Hell, she’d barely got here in one piece.

‘But we can help,’ said Versini, engaging some actual survival instincts. ‘Whatever Your Majesty commands. Of course.’

‘Of course,’ Seraphine added quietly.

‘Very good,’ grunted the king.

One of his advisers rushed forward, whispering something in his ear.

Nodding, he returned his attention to the table. ‘Once you are done dealing with my nephew, I want you to take a trip to the Isle of Alisa.’

Ransom’s brows shot up. Of all the places he was expecting to be sent…

The Isle of Alisa was on a small man-made lake in the middle of the village of Ra’azule in west Valterre.

Barely the size of the Hollows, the island was home to the reclusive Order of Alisans, priestesses who devoted their lives to Alisa, Saint of the Sick.

There they prayed to her, morning, noon and night, forgoing all manner of nutritious food for bone broth, swearing off all their material possessions, and giving up all possibility of love.

Wealthy folk paid good coin for their prayers, believing the Alisans held more sway over their ailing loved ones than even the best physicians in Valterre.

Folly of the rich , his mother used to call it, but the Order had existed for centuries, and in their devout selflessness had become a source of pride for Valterre.

‘To repent?’ he asked now.

The silent quartet tittered at the suggestion.

The king’s face was grave. ‘There’s another mark there in need of urgent attention.

A young acolyte, a Sister Marianne, who has been acting out since the storm.

According to their Mother Superior, the girl tore down their prayer tower.

They found her in the rubble the following morning.

For months she’s been unconscious, flitting in and out of dream-sleep.

Her sisters have been praying for her night and day.

Recently, she has awoken and is acting… destructively .

She seems to be developing somewhat… saintly powers. ’

‘You think this Sister Marianne is a new saint?’ asked Ransom carefully.

The king gave an affirming grunt. ‘She has already killed one of her sisters. The other Alisans are petrified of her. Mother Madeline has written to me personally of her concerns. For now, the girl is being kept under lock and key. But she will need to be dealt with before her power escalates, and the matter buried along with her on that island.’

‘You mean to kill another saint?’ said Seraphine, aghast.

‘I intend to do away with an agitator and a murderer,’ said the king darkly. ‘These creatures are not like the saints of the first age. The world is very different now. The meaning of that word has changed.’

Seraphine chewed on her lip. Whatever thoughts were dancing behind her eyes, Ransom silently urged her to swallow them.

‘We understand,’ said Versini. ‘You have made everything plain.’

‘Except this,’ the king added. ‘If you fail to complete the task, or you abscond on the journey, the redhead will pay for it in blood.’

Seraphine pitched forward, horror rushing her words together. ‘You have Bibi?’

‘Did you think she evaporated on the journey?’

‘Leave her be,’ she implored. ‘She’s innocent.’

‘Innocence is a matter of perspective, Miss Marchant. Failure is not.’ The king came to his feet.

He nodded to the soldiers along the wall.

‘Return them to their cells.’ Wagging a finger between Seraphine and the Shadowsmith he said, ‘Think well on your loyalty in the dark. You will depart in the morning.’

With his advisers trailing after him, the King of Valterre plodded from the grand dining room, then stalled on the threshold to throw Ransom a backwards glance. ‘A word, Dagger. In private.’

Ransom rolled to his feet as the guards moved in to collect their prisoners. There wasn’t time to speak to Seraphine, and by the way she turned her back to him, he doubted she was interested in his advice. Which was: Behave, for fuck’s sake .

A moment later, Ransom stepped into the king’s war chamber.

He had been here before, four months ago.

That fateful day on the cusp of a cruel winter when he had been summoned to see the king.

First, to explain what had befallen Gaspard Dufort and the city he once presided over, and secondly, to introduce himself formally, as the next leader of the Daggers.

To kiss a new ring and welcome his role as the king’s brand-new shadow puppet.

The king awaited him in a chair by the grand stone fireplace, the flames there bracketed by a series of violent battle tapestries. ‘Next time you strike one of my soldiers, you’ll spend the night in my dungeon, Dagger.’

Ransom dipped his chin. ‘Forgive me, Your Majesty.’

‘That woman is a liability.’

‘That woman had been beaten to a pulp.’

The king rolled his eyes. ‘Why are Daggers always so dramatic?’