Page 3 of The Rebel and the Rose (The City of Fantome #2)

Othilde Eberhard was as old as the hills of Valterre. A seasoned trader with good prices and prompt delivery, her reliability made her one of the best in the trade. Even at eighty years old and with gnarled hands and fading eyesight, she never missed a shipment.

Until after the Aurore fell.

Ransom didn’t notice at first. Barely a few months into his new role as Head of the Order of Daggers, he had other matters to worry about.

Like explaining to the King of Valterre how Gaspard Dufort and the Aurore Tower – Valterre’s long-treasured symbol of light and hope – had both met their end on the same night.

And of course, there was also the matter of the terrifying swarm of monsters that had marched through the city and ransacked the catacombs, decimating almost a third of the Order of Daggers and lighting the spark of a rebellion that continued to worsen by the week.

Unease festered across Fantome. And it was catching.

No, Ransom was not thinking about Othilde Eberhard at all.

A rainswept autumn had bled into an unforgiving winter, the snow falling so thick and fast it froze the Verne and crusted the rooftops of Fantome like powdered sugar.

Ransom had the fireplace in the Cavern repaired in time for Saintsmas, but the chill still found the Daggers deep in the underbelly of Fantome, making their teeth chatter as they gathered round the crackling flames to drink whiskey and exchange trinkets.

No one mentioned Dufort.

No one sat in his chair.

Caruso suggested burning it for warmth.

While the stores of Shade in Hugo’s Passage were full, Ransom didn’t spare a thought for the comings and goings of his network of smugglers.

He focused, instead, on rebuilding the Order and meeting their clients’ growing demands, earning back the trust of his comrades and grieving the loss of his best friend.

The dirt on Lark’s grave froze too, the nearby statue of Saint Lucille weeping crystalline tears as winter gripped Fantome in its icy grip and refused to let go.

Slowly, reluctantly, Ransom rose to the challenge of the position he had never truly wanted.

Seeking solace in the familiar lick of Shade, in the bone-deep sting of every new shadow-mark, he pretended his destiny was always meant to play out in the bowels of Fantome under the ancient eye of Calvin, Saint of Death.

Those first few months were long, and the nights were often sleepless.

But when he dreamed, he dreamed of her.

Seraphine .

The spitfire who had torn down the Aurore and made an enemy of herself. To the Daggers and the Cloaks, to the city and the king himself.

There had been no sign nor word of her since the morning after the Aurore fell, when she had fled north with her trio of fellow Cloaks, her little dog scurrying alongside her.

Ransom was glad Seraphine was gone. Far from the chaos rumbling in the capital, and the danger of his own Order.

And yet…

Sometimes he woke from dreams of her with such longing pain lanced through his chest.

For the sake of his sanity he shut all thoughts of her away, allowed his memories to freeze in the endless cold snap that followed her departure and hardened his heart like the ice that slicked the streets of Old Haven.

It worked for a time.

Then, one morning in late winter, Lisette banged on the door to Ransom’s bedchamber to tell him their stores of Shade were beginning to dwindle. In the last couple of weeks several of their most prolific traders had vanished, seemingly overnight.

The first disappearance had struck Ransom as unfortunate.

The second had made him suspicious.

By the time Othilde Eberhard went quiet, Ransom knew something was amiss. And he was sure as hell going to find out what.

He had intended to make the journey to Othilde’s place by himself, but as his Second, Nadia insisted on joining him, and when Caruso met them coming out of Hugo’s Passage on his way home from a job, he invited himself along for the journey.

As the rising sun dragged itself over the snow-swept city of Fantome, the three Daggers took a carriage out of the city and travelled west towards the village of Aberville.

The journey was long and slow, the winding roads made treacherous with melting frost. Spring was coming but it was taking its damn time.

In the back of the carriage Caruso and Nadia sat next to each other, with their boots kicked up on either side of Ransom.

Built like a bear and as tall as one too, Caruso crowded the narrow seat, nudging Nadia over towards the window.

Absently, she toyed with the drapes as they traded theories about their disappearing smugglers.

‘Maybe it’s a matter of loyalty?’ Nadia suggested, her frown just visible over the high collar of her wool coat. ‘Now Dufort’s gone, they don’t have the stomach for it any more.’

Caruso snorted. ‘People don’t lose their appetite for coin. And they all hated Dufort. He was a callous prick.’

‘And that’s coming from you,’ said Nadia, with a snort.

Caruso had always been a wildcard. Restless, destructive, forever angry at the world.

He was quick to lash out and never one to apologize.

He would have been a killer either way. Even if Dufort hadn’t put that first vial of Shade in his hands at thirteen years old.

Saints knew, he was built like one, and he never fell victim to paltry feelings like regret, or remorse.

Or so Ransom assumed. If Caruso was capable of human emotion, he certainly hid it well.

But he was loyal to the bone.

The Daggers were all Caruso had.

The Order was all any of them had.

‘At least I’m self-aware,’ Caruso remarked now.

‘Dufort thought the sun shone out of his own ass. He wore the shadow-marks on his face like a badge of honour.’ He jerked his chin towards Ransom, who was staring vacantly out of the window, only half listening.

‘Our pretty boy here is far more palatable. Polite as a prince. And look at those pearly teeth. You’d never know he was a ruthless bastard. ’

Ransom gave him the middle finger.

‘Everyone’s been on edge since the Aurore came down,’ Nadia went on, as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Most nights, people are rioting in the streets. I reckon some of our smugglers got spooked too.’

‘Not Othilde. The old crone once killed a bear with a flying pitchfork. Didn’t even blink,’ said Caruso, admiration simmering in his icy-blue eyes. ‘She does the spooking. Half the village call her a witch. But never to her face.’ He offered the ghost of a smirk. ‘Cowards.’

‘They probably don’t want to get pitchforked,’ muttered Ransom.

‘He speaks!’ Caruso prodded Ransom with the toe of his boot. ‘Now that you’re done sulking, why don’t your share some of your own theories?’

‘She’s probably dead,’ said Ransom distantly. ‘It was a harsh winter. Othilde is old and lives alone.’

‘Tragic,’ murmured Nadia.

‘More like boring,’ said Caruso with a sprawling yawn. ‘And that still doesn’t explain the other disappearances.’

Ransom turned his face to the snow-laden fields.

He spied smoke up ahead, a whisper of life rising above a stretch of dark spindly trees.

The truth was, he had another theory about who had been getting to his smugglers, but he didn’t dare utter it aloud.

Nadia had finally stopped obsessing over Seraphine Marchant and her role in Lark’s death, and Ransom was not about to stoke that fire again.

And anyway, it was only a hunch.

A tug of paranoia he had been trying very hard to ignore.

‘We’ll figure it out soon enough,’ he said, gesturing to the plumes in the distance. ‘We’re almost there.’

‘Finally,’ grunted Caruso, shifting in his seat. ‘My ass is numb.’

‘Then how are you still speaking out of it?’ said Nadia.

Ransom sighed. ‘Behave, children. You’re giving me a headache.’

As they hopped out of the carriage and sauntered up the stone path that led to Othilde Eberhard’s cottage, Ransom felt like they were walking into a painting.

In the front garden snowdrops bowed under the weight of the morning dew frost. Empty flower baskets hung on either side of the blue front door, where frozen spiderwebs sparkled in the sun.

There was no smoke coming from the chimney, no lights flickering inside.

Caruso peered in the front windows, while Nadia tracked round the back of the house.

Ransom thumped his fist against the front door. ‘Othilde?’

After a minute of silence he kicked it in.

Caruso stepped over the threshold after him, inhaling through his nose. ‘Stale smoke.’ Another sniff. ‘Curdled milk. Hmm… no decomposing corpse.’

‘Why do you sound so disappointed?’ said Ransom.

Caruso whistled to himself as he moved about the kitchen, methodically ransacking his way through every single cupboard. Ransom noted an empty pot in the sink and an old loaf in the bread bin. Covered in mould. The milk in the jug on the table had indeed curdled and the apples were rotten.

He left Caruso and wandered through the adjacent sitting room. There was a ball of wool on the chair by the window, a half-knitted green scarf trailing from it. A cold pipe in the ashtray. He continued upstairs, searching the pokey bedrooms.

No sign of Othilde.

Or her corpse.

Unease stirred in Ransom’s gut.

When he returned downstairs, Caruso had torn up some of the floorboards. The crawl space underneath the kitchen was empty, save for three cracked vials.

When Nadia returned from the garden, she was frowning. ‘There’s nothing left. Not a root or a leaf. Even her compost heap has been emptied.’

Caruso bit off a curse. ‘Where the hell did she go?’