Page 34 of The Rebel and the Rose (The City of Fantome #2)

As they continued north, Ransom replayed his conversation at the fairground with Seraphine. How lost she had looked as she gazed up at him, her voice little more than a broken whisper.

I feel hopeless .

Those words were like a knife in his chest. At the carnival, he had taken one look at that black-eyed corpse and felt almost nothing. Sera had looked upon the dead man and thought to cover him with a blanket. Laid a flower on his chest. A spark of magic used to comfort, not to kill.

Because she is a saint .

And you are a monster .

Of course Ransom had chewed Caruso out at the carnival, twisted his hands in his collar and threatened to send him back to Fantome before Nadia had intervened. They had come this far already. In another day or so, they’d be at Marvale with the first of their marks finally in sight.

Soon, it would be over.

It would all be over.

Caruso had had the good sense to feign a modicum of remorse over his impulsivity, but guilt was a foreign concept to him. To down a jar of Shade in a carnival full of children was one thing, but to then hang a man with his own shadow in plain sight of them was a whole other level of unhinged.

Seraphine had been right to lose her temper at Ransom.

It had taken every strand of his composure to keep from losing it himself.

He was the Head of the Order of Daggers and he had no control over the violent whims of this Third.

How could Seraphine trust him to rule himself, when Ransom couldn’t even keep Caruso in line?

No wonder she couldn’t bring herself to confide in him.

He was so lost to his own frustration, Nadia had to kick his shin to get his attention. ‘Look!’ she said, drawing back the curtain.

They were coming upon Ornaux, a farming village halfway between the Appoline and Marvale. Streetlamps flickered up ahead, marking the bridge that led into the quaint stone village. Along the walls, the royal banners had all been ripped down, and the smell of smoke sat heavy on the wind.

The People’s Saint was close at hand.

The lazy river burbled, beckoning them onwards, but Nadia was pointing towards a modest graveyard on the outskirts of the town.

Ransom had to stick his face out of the window to be sure of what he was seeing. Under the sparse oil lamps, several graves appeared to have been disturbed. Mounds of dirt mottled the grey headstones and manicured grass, while flowers had been strewn over the wall.

‘Maybe they’re new graves,’ he said, ignoring the twist in his gut. ‘Dug, but not yet filled.’

‘I can count eleven,’ said Nadia. ‘Unless Ornaux just had a plague we haven’t heard about, I find that hard to believe.’

‘The people here are in revolt. They might be dead rebels.’

‘The king’s soldiers don’t bury dead rebels. And look, there.’ Caruso pointed out a pair of nightguards lingering by one of the graves. Ransom spied another pair walking through the graveyard, their hands fastened to the pommels of their swords, like they were waiting to strike.

A disturbance in the cemetery.

Or rather, several.

A familiar sense of unease festered.

‘Let’s continue into town,’ said Ransom, not wanting to stop again so soon. Or draw unnecessary suspicion upon themselves. ‘We can look into it from there.’

Nadia slumped in her seat, equally disquieted. Twirling a black strand around her finger, her dark eyes turned vacant. Troubled. Despite the evening breeze whispering through the windows, the air inside the carriage grew close. Heavy.

She was thinking of Lark. They were all thinking of Lark. Of that open grave back in Old Haven, and how sickeningly familiar this moment felt.

Ransom was sitting so rigidly by the time the carriage came to a stop, the muscles in his back throbbed.

Their destination, the Bellflower Inn, was a welcome sight: a tall well-tended building strung with purple flowers and crowned with gleaming white gables, with enough stables for their horses.

Oil lamps flickered in the windows, and gentle string music wafted out from within.

After securing their rooms and depositing their satchels, Ransom washed and changed his clothes before joining Nadia and Caruso in the eatery downstairs. Val and Seraphine were there too, sitting in the back corner of the restaurant. As far away from them as possible.

No sign of Versini.

Ransom joined his friends at their table.

They were too busy inhaling their food to make conversation.

Nadia gave him a look that said, Eat first, catastrophize later .

Talk of the graveyard would have to wait, thanks to a combination of the cook’s fragrant lamb stew and the bottle of aged whiskey Caruso had commandeered from the bar for saints knew how much.

As he ate, Ransom kept one eye on Seraphine’s table. Versini returned before long, his face unusually grave. Immediately setting down their forks, Val and Seraphine leaned across the little round table, all three of them whispering furiously, like a coven of witches.

Ransom was still watching them when Seraphine looked up sharply, catching his eye.

He raised his brows. Everything OK?

She stood and made her way towards their table. The others followed.

Reluctantly setting their whiskey glasses down, the Daggers looked up in bewilderment.

Seraphine said, ‘Did you see the graveyard on our way in?’

Ransom nodded. ‘It was somewhat hard to miss.’

‘Theo’s been speaking to the innkeeper. It seems Ornaux has its own graverobber.’ She turned on Nadia, her stare turning hard, as if to say, And it’s not me .

Nadia arched a brow. ‘Is that why you’ve come stomping over here? To plead your innocence?’

‘Ornaux is one of several graveyards in the area that have been recently disturbed,’ Versini supplied before Seraphine could fling the retort that was no doubt dancing on the tip of her tongue. ‘Someone has been taking corpses from their graves and moving them about in the night.’

Grimacing, Nadia reached for her whiskey, gulping it down.

‘To what end?’ said Ransom, struggling to keep his own revulsion in check.

Versini shrugged. ‘Innkeeper says it’s a mystery.’

‘More like a horror,’ muttered Val. ‘It sounds like the bodies get up to take a walk, then collapse again somewhere nearby.’

‘Could be local rebels,’ mused Caruso. ‘We’ve seen the same thing happen in Fantome.’

Albeit a more personal graverobbing. It was certainly an effective way to sow terror.

The Flames exchanged a loaded glance.

‘We shouldn’t stay here any longer than we have to,’ said Versini, looking between them. ‘We intend to leave at first light.’

‘Fine by me,’ said Ransom.

The others gave no argument.

Ornaux gave them all the creeps.

Something in common, at last.

Perhaps it was that which made Ransom push back his chair, making room at the table. ‘It’s been a long day. Do you want to join us for a drink?’

The Shadowsmith canted his head. ‘That depends. Are you buying?’

‘If you promise not to annoy me.’

Smirking, Versini pulled up a chair, making a point of seating himself between Ransom and Seraphine.

So much for their deal. Caruso went to get more glasses from the bar, filling them with whiskey.

Soon, their more serious talk of uprisings and renegade saints turned to lighter stories from House Armand and Hugo’s Passage, the former Cloaks and current Daggers swapping tales, almost as if they were old friends and not age-old nemeses.

Then followed the card games and wagers that called for more drinking until most of them were too bleary-eyed to remember their enmity at all, and far too tired to care.

The other diners cleared out, the coachmen trudging upstairs to their rooms until it was just the Flames and the Daggers, and Bram, the remaining soldier, necking spirits at the bar while he watched them.

Given there was no love lost between Bram and the others, he had the good sense to keep to himself.

Halfway through a rousing game of saint or sinner when everyone but Nadia and Val had surrendered all their coin to the pot, Seraphine stood up, announcing she was too exhausted to lose any more games.

She slipped around the table, squeezing Ransom’s hand as she passed. And there it was again – that insistent tug in his chest that made him want to trail after her. It wasn’t until she’d disappeared upstairs that he noticed the small wedge of paper in his palm.

He was on his feet before he even opened it.

‘Tapping out already?’ Caruso clucked his tongue. ‘We were just about to go double or quits. Versini’s a damn shark. And that kitten has claws.’

‘Say that shit again and I’ll take your eye out with one,’ snapped Val, slamming another copper down.

‘Dealer’s spread,’ said Nadia, shuffling the playing cards. ‘No peeking this time, Caruso.’

‘Try not to kill each other,’ said Ransom, stepping away from the table. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

In the stairwell, he read Seraphine’s note.

Ransom,

Come and find me on the roof…

I want to try.

S