Page 51 of The Rebel and the Rose (The City of Fantome #2)

There was a worm in Ransom’s head. A writhing, niggling thing that nibbled away his thoughts until only one remained.

Find the acolyte .

Kill her .

Bury her body .

Every time his mind strayed to the red mills of Marvale, to the woman he had left sleeping in his bed, and the dangerous, malevolent saint who had charmed himself into her good graces, a searing pain spiderwebbed through his skull. The worm returned.

Find the acolyte .

Kill her .

Bury her body .

They were almost at Ra’azule, and Ransom was sick to his stomach. Nadia wasn’t faring much better. Both of them had spent much of the journey trying to sleep off the terrible rattling in their skulls, the sense that something was amiss, without a sense of what it might be.

Caruso had taken their impromptu getaway in his stride, driving the carriage for much of the day’s ride west under the assumption that they were still following the king’s orders. Albeit with a sudden, inexplicable urgency.

It was nearing dusk by the time they reached the trading village of Ra’azule.

Ransom was riding out front with Caruso by then, hoping the fresh air would ease the fog in his head.

A hush came over them as they crested the western hills and watched the town appear below them.

Streetlamps flickered like a sea of golden stars, illuminating a patchwork of tall, narrow houses painted in every colour of the rainbow.

They formed a crescent around a grey lake that seemed to go on for ever.

The mist there hung low and thick, like froth skimming the surface.

Somewhere beyond floated the Isle of Alisa. And on it, their target. Ransom’s fingers twitched as they drew nearer, the job so close at hand that the worm in his head grew bigger, until he could feel the weight of it pushing out against his skull.

As the sun set, the mist became a dense silver fog.

Down on the strand, they commandeered a small rowing boat and pushed it into the water.

They sat facing each other, Ransom on one side, and Nadia and Caruso on the other, their knees touching as they moved away from the dock and into the belly of the wide grey lake.

Ignoring the endless water at his back, Ransom kept his mind on the task and not the yawning hollow in his heart, the sense that he had left something vital behind him. It was starting to hurt this feeling, the pain now spreading from his head to his chest.

‘Nervous?’ said Caruso, watching him as he rowed.

‘No.’ That wasn’t it.

‘Is it the whole murdering-a-saint thing that’s got you on edge? We can always toss a coin to the Alisans on the way out. Let them pray for our doomed souls.’ He snorted at his own joke.

Nadia punched him. ‘Shut up and row.’

‘Fine.’ Mumbling, Caruso picked up the pace. ‘What is up with you two today? You’re miserable company.’

That’s because I am not in control of myself . The thought was gone before Ransom could catch it, gobbled up by the slimy black worm in his head.

Find the acolyte .

Kill her .

Bury her body .

The water whispered as they moved through it. Deep into the fog they went, the lights fading until Ransom could scarcely trace his friends in the moonlit mist. And then lights began to flicker, the Isle of Alisa winking at them.

The island was smaller than Ransom expected, populated by dense thickets of trees and crowned by the priory itself, a sombre-looking building hewn from grey stone. Candles guttered in its arched windows.

They docked at a small wooden pier and made for the priory, this mournful monolith that stood alone in the moonlight.

Soon, they found themselves standing before a pair of large wooden doors.

On either side, stained-glass windows portrayed Saint Alisa.

In the first, she was a young girl, washing the feet of a plague victim.

In another, she was old and hunched, holding the hand of a sickly child.

‘We should have stayed in Marvale,’ muttered Caruso. ‘This place is giving me the creeps.’

‘Is it weird that I feel closer to hell here than down in the catacombs?’ remarked Nadia.

Find the acolyte .

Kill her .

Bury her body .

Ransom swung the door knocker.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

The echo carried across the island.

Caruso slipped a vial of Shade from his pocket.

‘Easy,’ said Nadia, grabbing his wrist.

‘What if one of the sisters starts trouble?’

At this, Nadia snorted. ‘They’re acolytes, not Daggers. They don’t know the definition of fun , let alone danger.’

The door creaked open. A tall reed-thin woman with a pale pinched face occupied the frame.

Her blue robes were embellished with gold thread, and she wore a structured veil that added several inches to her height.

Around her neck, dangled a thick gold necklace that Ransom recognized as the bleeding heart of Saint Alisa.

A more ostentatious version than the one his own mother used to wear beneath her vest, only taking it out to pray when he or Anouk fell sick.

By the innate imperiousness with which the old woman looked them over, Ransom assumed she was the Mother Superior. With a hideous scowl, she said, ‘You’re late.’

Ransom’s brows shot up. The pious old bat had some nerve.

‘We’re Daggers. We arrive when we arrive,’ he said, endeavouring to be somewhat polite, though the urgency of his task was pulsing in his ears.

Find the acolyte .

Kill her .

Bury her body .

‘You’re Mother Madeline, I take it,’ he said, noting her impatient nod. ‘We’re here about the saint.’

She hissed through her teeth. ‘Do not call her that. There is only one saint on this island and it is Saint Alisa. We hold her spirit eternally close. All others are arrogant pretenders and shameless vultures.’

‘Tell us how you really feel,’ mocked Caruso.

‘It makes no odds to us how you think of her,’ said Nadia, matching the old woman’s impatience. ‘We’d like to get back to the mainland in time for supper, though.’

Humming in disapproval, Mother Madeline glanced over her shoulder. ‘Come away from the priory. You’ll set the sisters on edge. I’ll show you to the girl.’ Ducking inside to fetch a lantern, she quickly shooed them off the doorstep, locking the door behind her.

Faces watched them from the windows as they followed Mother Madeline across the little island.

She led them west, to where the trees thinned and a peninsula jutted into the lake like a crooked finger.

It was there that the famed prayer tower of Ra’azule had once stood.

A fact confirmed by the mounds of ivory rubble now winking at them through the mist.

The wind howled, shoving at their backs and chasing the fog across the water until the sky cleared.

Silver-spun moonlight splintered through the clouds and danced along the marshes.

With a bolt of jarring clarity, Ransom was reminded of last night, how the moonlight had slipped in through the window in his bedroom and danced across Seraphine’s body, joining with the soft sheen of her skin until she glowed like a fallen star.

Seraphine.

Spitfire. Lover. Saint.

His .

A gasp stuck in his throat, his heart hitching painfully at the realization that she was not here. That he had left her without a word. That she didn’t know where he was. The wrongness of their cleaving was a barb in his chest, poking, piercing—

Find the acolyte .

Kill her .

Bury her body .

And then go home, laying waste to the promises they had made in the moonlit dark and instead returning to the catacombs, where he would await the prince’s next command.

Fuck .

That pain came again, like a pickaxe in his skull. Instead of his own voice, he heard another. Smooth as silk and dark as night.

Find the acolyte .

Kill her .

Bury her body .

Mother Madeline looked over her shoulder at them, the lantern casting eerie shadows across her creviced face.

‘I tried my best to help her, you know.’ Not that any of them had asked.

Or cared, particularly. Perhaps she was speaking simply to fill the yawning quiet or distract herself from the trio of Daggers skulking at her back.

‘When I found Sister Marianne in the rubble after the storm, I dragged her back here myself. I nursed her with my own hands, offered up my own prayers. But as time wore on, it became clear the girl was changed. And not for the better.’ She shuddered at the memory.

‘She was… dangerous . The walls would tremble in her wake. When she had a nightmare, debris would fall from the ceiling. Too many nights, I woke choking under clouds of dust. Even the windows would rattle and break.’

The whites of her eyes shone too brightly in the moon, the dread on her face making her look like a ghost. ‘You must understand why I could not let her leave. Not after she put her hands on Honoria. Not after the damage she did to our tower. To our priory.’ Again, the Daggers didn’t speak.

Matters of morality were not part of their remit and Ransom had no comfort to offer the Mother Superior.

He was focused entirely on the task at hand.

Once it was done, he could find his way back through the fog in his head.

Back to himself. ‘Our world does not need more saints. It needs order. Discipline. Humility .’

Caruso gave a huff of laughter. ‘And the coin of rich people who will pay any amount for a few of your precious prayers,’ he sneered. ‘I’m sure it would upset your little island commune to have another dozen or so saints wandering around Valterre after all this time. Who would pay you then?’

Chastened, or perhaps too livid to respond, Mother Madeline turned and did not speak again until they reached the peninsula. There, she stopped walking, gesturing for them to go on ahead of her, to where the remains of the prayer tower stood.

The lantern in her hand began to tremble.

‘Take care not to speak to the girl. She’ll beg.

She’ll weep. She’ll use every tool at her disposal to try and free herself.

The faster it’s done, the better. And whatever you do, do not take her chains off,’ she added starkly.

‘Marianne’s temper is a hazard. She’d rip the stars down if she could.

You need only look to the fate of Sister Honoria to know it. ’

‘We’ll take it from here,’ said Ransom. ‘You can return to your priory.’

But Mother Madeline lingered, her eyes on the broken tower.

‘I have an Order to run. And it already has a saint to worship,’ she said with a sniff.

‘Marianne has changed. The hand of destiny has struck her, and the wound cannot be mended. The matter is out of my hands.’ She took a careful step back.

‘The anchor stone should be enough to sink her but if you require more, there are loose rocks down by the shore. When it’s done, fill her pockets and dump her body in the lake.

The graveyard here is for our sacred sisters. I would rather not sully our earth.’

‘Charming,’ muttered Nadia.

‘Thanks for the tip,’ said Ransom.

‘Now fuck off,’ said Caruso.

Turning from the Mother Superior, they made for the end of the peninsula.

The lake sloshed alongside their footsteps as they reached the sorry remains of the prayer tower.

The base of it jutted up from the ground in uneven slabs of pale stone, reaching to just above Ransom’s head.

The rest of the tower was scattered across the strand, where huge white slabs stuck out of the earth like teeth.

Inside, a single oil lamp flickered, illuminating a slight, dark-haired woman. Wreathed in heavy metal chains, she was sitting on a threadbare rug with her back against the hard stone that anchored her. Her head was buried in the crook of her arms.

She must have sensed them standing there, six feet away and openly gawking at her, but she made no sound nor movement. Nothing beyond the barest twitch of her fingers.

‘She’s so small,’ said Caruso.

Another twitch.

‘Underfed,’ said Ransom, frowning.

And another.

‘And filthy,’ added Nadia. ‘Look at all that hair. It’s like rattlesnakes.’

Find the acolyte .

Kill her .

Bury her body .

The girl gave a derisive snort.

Stepping inside the tower, Ransom said, ‘Well, at least we know she can hear us.’

‘No shit,’ came the acolyte’s reply. Lifting her head, she added, ‘Who knew assassins were so fucking rude?’

Ransom opened his mouth to respond but the words died on his tongue. Shock coursed through his body, snatching the air from his lungs. He blinked furiously.

Impossible.

Impossible .

The acolyte stared up at him, her hazel eyes growing. They were shot through with red and rimmed in the dark shadows of endless sleepless nights, but he would have known them anywhere. They had chased him through a thousand nightmares, haunted him for ten long years.

Haunted him even now.

Her chains twisting and clanging, the girl pitched forward, her voice so small the wind almost snatched it away. ‘ Bastian ?’

That name – the sight of her – was like an arrow through his heart. ‘Anouk?’

Ransom was on his knees before he realized he was falling, the whole world spinning until it was just the two them crawling towards each other, across the endless aching chasm that had been yawning between them for ten long years.

And now he was here. And so was she. Remade by fate itself, and thrust into his path.

He felt those unseen gossamer strands tightening around him, Oriel’s hand falling heavily on his shoulder.

He welcomed it, welcomed all of it, this grand game of destiny where the people he loved the most were, by some divine sense of irony, the key players.

Impossible.

Impossible .

‘Anouk,’ he said, trembling as he reached for her. Desperate to know that she was real, even as he felt the truth of this moment thrumming deep in the waters of his soul.

The same question rolled from her tongue, both of them whispering to each other in the moonlit dark. ‘ How? ’