Page 8 of The Rebel and the Rose (The City of Fantome #2)

Up ahead, the statue of Saint Lucille edged into view. Ransom stripped a shadow from a nearby lamp post and cast it around her neck. A sharp tug revealed the entrance to Hugo’s Passage, the doorway groaning as it opened.

‘Wait!’ There came a sharp, panicked cry, and from the dark behind the statue, a boy leaped into his path.

Ransom skidded to a stop. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

The boy gasped a breath as he looked up at him. He couldn’t have been any more than ten years old. Short and scrawny, with a mop of black hair and wan skin. ‘Wait,’ he said again. ‘Please.’

‘Have you lost your mind, kid?’ Ransom stepped backwards, conscious of the spill of shadows between them. ‘Do you know what I am?’

‘Ransom Hale,’ said the boy, without blinking. He did well to keep the tremor from his voice, but his glassy eyes were wide and fearful. ‘Head of the Order of Daggers.’

A trap, surely. A trick of some sort. Ransom whipped his head around, searching the night for others who might be lying in wait.

All was still.

‘I came by myself,’ said the boy, reading the suspicion on his face. ‘I’ve been waiting all night.’

Ransom cocked his head. ‘Are you looking to die?’

He shook his head. ‘I want to be a Dagger.’

Hell’s teeth .

Saint Oriel had a twisted sense of humour. Or was this the work of Maud, Saint of Lost Hope, sending a tremulous child to his door?

‘Step back. Into the light.’

The boy nearly tripped over himself in his eagerness to obey. In the flickering lamplight, Ransom could better study him. He noted the tattered hem of his stained shirt, the scuff of his shoes. There was a faded yellowed bruise under his left eye, another along his jaw.

Ransom’s gut twisted. It felt for a moment like he was staring down the barrel of his own childhood, seeing himself the day Dufort had plucked him from the banks of the Verne like a discarded penny.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Fabian,’ the boy said.

‘Where have you come from?’

‘Nowhere, really.’

Ransom arched a brow. ‘Where are your parents?’

‘Don’t have any.’

Ransom folded his arms across his chest.

The boy blushed. ‘Mama died last summer.’

‘And your father?’

‘He ain’t no father. We don’t fit. Him and me.’

Ransom didn’t press the matter. It was sketched well enough on the boy’s face. ‘I see.’

The boy raised his chin, hands fisted by his sides. ‘Can I stay?’

Ransom almost laughed. ‘Obviously not.’

Frowning, the boy began to plead. ‘I can help you. I can—’

‘No.’ The word was crisp and final. Ransom had done a great many terrible things – made cruel, unforgivable choices in life, but he would not become what Dufort had been to him. ‘Run along. The orphanage will have you.’

‘I can spy!’ cried the boy. ‘Nobody notices me in the taverns! Down in the harbour, the sailors guzzle their beer and shoot their mouths off. King’s days are numbered, they say!’

‘Shut your mouth!’ hissed Ransom. He almost grabbed the boy to shake some sense into him, but then he’d be dead in ten heartbeats, and Ransom was not in the business of killing children.

‘Careful what you say about the king in these streets. Fantome is crawling with nightguards. And Daggers.’ He gave him a meaningful glare.

‘Even careless words are punishable by death. Don’t you know that? ’

The boy swallowed. ‘I was only saying—’

‘ Don’t ,’ said Ransom. ‘Mind your tongue or you’ll be belly up in the Verne before you know it. You’re too young for this life.’

Fabian’s eyes flashed. ‘You don’t know me.’

Ransom gave a mirthless huff. The boy was him, ten years ago on the banks of the Verne. All anger and desperation, too eager to barter his soul for a hot meal and a warm bed. For a chance not to feel afraid any more.

‘ Go .’ Arcing around him, Ransom headed for the stone steps. ‘I won’t tell you again.’

The boy trailed after him. ‘Go where? I can’t go back home.’

‘There is no future for you here, Fabian. Only darkness.’

Fabian jutted out his chin. ‘I ain’t afraid of no darkness.’

‘You will be when it gets its claws into you. When it chokes you as you sleep and fills your head with monsters you can never outrun.’

Fabian swallowed, fear making his lip tremble. ‘Please,’ he whispered.

Ransom paused with his foot on the step. He wavered for a moment, some quiet maddened part of himself truly considering taking the child in, before he remembered…

He was a killer, tied to an unforgiving fate. Not a life raft but an anchor that would only drag the boy down. If he took this child in, he’d be no better than Dufort.

‘Head east to the Hollows,’ he told the boy.

‘Run until the streetlamps wink out, and then look up. Wait for the shadows to bend. The shape in the dark is House Armand, home of the Order of Cloaks.’ He glanced towards the parting clouds.

‘The moon is generous tonight. Knock if you can find a door. Scream if you can’t. ’

The boy nodded, taking it all in.

‘Ask for Cordelia Mercure. Plead your case. Show her those nimble hands and that steely spirit. Don’t say I sent you.’

Again, the boy nodded.

‘I don’t ever want to see you in Old Haven again,’ said Ransom, adding a cruel bite to his voice. ‘If I do, that whip of shadow is going around your neck.’ He sold the lie through bared teeth. ‘Understood?’

The boy gulped, backing up.

‘One last thing,’ said Ransom, before thinking better of it. ‘Your father. Tell me his name. Where he lives.’

The boy did, and Ransom added the name to the list in his head.

The marked and the damned . This one he would do for free.

So some day, when he was big enough and strong enough, Fabian wouldn’t have to.

What was one more shadow-mark among the many new ones on his ribs, his chest?

By the time the Order was done with him, his body would be a tapestry of death. And nothing more.

‘Now run like your life depends on it.’

When the boy hesitated, Ransom ripped the shadows from the cobbles and sent them chasing after him.

He never screamed but he bolted like a deer into the night.

Ransom waited until his footfall faded, then he blew out a long breath, and turned once more for the steps.

‘We could have used him, Ransom.’ Nadia was standing at the entrance, haloed by a banner of skulls. ‘Our numbers are down.’

Ransom glared at her. ‘He’s a child, Nadia.’

‘We were all children when we came here.’

Ransom stalked past her. ‘And look how that turned out.’

‘He’ll meet his death on the streets,’ she called after him.

‘At least he won’t go to hell when he does,’ he called back.

She said nothing, then, and he welcomed the damp, stony silence.

He was not in the mood to talk morality with Nadia tonight. He was not in the mood to talk at all. Sleep was gnawing at his edges, and with it, the nightmares that chased him into oblivion.