The Dagger and the Flame

Sometimes Ransom wandered until his heart ached, just to remind himself it was still there.

He only stared at her, as if she was the most precious thing he had ever seen. A slant of sunlight breaking through a storm. A lone star in a cloud-swept night.

He saw that fear—knew it as intimately as his own. And he wanted to take it from her. To shoulder it, until she could breathe again.

Playing with magic was like playing with fire, and in the end, someone always got burned.

And even though he was still a well-seasoned assassin and their truce teetered on the knife edge of their mutual curiosity, she felt like in that moment they were something else—two lost souls, left adrift in the same dark sea.

A tiny, ancient piece of paper…’ His throat bobbed, his expression hungry. ‘What does it say?’ ‘It says, Fuck off, Ransom.

suppose I can’t decide which is better,” she confessed. “Being alone somewhere beautiful and free. Or being with the only people I’ve ever loved, here in the darkness.

And when the time comes, you will rise far above this wicked city, and become a flame in the dark.

She looked up, past that broad chest and strong, stubbled chin, to a generous sweep of black hair and eyes the color of autumn leaves, flickering somewhere between green and gold. She didn’t know if it was the lilting lullaby, the sheer towering height of this stranger, or the way those autumn eyes were looking at her, but she felt suddenly dazed.

Sera, this guy is obsessed", said Bibi. "He can't take his eyes off you. I can't tell if he wants to ravish you or murder you.

You secured a fucking tomb,” spat Seraphine. “Lie down and die in it.

I can’t tell if he wants to ravish you or murder you.

Content are the souls who submit to the winding strands of fate. Blessed are those who dare to spin their own.

hair tangled across her face, momentarily blinding her. She heard the water surge. It churned and thrashed as the deep answered her plea. Hands broke through the surface, followed by hunched shoulders, twisted arms, and hulking bodies. The

Dufort was exactly where Lisette said he would be, perched at the far end of the graveyard, between weathered tombstones that jutted up from the earth like rotting teeth.

The light crept in through Seraphine’s window and danced along the pages of her book, and for a moment, she imagined the curious moon was reading over her shoulder.

His frown sharpened his cheekbones. In the moonlit dark, he looked like a statue cursed to life, a thing so cruelly perfect, he belonged in a museum.

He had thought of Mama, sewing her own cuts closed over the sink too many times to count, and in that moment, as he towered over Seraphine Marchant, he didn’t feel like a Dagger. He felt like his father.

Here was a girl determined to live. And ten feet above her stood the assassin who had been sent to kill her. He was not unaware of the unfairness of that.

When the world is at its darkest, we must reach bravely through the shadows to find where the light blooms.

So he stayed, and he killed, and he retched, and he slept in the smothering gloom, because that was all he knew. And in a strange way, it was comfortable.

So he dragged a finger across his neck, and mouthed, I’m going to fucking kill you.

They already shared a lullaby. Why not a dream, too?

You lust-addled Neanderthal. You’re standing in a fucking tomb.

I didn’t know you could speak to ghosts,” said a voice in the dark. Low, and soft as honey. Lethal as a snakebite. “You really are full of surprises.