Page 140 of The Dragon and the Dove

‘Crazy day, huh?’ she drawled.

Misreading the look of murder on his face, Caruso placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Calm down, all right? She’s on our side. She actually—’

‘Where is Seraphine?’

‘I told you, she’s—’

‘Where?’ he growled through his teeth.

Caruso pointed dead ahead, and Ransom took off towards the altar. In the flickering sconce light twelve marble statues marked a prayer ring around the sprawling dais.

Seraphine was lying underneath the statue of Saint Oriel.

Tobias was sitting cross-legged beside her.

When he spotted Ransom, he straightened. ‘I figured this would be the best place for her to rest.’

Ransom said nothing. He was too busy studying the shadows under Sera’s eyes, the way her lashes fluttered like she was trying to wake up. ‘How long has she been out?’

‘A while.’ Tobias was cagey, or perhaps wary of the look on Ransom’s face. ‘Albert helped me carry her in from the square. That was after Nadia came. She took an arrow for her. She was going to die out there, all alone, so Sera didn’t have a choice, really. She had to—’

‘You can go.’

Paola was calling for him anyway. Tobias hurried to her, leaving Ransom and Seraphine alone on the altar. Outside, the sun surrendered its own vigil, its dying rays bathing Seraphine in a wash of golden light, as though the heavens themselves were blessing her.

Sinking to the floor, Ransom sat with his back against the statue of Oriel Beauregard. Brushing a stray hair from Sera’s forehead, he sank into a disquieted reverie and waited for her to wake up.

Cloaks and Flames milled about, sharing food and conversation, and yet no one dared to set foot on the altar. Even Anouk, who came to offer him half of her sandwich, kept her distance.

Hovering by the statue of Saint Maurius, she dangled it back and forth. ‘Hungry?’

‘I’ll eat when she wakes.’

‘We don’t know how long that’ll be.’

‘I’ll eat when she wakes,’ he said again.

She sighed. ‘Mercure says we’ll likely stay here for the night. Just in case Andreas has something else up his sleeve.’

‘You mean beyond throwing a fake parade as a cover for his trained assassins to pick us off one by one?’

‘I suppose so.’ She lingered. ‘Do you remember seeing Theo earlier?’

He shook his head. Come to think of it, he was surprised the Shadowsmith hadn’t come to excoriate him over the dragon. ‘Where is our resident soul-eater?’

‘He’s missing. Paola says they got separated on Merchant’s Way.’

‘With any luck, he fell down that hole she made.’

‘Bastian.’

‘I haven’t seen him, Anouk. And our meetings tend to be memorable.’ She sucked her teeth, frowning. He thought to ask, ‘What is Nadia?’

‘She’s still figuring it out.’

His gaze returned to Seraphine. ‘It better be worth it.’

Not the making but the taking. The quiet dimming of her light.