Page 8 of The Dragon and the Dove

He would kill for her.

Clack… clack… clack…

That bloody noise again. He turned the oil lamp all the way up just as the door to his bedchamber creaked open.

‘Hey,’ he said, a tired rasp. He swung his lamp around, searching for her face in the dark. ‘How are—’

Ransom froze. His heart juddered, ice-cold dread pouring through him.

A corpse stood in his doorway.

Towering and bone white in the half-light, and bedecked in a frock coat so pristine, Ransom recognized it at once.

Here stood the earthly remains of Hugo Versini, founder of the Order of Daggers.

Someone had sprung his skeleton from the tomb hidden deep beneath the catacombs.

‘Fuck.’

That scraping came again, ten ivory toes sliding across the stone floor towards him.

Ransom leaped from his bed, swinging the oil lamp like a battleaxe. Hugo Versini’s skull shattered, casting gold teeth like marbles. He leaped over the crumpled torso without looking back.

Out in the hallway, the walls were coming alive. Bones broke out of the clay and stacked themselves into crooked skeletons, grabbing whichever skull was closest. Sometimes two or three at once.

The macabre spectacle meant only one thing.

Lark was here.

Ransom spun on his heel, frantically scanning the main passage for the Necromancer. Revulsion twisted into panic, urging him into a sprint. Attuned to the shift in his mood, his bloodhounds bolted after him.

His sister’s scream rang out.

‘Anouk!’ he yelled.

He pivoted, making for the Cavern. There he found Anouk standing on a table by the fireplace, surrounded by an army of skeletons. Her dark braids whipped around her as she brandished a candlestick like a sword.

Her teeth were bared, those gold eyes burning.

‘I swear to every living and dead Dagger, I will rip this cavern down!’ she roared.

Now that he was closer, Ransom realized her scream was really more of a war cry.

All around her, stones trembled, filling him with an entirely new kind of panic.

More than just his fiery little sister, Anouk was the Stone Maiden of Valterre. And her magic had been known to have a mind of its own.

‘Easy, Anouk!’ he shouted. ‘You’ll bring the whole place down!’

Jerking her chin up, Anouk decapitated a skeleton without even looking at it. ‘It’s all right, Bastian. I’ve got this under control!’

Ransom did a quick sweep of the Cavern while she lopped off three more skulls. ‘Where’s Versini?’

‘No idea,’ she huffed. ‘I fell asleep in the armchair. Woke up when the bones on the ceiling started crawling down the walls!’

‘Lark is here.’

Anouk froze mid-strike. ‘Bastian.’ Her face paled. ‘Where’s Sera?’