Crimson Daggers- The Complete Trilogy

by Emma Savant

  I nodded. “That’s where most of the spells start.”

  “She was definitely standing where the kid said she was.” Alec put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “So there you go.”

  I tossed another pebble, silently praying that this last net of charms would somehow be the thing that kept her away from my family.

  My family.

  Sienna was my family. That monster was closer to me through blood than many in the coven, and it turned my stomach.

  I marched on through the forest, and Brendan and Alec fell into step beside me.

  “It gets worse,” Alec said.

  I looked sharply over at him. His face was drawn a little tighter than usual and he seemed reluctant to speak, but finally, he pulled a length of red fabric out of his pocket.

  “We found this on the lawn,” he said. “Next to a couple of boot prints. No track leading up to it, no track leading away, but it’s thick with her scent.”

  I snatched the fabric away from him and held it up. I recognized this scarf. It was from a recent Carnelian collection, the material knitted from spider silk and dyed with hand-raised blood anemones. It was a rare item, one Grandma had given to Sienna as a birthday gift.

  The sight of it sent prickles across my skin.

  “What do you mean, no track?” Brendan held out his hand for the scarf.

  Alec seemed to tense as I passed the fabric to Brendan.

  He raised it to his nose, inhaled deeply, and blinked a few times. “You think she jumped from the top of the fence?”

  “She shouldn’t be able to do that,” I said. “The spells shouldn’t let her in.”

  “Maybe there aren’t enough spells,” Alec said. “And I don’t think she jumped, unless she’s got some mad athletic skills we don’t know about. The prints were way too far onto the grounds. Must have flown. Maybe dropped it from above?”

  “You can’t drop things onto the grounds,” I said. “The protective wards won’t allow it.”

  I tossed another pebble. I hadn’t lost count of my steps, which was something of a miracle. It wasn’t a miracle that would last, so I stopped walking and counting and poured the handful of pebbles back into my jacket pocket.

  I took the scarf back from Brendan. It was gossamer-light in my hands. I couldn’t smell anything on it aside from the faint trace of an unfamiliar perfume.

  But there was no question as to its recent origins. This wasn’t something Sienna would have lost lightly. It was a Carnelian original, made from one of the most expensive fabrics the house had ever worked with. It was worth money—a lot of money—and Sienna wasn’t the kind of person to give valuable gifts away for nothing.

  If she’d left it on the mansion grounds, it was a warning.

  “No one who has evil intent toward any Dagger should be able to access that lawn,” I said. “Sienna least of all. Maybe she had someone else come in and drop it.”

  Alec considered this but shook his head almost immediately.

  “There aren’t other scents,” he said. “You witches have your own kinds of spells for figuring out who last touched things, right? I’m positive that if you performed one on this, Sienna would come up.”

  I tucked the scarf inside my jacket. “A spell like that isn’t a bad idea, anyway,” I said. “But if it’s hers, if she was the one to drop it—she was inside the grounds. Which means whatever enchantments we have up aren’t enough.”

  I remembered Grandma’s words, that if we laid down any more spells, people wouldn’t be able to get in or out. I winced at the thought of trying to break the news to the other Daggers, but there was nothing else to be done.

  “I’m going to finish this spell.” I dug in my pocket for the next pebble. “And then we’re going on lockdown.”

  6

  My blood ran hot in my veins as I paced around the parlor, and my fingers were itching to throw or punch something. I’d just spent half an hour battling objections from the other Daggers, who were almost universally aghast at the thought of being trapped on the mansion’s grounds for the next few weeks.

  It wasn’t like I didn’t get it. I didn’t want to be caged any more than the rest of them. But I also had to keep the youngest Daggers safe until we found Sienna. Everyone had finally come around to that way of thinking, but it chafed at me to have to argue for the kind of imprisonment that made my entire soul shrivel.

  “We’re dancing to her tune, again,” I said to Alec, who was the only one left. “It doesn’t matter what I do, or where I go, she’s always there. And now the entire coven is going to be locked up so we don’t have a bunch of murdered toddlers on our hands, because you know she wouldn’t hesitate to kill any one of us she could get her hands on.”

  The idea that someone I’d grown up alongside could be so evil unnerved me, but I didn’t have any illusions left after what had happened with the Burnside pack. They were pure predators. They had attacked Humdrum children’s birthday parties in hope of easy prey. If Sienna could stomach an alliance with them, she had lost any assumption on my part of decency or humanity.

  Alec leaned forward on the edge of the sofa. A cat perched on the back of it shifted slightly at his movement, then went back to sleep.

  “We’ve doubled the patrol around the grounds. That might be enough.”

  “It’s not enough,” I said. “Nothing will ever be enough as long as she’s out there.”

  He reached out a hand, and I fought with myself for a moment and then took it. His fingers closed around mine, and our eyes met. His were steady and clear.

  I wavered, then let him tug me over to the couch. I dropped heavily on the cushion next to him, and he pulled me in and rubbed my arm.

  The fight left me like water pouring from a broken dam. I relaxed against him, too tired to keep shouting.

  “I’m just trying to keep everyone safe,” I said.

  “You will.” He kept rubbing my arm, and I leaned in, soothed by the gentle touch. Everything about Alec was mild, from his voice to the pressure of his hand through my jacket, and it softened me. “You said some people will be able to leave occasionally, right?”

  “Only if they have direct clearance from Grandma, and then it’s only me and a couple of other Daggers who she’s picked to go find Sienna.”

  “And for everyone else, it’s only a few weeks, right?”

  I snorted. “That doesn’t make it easy. Daggers don’t like to sit at home. And how many people will end up getting attacked by the monsters we’re supposed to be out there fighting?”

  I didn’t have good responses for any of their points, and in the end the only reason I’d won at all was that I was the future Stiletto and Grandma hadn’t voiced an opposing opinion.

  It didn’t feel like much of a victory.

  “Managing people is hard,” I said.

  “That’s why I always leave Brendan to it.”

  His voice trailed off after Brendan’s name, and I could tell he was wishing he hadn’t bought his cousin up. Abruptly, I drew away and straightened.

  “You okay?”

  I shook my shoulders a little, trying to brush away the lingering warmth that had come from his body against mine.

  “At least you’re not locked in the house,” he said. “You’ve still got the rest of the property.”

  “I’m not going to get a whole lot of Dagger work done out there.”

  “No, but you could go running,” he said.

  I frowned at him. I had already put a few miles on the treadmill today, just like every other Dagger. But a dimple was showing on his cheek, and the corner of his mouth was quirked upward.

  “You found a trail out back?”

  “Better.” He stood and held out his hand, and again, I couldn’t help but take it.

  He led me to the foyer and stopped at the coat rack beside the front door to grab my jacket. He held it for me while I awkwardly shrugged it on, then opened the door. A gust of cold evening air blew inward, carrying with it the
smell of damp earth and moss.

  I gave Alec a skeptical look, but his dimple was still showing, so I fastened my jacket and stepped out into the night. He jogged ahead of me, and I followed him around the house and across the back lawn. We stepped under the shadow of the trees, which rustled overhead in the nighttime wind. I could barely make out their trunks in the watery light of an almost-full moon.

  “I can’t see anything,” I said.

  “You don’t have to.”

  I barely made out the pale outline of his grin in the darkness before his figure shifted. In seconds, his wiry human body had been replaced by one of sinew and muscle, and fur rippled across his limbs like satin in the moonlight.

  He turned to me, ears perked up. His enormous teeth and hulking body might have been terrifying to me once, but now the sight was familiar and safe.

  He swung his head around and nudged his snout against his shoulder, then dropped to a low crouch, like a dog eager to play, and gestured again.

  My eyebrows shot halfway up to my hairline.

  “You want me to climb on you?”

  His tail wagged. The limb brushed my face, and I got a mouthful of fur, and he inched away and looked at me with an apologetic tilt to one of his ears. I picked a coarse hair out of my mouth and gave him a skeptical look. He whined a little and pawed the ground.

  “How am I supposed to resist that?”

  The tail wagged again, and I dodged it this time. I grabbed hold of the fur at his ruff with both hands, then swung my leg over his back. His muscles rippled underneath me as he stood, and I got a flicker of the same unnerved feeling I’d experienced the first time I’d ridden a horse, back in the days when my forehead barely came to the creature’s knees.

  “Whoa.”

  He stilled and allowed me to shift my weight. I found my legs a place to rest just behind his shoulders, and I leaned forward until my body settled into place. I nestled my hands deep into his undercoat. It was warm and dry, and I allowed myself to bury my face in his fur for a moment and inhale his fresh forest scent.

  Then his shoulders tensed, and he took off.

  7

  Alec’s lupine muscles rippled beneath me, and the trees flew past so quickly they became a blur. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to judge every leap perfectly and to dart between the tree trunks in a pattern that kept the branches away from my face and didn’t seem to follow any particular trail or logic. I lowered my head farther against his neck, held on tight, and let the rhythm of his pounding paws take over.

  The minutes slipped away, and I fully understood for the first time why the wolves talked about running like it was as necessary to them as air. He flew over the damp earth with an agility that took my breath away, and we moved forward at a speed that left all possibility of thought behind us. It was like a roller coaster, but better, and I clung to him while the forest slipped away on every side.

  Finally, once we’d reached the very top of the hill and the edge of Grandma’s property, Alec thundered to a stop. He was breathing hard, and his rib cage expanded and collapsed beneath my legs like a giant bellows. He walked forward into a clearing between the trees and lowered himself carefully to the damp earth.

  I hesitated; as cautious as I’d been to climb onto his back, I was even more unwilling to get off. But I couldn’t imagine it was easy for him to breathe with me in the way, so I slid to the ground. My boots landed with a squelching sound. The overcast sky glowed with the pearlescent reflection of the city lights that twinkled far in the distance below.

  In an instant, Alec shifted back to his human form.

  “You kept your clothes,” I said.

  I knew it took more focus for them to keep the same clothing from one shift to another, but I realized as soon as the words were out that they’d been the wrong ones.

  “Would you rather I didn’t?” He winked.

  “Crap,” I said.

  He grinned, and I looked away as my face flushed.

  “So not what I meant. I just meant, good job focusing when you were out of breath like that?” My own voice was embarrassingly weak. I bit the inside of my cheek and folded my arms tightly across my chest, like that might somehow keep any more words from thinking they had a right to get out.

  Alec laughed. “It’s okay. I’m just teasing. I know you don’t like me like that.”

  A long silence descended, full of the tension of possibilities. He was waiting for me to agree or to contradict him, and I didn’t know how to do either.

  “I don’t have energy to like anyone like that,” I finally said, which was close enough to the truth.

  I stepped forward and climbed onto a large boulder sitting in the clearing. It was slick from the light drizzle that was still coming down, and the water soaked through my jeans and to my butt almost immediately.

  “It’s wet,” I said.

  The warning was excessive, given the rain all around us, but he ignored both my words and the rain and settled on the rock next to me. Down below us, through the canopy of the trees, I could just make out some of the lights of the city. Everything looked glossier than usual thanks to the rain, and it was only a minute before I had to pull my jacket tighter around myself to shut out the cold.

  I could have just snapped my fingers and set up a warming spell, or conjured an umbrella. But I didn’t mind the rain. It felt real and raw, and cool after the heat of the house.

  “You shouldn’t lock down the mansion if you don’t feel like that’s the right thing to do,” Alec said after a long pause.

  I drew one leg up toward myself and stared out at the distant lights. “I don’t know what’s right. Grandma didn’t fight the idea, but I think she’s just trying to stay out of it as some kind of… I don’t know, some Stiletto test.”

  “Seems like a weird moment to test you.”

  I shrugged. “It’s never not weird. If it’s not one crisis with the Daggers, it’s another. This is just the first time I’ve been old enough to be in the middle of a crisis like this.”

  Well, not quite like this. Having to work against a former Dagger who was hanging around our property and threatening children was new. But the whole coven had gone on alert a dozen times throughout my childhood due to some enemy or another.

  It just felt different when I was the one ringing the warning bell.

  “Brendan says I need to take a hard line with the coven,” I said.

  Alec scoffed softly. “Brendan doesn’t know everything,” he muttered.

  I turned toward him. “Okay, spill it. What’s going on with you two?”

  He smirked with half of his face, the eyebrow and corner of his mouth both lifting in unison. “You really want to have that conversation?”

  It was a fair point. I pursed my lips and wrapped my arms around my knee.

  “Brendan is trying to do what you’re doing,” he said, his voice now more measured. “He moved the pack to your grandma’s lands because it was safer here. And he’s right. It is safer. But wolves aren’t meant to live in captivity, even when they do have a few acres to run around.”

  “Are the other wolves not happy here?”

  “They’re not unhappy,” he said, picking his words with caution. “But they’re hesitant. Brendan wants to protect us all from attackers. I get that impulse. I really do. I don’t want anyone in the pack to get hurt either.”

  He fell silent, and I let a few seconds tick by before prodding him. “But?”

  He ran a hand through his hair, sending his russet locks into disarray.

  “Being coddled like that makes us feel weak,” he said. “Wolves don’t like to feel weak. I don’t think Daggers do, either.”

  I thought back to the raised voices and folded arms that had filled the parlor, and the way my own heart had revolted at the thought of what I was trying to make them do.

  Alec took a deep breath. “I wish that rather than trying to shield us all from the outside world, Brendan had helped us get stronger.”

  “
The Daggers are already strong.”

  “Strong enough to handle Sienna?”

  This was the question I’d been wrestling with for months. Every time we faced her, the answer seemed clear.

  “No,” I said. “Not if she still has help like she did in the maze.”

  “Then maybe, instead of locking everyone in the mansion, you need to make sure they’re prepared to take her if she comes back,” Alec said. “You guys train already, but maybe it would help to train for her, specifically. You know how she’s escaped before. You know how long it would take you to alert everyone if she showed up again.”

  The rain fell harder, and a distant bolt of lightning dazzled my eyes. The storm hadn’t reached us, not yet, but I could hear it coming in the rain thundering down on the treetops.

  I bit my lip, turning Alec’s words over in my head.

  “I know the holes in our armor,” I said at last.

  He nodded. “So fix them.”

  I snapped my finger, and a thin, translucent dome appeared over our heads. The rain poured down its nearly invisible curve, falling in sheets while we stayed dry underneath. We sat in silence and watched the approaching storm.

  8

  I finished the last touches on my sketch and saved the file. Grandma had finally shared her ideas for the next summer collection at this morning’s Carnelian meeting, and I’d been assigned to have twenty designs to her by the end of the week.

  “Nothing predictable, either,” Grandma had said sharply, eying the designers at the meeting. “The new creative director at House of Brick is already talking a big game about disruptive silhouettes and integrated charms. Whatever they’re doing, we need to do it better. I want elegance and I want brilliance.”

  Elegance and brilliance were just vague enough that I had no idea what she was actually asking for. Still, I hoped at least one of the designs I was about to send her would pass muster.

  I stopped to chat with another of the designers, then swung by the atelier to update Josette on a showroom appointment she had later that week with a member of the Sorcerer’s Guild. When I eventually brought Grandma her lunch, I was unsurprised to find her sitting at her desk, buried behind an absolute mountain of fabric sample books.