Crimson Daggers- The Complete Trilogy

by Emma Savant

  “We can’t bring back your dead,” I said. “We can do our best to make sure no one joins them.”

  He hesitated, then met Grandma’s eyes. “We could use the help. Thank you.”

  She leaned forward in her chair. “I understand you’re in need of funds,” she said. “That’s why you kidnapped me.”

  He flushed. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “We all are,” Grandma said dryly. “Still, I know the weight of leadership. It’s difficult, having so many people rely on you, and you’re young. I’m not without sympathy. I’ll need to discuss some things with my Cardinals, but there may be ways we can help.”

  She fell silent, and no one spoke for a while. I could see Brendan’s thoughts racing, maybe not even about this conversation but about all his wolves and the trauma they had just survived. Cate watched him, attentive to his every expression, and Alec stared at his hands, glancing up at his cousin every few seconds as if wanting to talk but knowing nothing he could say would help.

  Finally, Grandma sighed. “I’m afraid I have things to attend to, but I’d like to continue this conversation. I’ll call the hospital. You go arrange for your injured to be moved. Scarlett, make sure our vehicles are at their disposal.”

  I nodded.

  “And then, if you like, you’re welcome to join us tonight at our show. I imagine fashion isn’t of foremost interest to you right now, but there will be influential people at this show, and it may be good for the Wildwoods to have a presence.” She stood, and I caught a slight wince of pain as she braced herself against her desk. “We’ll talk more after.”

  47

  I stole a peek between the black velvet curtains that hung to either side of the catwalk. The silver seats were full of our audience, and the air buzzed with conversation. Quiet music threaded its way underneath the sound of voices talking and heels clicking against the showroom floor. Overhead, the branches sparkled with stars and dissolving glitter.

  The Faerie Queen hadn’t arrived yet. But near the back of the room, in seats reserved for Grandma’s personal guests, Brendan, Cate, and Alec sat together. They were engaged in a conversation, and while their demeanor was muted, they leaned in toward one another, and I even saw the occasional smile. Brendan’s broad shoulders were a contrast to Alec’s wiry frame, but I could see the similarities between them now—the same hazel coloring in their otherwise different eyes, the same texture to their hair.

  “I heard the Wildwoods were here,” Ginger said from over my shoulder. Her headset bumped against my ear. Ginger didn’t usually work for Carnelian, but after the events of last night, Grandma had pulled her in to act as an extra layer of security for the show. “Nelly really invited them?”

  “We owe them,” I said.

  She made a noncommittal noise.

  I’d been hearing that noise a lot since last night, when the Daggers had been roused and found Sienna lying on the floor in a pool of her blood, with a werewolf in tattered clothes holding my sleeping grandmother. My sisters had all chosen to withhold their judgment—from Grandma and me, at least. It wasn’t hard to guess what most of them thought in private.

  To most of the Daggers, the Wildwoods were Wildwoods, and that was the end of it.

  But they also respected the word of the Stiletto, and she had said no one else was to take action against the pack.

  It was an uncomfortable tension that tugged at the edges of every conversation.

  “Do you think Grandma’s wrong to help them?” I said in a low voice.

  “I don’t think monster hunters should be working with monsters,” Ginger said quietly. “And I think it’s odd that the Stiletto would forgive so quickly when she was the one they dragged through the woods and held for ransom.” She let out a sigh. “Sienna was wrong, too, though. I can see why Nelly is trying to make amends.”

  It was a lot of words to not say much of anything. I didn’t know what to make of it.

  I believed Grandma was right to offer help to the Wildwoods, and I believed she’d done the right thing by turning Sienna and Autumn over to Glimmering law enforcement. I believed that monsters existed, and that whether someone was a werewolf or not had nothing to do with it. I was glad Grandma had chosen to make peace and move forward.

  But it seemed as if I might be the only Dagger who felt that way.

  So what kind of Dagger was I, really?

  The lights dimmed overhead, and upbeat, unearthly music emanated from the speakers. At the last moment, out on the floor, Acacia led the Faerie Queen and her guests to their seats.

  The queen was a tall, beautiful woman with rich, dark skin, wearing a cocktail dress the same green as her eyes and threads of gold in her hair. She was accompanied by her pale young heir, Olivia Feye, and a few of the Waterfall Palace’s most famous councilors, Imogen and Camassia. I grabbed Ginger’s arm to get her attention, but she was already staring.

  I hit the button on my headset, moved quickly away from the curtains, and made way for the models lined up behind me.

  “The queen is seated,” I said.

  Grandma responded almost instantly. “Models in five, four, three, two—”

  The music hit a crescendo, and the first model burst onto the catwalk. I couldn’t see much from here, so I moved back to the control room where the show and the backstage area were being broadcast on screens. I put a hand on Grandma’s shoulder.

  “Fix Carmandy’s train,” she said into her headset.

  One of the assistants rushed to adjust a sweeping train affixed to the back of a scarlet gown appliquéd all over with flowers and butterflies.

  The models strutted the runway as confidently as if each of them owned it, and the fabric of their gowns and suits rippled and cascaded with each step. I’d seen every item a dozen times by now, and helped sew half of them, but there was nothing like seeing the clothes on living models under the hot glow of the lights.

  Grandma’s focus was everywhere, flitting from the models backstage to the models on the catwalk to the members of her audience. Meanwhile, I could barely tear my gaze from the queen’s face. Grandma had set up a camera that captured her clearly, and my heart skipped a beat every time she leaned over and murmured something to her heir. Imogen Dann, too, was worth watching. She was a major trendsetter in the Glimmering world, and a commission from her would be worth almost as much as one from the queen herself.

  Finally, the last models began lining up at the edge of the black curtain, and Grandma stood and pulled her headset off. She turned to me.

  “Hair?”

  I smoothed a few wayward strands.

  “Perfect. Go.”

  Three models wearing the flowing crimson capes that were the centerpiece of the collection strode out onto the catwalk and froze into a tableau that highlighted the drape of the fabric and the craftsmanship of the clasps. Grandma strutted between them with all the confidence of one of her models. Her posture was perfect, and she held her head high.

  She strode down the platform, and the models fell into line behind her, as if Grandma were a queen and they were her attendants. The audience erupted into applause, and Grandma let loose with one dazzling smile and paused at the edge of the catwalk with her arms around the caped models. Lights flashed as she was photographed from a dozen angles, and then Grandma stepped off the edge of the platform into thin air. The crowd gasped, and she floated gently down to the floor, the models after her. They moved through the crowd and out the door as the lights faded to nothing, leaving only the sparkle of stars overhead.

  The music changed, but it was difficult to hear it over the sound of applause. We were all clapping backstage, too, and my skin tingled with relief that the show was over, that it had gone off without a hitch, that the queen seemed pleased and was clapping as hard as anyone else.

  Ginger threw her arm around me while the lights rose. She squeezed, and I winced and then hugged her back.

  With a few swift gestures from Grandma’s assistants, the catwalk collapsed into
a flat white line on the floor, and those of us backstage who weren’t helping the models get changed went out to mingle with guests. Assistants began moving chairs to the edge of the room while caterers wheeled in tables of refreshments arranged on raised silver platters. The music changed to something light that could easily dissolve to the background, and voices rose again as the show merged smoothly into a reception.

  I made my way to the wall and hovered, watching but not wanting to represent Carnelian with my voice still sounding like nails on a chalkboard.

  Mom’s arm wrapped around me.

  “How’d it look from the house?” I said.

  “It was perfect,” Mom said. “You outdid yourself. You and Grandma both.”

  Grandma was off in the middle of the floor and quickly broke off her conversation with an assistant as Queen Amani approached. I watched their lips move, catching the words beautiful and honored you could be here.

  “Grandma and the Cardinals had a conversation this morning,” Mom said. “After you spoke with the Wildwoods.”

  “Oh?”

  “Obviously Sienna will not be equipped to take on the role of Stiletto,” Mom said. “Grandma thinks you should do it, and the Cardinals agreed.”

  I whipped my head around and stared at her. Mom patted me on the shoulder.

  “Think about it,” she said. She nudged me toward the crowd. “For now, though, quit hiding here in the shadows. You did good.”

  I stepped forward, head spinning, and went to go accept congratulations on our show.

  Sabre

  A Crimson Daggers Novel #2: The Three Little Pigs

  1

  I scanned the gilded treetops and long black shadows that stretched out below me in every direction. Only the tallest pines grew above the mansion’s tallest turret, and I had to resist the urge to jump from the balcony and onto one of the branches just out of reach.

  “I think you’re good,” I said into my phone. A cool breeze blew my dark hair off my forehead. “No smoke visible here.”

  “You sure?” Brendan said. Voices and power tools sounded in the background, evidence of the Wildwood werewolf pack working to build their new home. “I don’t want our fires visible.”

  “I know,” I said. “I don’t see anything. Forest looks quiet from where I’m standing.”

  “That’s good, then.”

  He didn’t sound totally convinced, and he didn’t need to explain to me why. The spell to shield and protect the site of his pack’s new den had been cast by my mother—a member of the Crimson Daggers, a secret coven of witches sworn to hunt and destroy monsters the world over. The witches in my coven and the members of Brendan’s pack didn’t get along, historically speaking, and tensions had gotten even higher after my grandma had offered them the free use of the forested acres that stretched into the hills behind her mansion.

  She’d offered out of guilt, I knew, after my cousin and her former protégé had betrayed us all by attacking the Wildwoods’ den and murdering eleven members of their pack in the process. Grandma felt she had a debt to pay, and I was one of the few in the coven who agreed.

  There was a part of me, though, that hoped she had also offered out of a desire for a better future—one in which the werewolves could continue to provide sanctuary to the people who sought them out.

  “You want to come by for dinner in a few?” Brendan asked.

  “Is this a date?”

  “Depends on if you consider making hot dogs over a fire with my entire pack a date,” he said.

  “That would normally be a yes, but I can’t tonight.”

  “Stiletto training?”

  “Carnelian deadline.”

  It was a perfect description of my life these days, with half my time devoted to training as my grandmother’s eventual coven successor, and the other half spent working for Carnelian, my grandma’s quickly growing fashion house. Trying to fit one of those things into my life and have time left over for sleep and socializing had been a challenge. Trying to do both, I thought, might actually kill me.

  Still, Grandma managed to lead the coven and her company, and if I was going to follow in her footsteps and become everything she already was, I had to learn to juggle, too.

  I ended the call and went downstairs, tugging on a sweater as I went. The air had turned nippy this past week. I knew, from a lifetime in Portland, that it would get hot again and then turn beautiful for a few weeks before plunging into a dim, rainy winter.

  Mom stopped me when I was almost to the bottom of the stairs. “Did you get your run in this morning?”

  “Two miles,” I said. “Little over sixteen minutes.”

  “You need to be faster than that.”

  “I know.” I looked at my watch. “I’m aiming for fifteen-thirty by the end of the year. I have to get to Carnelian now, though.”

  She stepped aside, and I darted down the next two steps and out the door.

  It wasn’t a long ride on my motorcycle from the mansion to Carnelian’s downtown studio and showroom, but every extra second at a stoplight felt like an extra second I didn’t have.

  Our design lab was almost empty this late in the evening. One other designer, Danny, nodded at me and returned to a sketch on his computer screen. Some of the designers sketched and watercolored the old-fashioned way and scanned their designs, while others, like Danny, seemed to know their way around a digital drawing pad better than a pen and paper.

  I didn’t know my way around anything, but limited art skills didn’t mean I couldn’t create powerful designs.

  Or so Grandma said.

  I slid into a seat in front of a computer and pulled up our sketching program. I opened the mannequin image I was using as the core of all my designs and began sketching over it, keeping in mind the guidelines Grandma had given me: expansive, flowing, reminiscent of old sailing ships and billowing curtains.

  It wasn’t hard to turn the instructions into images in my mind, but getting those on the screen was enough to start a headache blooming behind my eyes.

  In every other avenue, my body obeyed me exactly. Whether weaving my motorcycle through traffic or pinning one of my sisters to the ground during a sparring match, my body did as it was told and did it well. But when it came to drawing, to transferring the ideas in my mind to something another person might see and understand, I was as clumsy compared to the other designers as the average person was to me when it came to riding or fighting.

  The sketch, the fifth and final one I had promised to have on Grandma’s desk by morning, seemed determined to destroy itself with every line I drew. Still, I worked at it, redrawing lines over and over until they captured the movement I envisioned.

  I couldn’t control my talent, but I could control my hard work and persistence. I’d learned the value of that persistence over the past few months, as I’d worked to either become a real Dagger or prove my worth at the fashion house despite falling behind Sienna in every way.

  Every way except not being a stark-raving murderer, anyway. That turned out to have been the final key, and now I was next in line as Grandma’s heir.

  To everything.

  I finished the sketch, saved it, and then dropped all the files in Grandma’s review folder for the morning. Then I checked her schedule—because I was still her assistant, on top of learning the ropes as a designer—and responded to several emails and confirmed an appointment at our showroom with members of the Faerie Queen’s council.

  It was almost eleven by the time I returned to the mansion. I was the last person here, again, and had missed dinner, again. Not that missing dinner mattered. The fridge was always full of three or four different kinds of leftovers. But I missed eating with my coven sisters, especially now that it meant I had one less chance to get a sense for how the individual women felt about the wolves living rent-free on our land.

  I knew I should trust my coven and rely on them, but ever since Sienna and Autumn had been caught attacking the werewolves and almost murdering me,
my grandmother, and my werewolf friend, Alec, I couldn’t help but look twice at every facial expression and overanalyze every comment and tone of voice. Being a Crimson Dagger was supposed to mean I could rely totally and completely on any one of my sisters, but I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that was real life.

  Not anymore.

  2

  I warmed up some leftover casserole and made myself a hot cup of herbal tea, then ate while scrolling aimlessly through social media posts and reflexively liking anything one of my sisters shared. It was funny to see their posts—even within the relative safety of the JinxNet, the Glimmering world’s magically enhanced version of Humdrum internet, members of my coven operated in secrecy. I couldn’t help grinning every time I saw one of Rose’s post-workout selfies, where she claimed to be training for a triathlon, while I knew she was just keeping herself fit for the next time she had to destroy an aggressive cockatrice. And I laughed out loud when I read Rowan post’s about seeing the new alien-like bugbear at the Glimmering zoo. She didn’t mention she’d had a hand in its capture.

  The kitchen door opened, and Ginger came in, wrapped in a bathrobe and wearing a plastic shower cap over her short hair. Her skin, which was always a rich, dark brown, seemed especially glowing tonight and it put me in mind of long, lavender-infused baths and other luxuries that belonged to people with calmer schedules than mine.

  “I heard the kettle beeping,” she said. “Is there hot water left?”

  I nodded and thumbed toward the kettle. “There’s plenty. I figured I wasn’t the only one who’d need tea or cocoa at this hour. Looks like you had a nice evening.”

  “About time, too,” she said. “It’s been a long week.”

  “You forgot to take your shower cap off.”

  She laughed. “It’s on purpose. Doing a hot oil treatment.”