Crimson Daggers- The Complete Trilogy

by Emma Savant

  “She did turn out to be a murderer,” Brendan said.

  I threw a third twig at him. “At least she was competent enough to be a murderer,” I said.

  Brendan flinched almost imperceptibly, and I softened.

  “Sorry, that came out wrong.”

  “Naw, I get it,” he said, waving a hand. He leaned forward and stared into the coals for a moment, avoiding my eyes.

  “You’re doing more than Sienna ever did,” Alec said. “She didn’t work at Carnelian, did she?”

  “No,” I admitted. “She didn’t have a day job.”

  “There you go,” Alec said. “And she wasn’t trying to manage the peaceful relocation of a werewolf pack onto the land of some pretty intense werewolf hunters.”

  Brendan pointed at Alec. “What he said. Can we do anything to help? It’d be nice to be useful.” He kicked at the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “Nelly won’t accept anything for rent, aside from all the wolves signing that magical contact that they’d keep their mouths shut about the Daggers. Helping you would be the least we can do.”

  I smiled at them both. I couldn’t think of a single thing in the world they could do to actually help me, but the offer warmed me. It wasn’t like Grandma’s offer to lighten my load at the fashion house, which had felt as much like a gentle admonition as anything else. Brendan and Alec wanted to make my life easier, and they were both waiting for my reply with eager faces, like working dogs dying to learn their next job.

  “I need to do this on my own,” I said. “Seek my own fortune, as it were.”

  Their faces fell, but Alec revived a little as he handed the thermos back to me.

  “You’re doing okay, Scarlett,” Alec said. “And when it gets to be too much, hey, we’ve got s’mores.”

  Brendan nodded, put his hand on my knee, and gave me a solemn nod. “So many s’mores.”

  7

  I knocked on the door of Grandma’s office and pushed it open. Her home office on the second floor of the mansion was more old-fashioned and relaxed than her sleek space at Carnelian. Mom was already sitting in one of the plush armchairs with a mug of tea in hand and a calico cat curled up on her lap.

  I was always cautious when I sat in one of these armchairs. I’d taken more childhood naps in them than I could count, and still felt as if I might slip into a doze if I got too comfortable.

  Today, though, I was alert enough with nerves that there was no risk of falling asleep.

  Grandma sank into the chair opposite me. She and Mom both watched me, and after a moment, Mom said, “Well, you called this meeting.”

  No preamble, then. I sat up straighter.

  “I have a proposal,” I said. “You’ve both noticed that I’ve got a lot on my plate and have been having a harder time keeping up with everything than we’d all like.”

  Grandma nodded slightly. She wasn’t trying to make me feel bad, but the fact that neither of them tried to argue with my statement wasn’t exactly bolstering.

  “I think part of the problem is that I have a lot of little missions that aren’t too challenging, and a lot of little tasks at Carnelian. The work at Carnelian is a lot of little tasks. I get that, and I’m happy to do them. But my Dagger jobs could be more meaningful.”

  Mom sipped her tea like she couldn’t wait to hear what I was going to say next. I took a deep breath.

  “That harpy I handled last week took a lot of time, but once I’d caught her in the act, dealing with her only took a few minutes and wasn’t hard. And the vampire I apprehended last night didn’t put up much of a struggle. He knew someone was coming after him, and he’d already decided to come quietly.”

  Grandma pursed her lips a little but didn’t interrupt.

  “What I’m hoping is that maybe I could start taking on some of the more difficult coven jobs, but fewer,” I said. “Maybe one job a week that takes all day, or requires that I work with other Daggers, or is a creature I haven’t encountered before, instead of these little missions almost every evening.”

  “You want more bang for your buck,” Mom said.

  “Basically. And I don’t want you to think I’m complaining,” I added quickly to Grandma. “Because I’m not. I know every job is important. But doesn’t fewer, bigger gigs seem like a better way to train me?”

  Grandma tapped her manicured hand on her armrest. “Novitiate missions are small and frequent on purpose,” she said. “Being a Dagger isn’t about the high-profile jobs, it’s about showing up and doing the work.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I still will do that. But for now, especially while I’m learning the design ropes over at Carnelian, I just don’t have time to do everything over there plus all the little Dagger jobs and still sleep.” I held up an arm. “If I cut into this vein, coffee is going to pour out.”

  “Sleep is for the weak,” Mom said. The corner of her mouth quirked.

  Grandma frowned at her, and I laughed. Grandma was as addicted to caffeine and adrenaline as any of us, but it was more a “do as I say, not as I do” thing with her. I didn’t think I’d gone a month in my entire life without some kind of lecture from her about self-care, getting enough rest, eating a balanced diet, and staying hydrated.

  “I will not take that bait, thank you,” she said coolly.

  Mom smirked and scratched the cat’s head.

  “Have you considered just dropping your work at Carnelian for a while?” Mom looked at Grandma before continuing. “I know you enjoy it there, but your Dagger work is important.”

  “I don’t want to drop anything,” I said. “I just want to make my time go farther.”

  I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from launching into more arguments. They were thinking, and I knew from too many failed attempts that the best way to get what I wanted was to let people think instead of driving them crazy by talking at them. Knowing that didn’t make it any easier to keep my mouth closed.

  “I’m not suggesting this be the plan forever,” I blurted. “Just until I get more comfortable at Carnelian. Then I can put more emphasis back on daily Dagger missions.”

  I snapped my mouth shut and pressed my lips tight.

  Grandma rested her head on her hand and glanced over at Mom. “Do you have any objections?”

  Mom shook her head. “It’s up to you. I think scaling back at Carnelian is the most sensible first option, but you and Scarlett are attached to the company in a way I’m not. You’ll have a better sense of what’s needed.”

  Grandma drummed on the side of her head with her fingertips like that would make the thoughts go faster. Her crimson nails disappeared into the white waves of her hair.

  She let out a deep sigh while Mom watched me with a slight grimace.

  “I’ll revise your mission schedule,” Grandma finally said. “Let’s give this a try. If it’s not working after a month or so, we can explore other options.”

  By other options, I knew she meant Mom’s suggestion of taking my Carnelian work away from me. And that meant I had to make this new plan work.

  Grandma held out a hand, and I shook it.

  “It’s a deal,” I said.

  Their eyes stayed on me as I left the room. I’d won. I’d gotten everything I’d wanted and hadn’t had to fight that hard for it.

  So why did I feel like I’d disappointed them?

  8

  It took time to get my new assignments. Over a dozen Daggers lived just at the mansion, and there were others scattered throughout the city who only joined the rest of us during coven meetings and family celebrations. Reassigning my jobs had a cascade effect on the entire schedule, and Grandma had warned me it would take a few days to sort everything out.

  And that was why I found myself a few evenings later, sitting on a rooftop across from an artisanal soda fountain and ice cream shop, bored out of my mind as I watched the business for any signs of suspicious behavior.

  The soda fountain, Straw, had only opened a few months ago and had taken Portland by
storm. Lines were always out the door, and anyone who was anyone had an opinion on whether the balsamic raspberry float or the sea salt and basil Italian ice was better. I’d never been, but one of the coven Cardinals, Saffron, had brought home bottles of pineapple cream soda and a few pints of pork crackling and cranberry ice cream. They’d been good—but maybe not quite good enough to justify the lines of people I’d been watching all evening.

  Although Straw was open to Humdrums and Glimmers alike, Straw’s founder and owner, Celine Hibiscus, was a Glim. She had added plenty of faerie touches to her business, from the glitter that sparkled on the door to the bright bursts of clematis flowers that grew up one wall of the shop. Rumor was that she carried faerie dust and dragon tears under the counter, which in-the-know Glims could order if they kept their voices down.

  A few days ago, Celine had contacted Glim law enforcement to report that she thought she was being stalked. She claimed a tall man in a dark coat had been watching her from the alley whenever she closed up for the night, and that he’d been leaving strange notes wedged under the door each morning. They weren’t threatening, but they were creepy, usually things like You looked lovely yesterday and I didn’t know you had a dog.

  My mission was mind-numbingly simple: to watch for suspicious activity and report anything I saw back to the coven. I’d been sitting on this rooftop with a tiny pair of enchanted binoculars for the past three evenings, and while I’d seen plenty of men in dark coats, none of them had skulked in alleyways or seemed to follow Celine to her car. I was starting to think maybe someone had been playing a tasteless prank.

  Mom and Grandma claimed this mission was an opportunity for me to improve my powers of observation, but it was difficult to miss that I hadn’t observed anything. As far as I could tell, this gig came with no risks and no chance of anything interesting happening.

  I’d been on plenty of missions like this before. They were the sort usually given to the younger girls—the sort I’d been given before I’d been actually initiated as a Dagger.

  It was hard to forget that Sienna had been handling real missions at this point in her training. Not only had she been initiated months before me, even though I was a few months older, but she’d been dueling wizards and chasing will-o’-the-wisps within days of being named the future Stiletto. And here I was, scolding environmentalist harpies and keeping an eye on a building that seemed to hold nothing but the kinds of hipsters who were willing to stand in line for hours for fancy soda pop.

  On the bright side, assuming there was one, it did give me a chance to get ahead on my Carnelian sketches.

  I traced the line of a skirt and then added tiny texture details to the collar. A while later, I glanced at my phone. It was almost ten-thirty, and the shop closed at eleven. That made for three nights of absolutely nothing.

  I had a text notification from Alec.

  Alec: Haven’t heard from you in a few days. Hope you’re doing okay.

  Idly, I wondered if part of the reason Mom had wanted to keep me busy with smaller missions was because it meant I didn’t have as much time to check in on the wolves. Mom wasn’t exactly opposed to the werewolf compound in our backyard, not like some of the other Daggers, but I didn’t get the sense that she supported the idea, either. Mom could be hard to read; I had a feeling this was one of those times when she went along with whatever Grandma wanted and saved her energy for fights that mattered more.

  Scarlett: Still on the same job. Bored. Supposed to be getting better missions soon.

  Alec: Can you make the most of it? Is there something you could be learning from this mission?

  I’d think he’d been paid off by my grandmother if I didn’t know better. But that was just Alec’s way, to be thoughtful and ask questions and try to help.

  There was nothing that could possibly be learned from a mission like this, so I texted Brendan about how bored I was instead. His answer was almost instant and every bit as predictable as Alec’s had been.

  Brendan: Blow it. Let’s go dancing. There’s a new club downtown. You’ve never been kicked out of this one.

  For someone as serious about his responsibilities as Brendan, he never had a problem urging me to abandon mine.

  Scarlett: I’m never going to get better gigs if I can’t prove myself on this one. Nice try.

  Brendan: If you really want to prove yourself, you should swing by the den on your way home and help me destroy this chocolate cheesecake Cate just made.

  Scarlett: …… Does Cate WANT you to destroy her cheesecake?

  Brendan: I am the alpha.

  Scarlett: That’s a no, then.

  Down at Straw, one of the employees turned off the pink OPEN sign and ushered the last of the line in so he could close the door and stop it from getting any longer. I went back to sketching, glancing up now and then as people left the shop.

  Then, so subtly I would have missed it if I hadn’t been looking down at exactly the right moment, a shadow shifted in the alley beside the shop. Instantly on alert, I dropped my pencil and picked up the enchanted binoculars.

  A figure was definitely standing in the alley, and it was definitely shaped like a person.

  “Gotcha,” I whispered.

  9

  I shoved my sketchpad, pencil, and the binoculars into one of the pockets of my red leather jacket. The pocket seemed to grow to accommodate the items, then shrink again so the pocket lay smooth against my waist. I flew down the fire escape on the side of my building in just a few seconds, keeping my steps light on the creaky metal, and dropped down to the ground. I pressed my body into the shadows at the side of the building and squinted across the street at the lurking figure.

  Technically, I wasn’t supposed to deal with the stalker if I found him. I was just supposed to watch and report back, and intervene if I felt like Celine was in danger.

  But the sooner I captured this guy and got some kind of confession out of him, the sooner I could move on to my next case—which, I hoped, would be a lot more interesting than this one.

  It would be too weird if I just stepped out of the alley, so I went the long way, leaving via the far side of the alley and walking around the block back to Straw. I sauntered up toward the business as if I were hoping for some ice cream, then pretended to spot the dimmed OPEN sign. I checked my watch and turned back as if to leave, then darted into the alley before the shadowed figure could run.

  I had him pinned to the wall by his collar in an instant.

  It was too dark here, and I couldn’t quite see his face. The few contours that were illuminated by the lights out on the street were familiar, but not so familiar that I could place the man.

  He held both hands up, and I tightened my grip. His coat was a beautiful merino wool; the texture under my fingers was easy to identify from hours going over Carnelian’s fabric stores.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said.

  “Let me go.”

  His voice was smooth and devoid of fear. He put one of his hands on my wrist and rested it there without trying to pull my hand away.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  He ran a finger gently across my wrist. The slight tickle made my skin crawl, and I shoved him harder against the wall.

  He didn’t seem fazed.

  “My business is my own.”

  “You’re not minding your own business very well,” I said. “You’re creeping out the nice lady who works here. You want to tell me why you keep following her around?”

  I froze and waited. A confession would be enough to justify my bringing him in, and bringing him in would mean this job was done and follow-up missions would be impossible. He smiled down at me; I caught the gleam of his teeth through the darkness.

  “Are you a friend of hers?” he said. “Or simply a very eager young vigilante?”

  “Just a concerned citizen. Why are you following Celine?”

  “She’s just so darn pretty,” he said, sweet poison lacing his words.

  “You’re h
ilarious. You’ve been leaving her notes, right?”

  “Yes.”

  I let go of his collar. He smoothed the lapels of his coat.

  “I have nothing to hide,” he said. “There’s no law that says I can’t admire a beautiful woman.”

  “There are laws about being a creep,” I said. “Who are you?”

  I put a hand on my dagger, which was strapped in a sheath attached to my waist.

  I wished I could see his face. I knew I recognized him from somewhere, but the clues I glimpsed in the shadows weren’t nearly enough.

  “An admirer.”

  I took a step toward him. “And what are you? Are you Glim?”

  If he wasn’t, confusion would follow the question. It always did. But this man only shifted slightly, as if he thought he might edge away.

  “Faerie?” I said, cutting off his exit.

  He stopped and laughed softly. “No.”

  “Doesn’t really matter.” I reached into my pocket for a scroll. “You’ve got a couple of options here. You can sign this agreement that will put a restraining enchantment in place and keep you away from Celine, and then you can be on your way. Or I can take you somewhere you can’t run, and you can plead your case at the next Faerie Court.”

  “I said I’m not a faerie,” he said. “Why should their queen have jurisdiction over me?”

  I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes, since that would mean taking my focus off of him.

  “Your politics aren’t my problem,” I said. “Come on, I don’t have all night. Option A or B?”

  He sighed, and I dared to imagine what it would be like to get home before the crack of dawn.

  Then he punched me across the jaw and took off.

  I swore and ran after him. His feet clicked on the pavement as he hurtled toward the end of the alley—

  Toward a brick wall.

  Thank Goddess. I had him cornered and I hadn’t even had to try. I pulled my dagger out and clenched it while I waited for him to realize he was trapped. He was barely more than a shadow down here where the street lamps didn’t reach, but I could track his movement well enough to tell he was pacing back and forth along the wall.