Crimson Daggers- The Complete Trilogy Read online

  The gown slowly came together. Designing was all about listening to the fabric, Grandma always said. The gown knew what it wanted to be, and our job was to create a space for it to come into being. After a while, we had an elegant white sheath dress with a sweeping train covered in watercolor cherry blossoms.

  Well, it would be eventually. Right now, it was a cobbled-together piece of muslin that had flowers sketched all over the train in pink and black marker. But soon, after the seamstresses had worked their magic, it would be everything the Faerie Queen might need for an evening reception.

  Grandma leaned back against one of the tables, folded her arms, and looked at the mocked-up gown for a long moment. Finally, she nodded.

  “It’ll work,” she said. “And if the blossoms hint toward red, they’ll coordinate with the cape collection. Everything needs to be unique, but it all has to coordinate. It’s about the show, not just the individual pieces.”

  “I know,” I said.

  She reached out and pulled me toward her. She might look like an elderly woman, but her thin arm around my shoulder was strong as steel. She kissed the top of my head.

  “You did good, mon petit sabre,” she said. “I’m so glad I’ll have you backstage during the show. You’re the only one who understands this business.”

  “I wish I understood it,” I said. “I don’t know how you manage all this plus the Dagger stuff. You run this whole empire and the coven, and meanwhile I can’t even get through a sparring match with Mom without getting distracted if someone walks into the room.”

  “Someone, or Sienna?”

  I shrugged, which was answer enough.

  “I know it’s hard, love,” Grandma said. “But the Stiletto title doesn’t always pass from mother to daughter. You know that.”

  “Doesn’t make it better,” I said. “I’m just crappy at everything to do with being a Dagger. I don’t have whatever it is you and Mom have.”

  “You’re not crappy,” Grandma said. “But the Stiletto role requires something extra. Maybe it’s not your path.” She patted my arm. “I know you, though, and I know you’ll find your way just fine. You have to be patient.”

  “You know me,” I muttered. “Super good at patience.”

  My mom would have gotten after me about back-talking, but Grandma just laughed. “Not everyone gets to be a Stiletto,” she said. “But you’re still a Dagger, and not everyone gets to be one of those, either.”

  “I’m not a real Dagger,” I said. “I keep screwing up during training. Everyone else in my age group got initiated right away.” Anger and frustration churned inside me like a living creature. I picked up a loose strand of thread and threw it down again. “What’s wrong with me that I can’t do this?”

  “We all struggle with different things,” Grandma said. “Autumn’s spells still backfire as often as they work. Rowan’s been a Dagger novice for half a year now and still can’t swim two lengths of the pool without panicking. Even Sienna has her challenges.”

  “Name one.”

  She adjusted her glasses. “Comparing yourself to Sienna is not productive.”

  “Only because I come off worse than if I compare myself to Autumn or Rowan.”

  “Maybe you’ll feel better if I drop a hint that your initiation date has been set.”

  I looked sharply over at her. “Are you serious? When?”

  “Next week,” she said. “I decided, and the Cardinals agreed. Your mother is happy with the progress you’ve made, and Saffron tells me your spellwork is showing promise.”

  Showing promise. It was a nice way to say I wasn’t anywhere near as skilled as the other novices. And no one needed to tell me that I’d probably get murdered if I actually had to go head-to-head with another witch, let alone a demon or werewolf or malevolent ghost or any of the other beings the Daggers were constantly up against.

  “And let me guess,” I said. “Cherry thinks my cover is convincing?”

  Cherry was the third Cardinal. While Mom taught fighting and Saffron taught magic, Cherry had the more boring job of making sure the rest of the Glimmering world had no idea who we were. Sometimes she coordinated with the governments and law enforcement agencies that enlisted the Daggers’ help. Sometimes she just made sure we were all gainfully employed in the eyes of the outside world. It all sounded thrilling, and I had a feeling her job might be my future if I didn’t prove myself soon.

  “Assistant to the creative director of Carnelian isn’t a bad cover,” Grandma said, although I hadn’t meant to suggest it was. “It’ll be more convincing if we manage to earn a contract with the Waterfall Palace.”

  She turned back to the gown we’d mocked up, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and snapped a few pictures. She’d sketch the designs later, and then she and a few members of her downtown staff would start drafting the real pattern and figuring out details.

  The downtown Carnelian staff didn’t know anything about the Daggers. No one outside the mansion gates did. I knew it was an honor to be here, right at the heart of the coven and the fashion house alike.

  So why did I feel so unsatisfied?

  Grandma lowered the phone. “You’re a Dagger, Scarlett. Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t deserve to be here. Not even yourself. Now, go grab us both coffee and meet me in my office. We need to talk about cape clasps.”

  3

  I took a deep breath. Everyone’s eyes were on me. A ten-mile run and a forty-minute meditation earlier in the day hadn’t been enough to settle my nerves, and now anxiety was hitting me with full force.

  I was getting initiated into the coven months after my eighteenth birthday, longer than any novice in my age group had had to wait, but that didn’t lessen the importance of the moment.

  My stomach churned as Rowan stepped toward me.

  She had on a hooded robe, just like the rest of them. The deep crimson fabric cast shadows onto her face in the candlelight, but her eyes gleaming out at me were full of excitement. As the most recent novice, she was the one to begin the ritual and invite me into the circle. I’d eventually do the same thing for Ember or Kamala or whichever girl was initiated after me.

  “Enter the circle,” Rowan said.

  She held out her hand. I took it and stepped through a gap in the circle drawn in salt on the ballroom floor. She closed the circle by drizzling a handful of salt from a small bowl into a line across the gleaming stone.

  I stood up straight, looking around at my sisters. Except for perhaps Mom and Grandma, the women in this circle would be my sisters from this moment on—not my friends or babysitters or tutors or any of the other roles they had filled through my childhood, but my equals. I caught Poppy’s eye, and she winked at me from under her hood.

  The ritual was like many others I had watched or participated in over the years. The Daggers silently reaffirmed their commitment to their role, they used their daggers to direct energy from their own stores of magic and into the center of the circle to create a floating ball of flame, and then Grandma read a few words passed down from the first Stiletto.

  Her name had been Red, in tribute to her fiery hair and the cloak she had worn when she began slaying the monsters that stalked her country. Red’s legend had spread over the years, changing with each culture and each telling. The Glimmers knew her from history as a powerful medieval witch who protected her village from a werewolf invasion. The Humdrums, those without magic, considered her as a child from a cautionary fairy tale. Only the Daggers—her daughters and her daughters’ daughters, blood and adopted alike—knew her real purpose and still sought her guidance as they carried out her mission.

  As we carried out her mission.

  Grandma summoned me, and I walked across the circle toward her, passing directly under the ball of flame that spun in the air above us. My dark hair was bound back in a braid like my mom’s, and the heat from the fire glowed against the back of my neck when I stood in front of Grandma.

  “We adorn you in a crimson robe, i
n emulation of our first leader,” Grandma said.

  Two of the Daggers stepped up behind me. They slipped the fabric over my arms and tucked the hood over my head. I caught a whiff of Mom’s deodorant and glanced over to see her smiling at me.

  “We gift you a stiletto, to aid in your mission.”

  Grandma held out her hands. Resting on them in a perfect, sharp line was a dagger. The long, slender blade reflected the firelight, and the black leather-bound handle seemed made for my touch.

  It was a powerful weapon, crafted of silver and enchanted with spells that only the living Stiletto knew. I reached for it and felt the handle fit slide into my grip like we had been made for one another. I didn’t want to let the weapon out of my sight, but I tucked it into its sheath anyway, nestling the blade safely into the leather scabbard that hung from my waist.

  “We give you a task, to begin your journey.”

  Grandma held out a scroll. I wasn’t supposed to open it, not yet, but my fingers itched to rip the wax seal apart and find out what my first ever solo mission would be.

  The rest of the ritual passed in a blur of red robes, dancing flames, and my own impatience. Then it was time for cakes and ale in the lounge—or, in the case of those of us who were underage, a light mead that seemed to be more water than flavor.

  Rowan cornered me as soon as the Daggers had given me their congratulations and dispersed, some to their quarters in the mansion and others to their own homes.

  “What’s the job?” she said, plunking herself down on the couch beside me. She leaned over my shoulder, like somehow that would help her read the scroll still rolled up in my lap.

  “Scarlett,” Mom said, warning in her voice.

  Rowan looked guilty and sprang back up. Later, she mouthed, and slipped away.

  Mom watched me with a severe expression. Daggers weren’t always supposed to talk about their missions, even with one another. Of course, most of them did anyway. We were a sisterhood, and if there was one thing sisters knew how to do, it was talk.

  “Your grandmother is going to bed,” Mom said. “You need to go thank her.”

  “I know,” I said. I stood, the scroll clenched tight in one hand. “Thank you, too. For agreeing it was time.”

  “I trust you’ll prove us right,” Mom said. It was as much threat as encouragement.

  Grandma was halfway up the stairs to her rooms before I caught up with her. I grabbed her hand and continued with her.

  “Thanks,” I said. “The ritual was really nice.”

  “You deserve nice rituals,” she said. “Never forget that.” She tapped me on the nose, and I made a face.

  One of the mansion’s many cats stalked across the top of the stairs, then stopped and gave us a severe look. Grandma clicked her tongue at it, and its tense shoulders softened as its eyelids fell in a slow blink. She bent to scratch its head when we reached the landing, and the cat head butted her hand and purred.

  “What do you think of your mission?” Grandma said.

  I held up the scroll. “Haven’t opened it yet.”

  “Good,” she said. “Light a candle in your room and give it some real focus. These novice missions are meant to challenge you.”

  “I know.” I tried to calm the fluttering in my stomach. Grandma wouldn’t send me on something that would put me in danger. Not on my first mission as a novice.

  But that didn’t mean she’d given me an easy task. Grandma believed in forcing the Daggers to push their abilities, and my heart raced knowing that I might not measure up.

  Grandma left to go to her room, and I continued to the attic. Another of the cats, Suki, was waiting in front of my door, and she jumped up and started winding around my legs.

  “Yeah, you know where the treats are,” I muttered. Her black fur made her almost disappear in the shadows of my room. By the time I flicked on the light, she was waiting in front of my nightstand. I opened the drawer and tossed a few treats to her. She pounced on each of them and swallowed without bothering to chew.

  I sat on the bed and patted the comforter next to me. She ignored me and started grooming.

  The scroll seemed to watch me from the bed while I lit a candle and let its fragrance fill the room. I sank into a comfortable meditation. After a few long, slow breaths, it was clear that meditation wasn’t going to do jack to calm my nerves. I opened my eyes and reached for the scroll.

  Scarlett Hunter: A faerie accused of passing off counterfeit leprechaun gold will be appearing at the Carnelian Fashion Week model casting call tomorrow. The Waterfall Palace Intelligence Unit has asked us to quietly apprehend her and deliver her to the Faerie Ring Correctional Institution to await trial at the Faerie Court.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t terrible, as first missions went. We did lots of odd jobs here and there for the Waterfall Palace—usually the kinds of things they wanted to keep their distance from or needed kept quiet. And how hard could capturing one faerie be?

  I pulled out my tarot deck. Grandma had given it to me years ago, and the cards’ edges were worn with use. I shuffled, letting my body attune to their energy.

  “How can I successfully complete this job tomorrow?” I whispered.

  I selected three cards and laid them on the comforter in front of me.

  Representing the past was The Tower. I snorted. That one didn’t require much interpretation. It was a card of sudden upheaval, disaster, and wounded pride. Sienna had been named the Stiletto, and I was still smarting over it.

  In the middle, representing the present, was the Hierophant, a card of tradition and the transfer of sacred knowledge. I was a Dagger now, and their mission had been passed to me.

  And the third card, the outcome: The World, reversed.

  Incompletion. No closure.

  Failure.

  I slapped the cards back into the deck.

  What did they know, anyway? Like Grandma had told me a million times, divination was a subtle art, capable of reflecting our fears and prejudices back to us just as easily as it could tell the truth.

  I was scared, and that was all there was to it.

  I flicked one of the cards at the cat, who looked startled at the pointless attack and then resumed licking her personal bits.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs outside, followed by a soft knock. I snatched the card off the floor and called for whoever it was to come in.

  The door creaked open, and Grandma’s head appeared around its edge. Her face was covered in the thick goopy green of her favorite avocado moisturizing mask, and her curls were bound back in a red satin hairnet.

  “Sorry to bother you, sweet,” she said. She came inside and closed the door behind her. A red leather garment was draped over her arm. “I just finished the lining.” She held the jacket out to me.

  I let it unfold. The leather was rich and supple, with slanted zippered chest pockets and artfully seamed sleeves. I slipped it on, and the material rested against my skin like I’d been wearing it for years. The fit was exact. It hugged my body while letting me breathe, and the sleeves had enough ease to let me swing my arms around without trouble.

  “It’s perfect,” I said.

  “I know,” Grandma said. “The red cloak is traditional, but this seemed more your style.”

  I ran my hands along the buttery leather. “I love it.”

  “I love you,” she said. She kissed my forehead. “Goodnight, sweet.”

  She slipped back out. The cat watched after her for a while, then hopped up on the bed beside me and sniffed the coat. I scratched the top of her head.

  I was a descendant of Little Red Riding Hood, and I’d been entrusted with her sacred calling. Grandma believed in me, so what was there to worry about?

  “I’ll be fine,” I whispered to the cat.

  She ignored me.

  4

  Rows of tall, attractive women lined the lobby of Carnelian’s downtown showroom and studio. One of Grandma’s assistants, a forest nymph named Acacia, stood in fr
ont of the lobby desk and held up a sheaf of papers.

  “Everyone who didn’t sign a release form, take one of these and get it back to me,” she called. “You have to have one of these signed and ready to hand to the panel before you’ll be considered, so save everyone’s time and have it done before you go in there.”

  She handed the papers off to one of the women, who took a sheet and passed the stack down the row.

  “Someone wearing a red badge is going to come around and give you a letter. If you’re Group A, you’ll be over there,” Acacia continued. “Sit tight, and we’ll pair you with stylists as soon as we can.” She pointed toward a conference room.

  I tuned out as she kept talking and scanned the rows of hopeful models.

  My mission hadn’t given me any indication of who the faerie in question might be. That was part of the test: I had to be able to survey a situation and figure out what wasn’t right and who didn’t belong. It wouldn’t be easy, because it was never easy, or so Mom said. Criminals and monsters who managed to hide in plain sight got away with it because they were good. I had to be better.

  People walked along the rainy city streets outside, occasionally glancing through the tall windows to see what all the fuss was about. Not that they could see much. We sold pieces to Humdrums occasionally, but Carnelian was a fundamentally Glimmering house. If models had any tricks—shifting to their more watery forms, in the cases of sprites, or showing off their beauty glamours—they’d share them inside, where Grandma and her couture and ready-to-wear premières were ready with sharp eyes to select models and match them to garments in the collection.

  I clutched my clipboard and tried to focus my attention on the models. I was looking for a faerie, so the harpy whose wings were clearly bundled underneath her trench coat was out, as was the jinn whose feet kept dissolving into wisps of violet smoke. The woman with a full sleeve of pentacle and triple moon goddess tattoos was also probably in the clear, but I studied her for a moment anyway. If I were a faerie trying to escape the notice of Glimmering law enforcement, I’d probably cover myself in witch symbols, too.