AFTER APPEARING BRIEFLY AT Charlotte’s luncheon, Rune raced back to Wintersea House, grinning the entire way. Not even the gray clouds on the horizon could dampen her mood.

It had been so easy! Rune couldn’t believe how quickly Gideon had given up Seraphine’s whereabouts. She’d had to get nearly naked, but still.

Worth it.

Gideon, she decided, was the suitor she’d accept.

It was only as she burst through the doors of her bedroom and quickly started changing that she recalled what he’d said about the youngest witch queen.

Cressida would never have let me work for you.

Her fingers slowed on the laces of her riding trousers.

The night of that party, I was being punished.

He hadn’t elaborated. And Rune had no way of knowing what the truth was. Perhaps he was being punished for some truly heinous deed. Or perhaps he was lying.

But Rune remembered the harrowed look in his eyes. The way he’d stepped sharply away at her approach, as if he thought, for a moment, that she was Cressida herself. And he was afraid.

Cress was like that: pretty from a distance, tempting you closer … It was only after she’d reeled you in that she revealed her true nature. But by then, it was too late. She was already eating you alive.

Rune shivered.

But there were two sides to every story. And since Cressida was dead and couldn’t tell hers, it was unfair to take Gideon at his word.

She banished all thought of him and finished dressing.

Pulling on a hooded sweater, she wondered if she should send a message to Verity. One of her ships was due to leave at dawn, and if she was successful tonight, she intended to put Seraphine on it. It would mean she wouldn’t make it to the Creeds’ party tonight. And if she didn’t, she would need Verity and Alex to come up with an alibi for her.

But to put that in a message risked the information falling into the wrong hands. So, she decided against it and rode straight for Seldom Harbor.