RUNE
RUNE WAITED FOR GIDEON on the crest of his tenement’s roof, perched between two chimney stacks, the sunbaked tiles warming her bare feet as she stared over Old Town. Smoke plumed from the factory district into the blue sky overhead, while the smell of coal mingled with the salt of the nearby sea.
Rune watched the comings and goings of people in the street, some pushing carts, others pulling livestock, others running messages or out on errands.
Before the revolution, Nan forbade Rune from ever visiting this side of town. It was dirty and rough, she said. Not for people like them.
Rune drew her knees up and rested her chin on her arms, watching the city below. What would it have been like to grow up in a place like this, instead of Wintersea? Would she have become someone different, or would she be the exact same Rune?
And who is that?
Who was she, deep down? Beneath the witch. Beneath the aristocrat.
What made her her?
Did a person change depending on their circumstances? Or was there something permanent about everyone? Something steadfast and true, despite their circumstances?
Rune didn’t know the answer, and it bothered her.
Her stomach growled, reminding her she’d eaten nothing since yesterday.
There’s a day market a few streets over where you can buy food to cook,
Gideon had told her. Rune looked for it from where she sat.
She could learn to cook. How difficult could it be?
Rune reached for her shoes and was about to make her way down to the roof’s edge when she turned to find a Blood Guard soldier climbing up from the window below.
Rune sucked in a breath.
The young man looked up.
“Gideon,” she said, her breath rushing out. She’d been so busy daydreaming, she hadn’t seen him come up the street.
Rune looked him over as he clambered up to the perch where she sat. He’d traded Soren’s clothes for his scarlet uniform, and the shackles they’d taken him away in were gone.
In fact, he seemed completely unharmed—not to mention unfazed. What did they want?
And what did he give them in exchange for being released?
But Rune already knew. She’d overheard every word of his plan down in that cargo hold.
Beneath his arm was a folded Blood Guard uniform. He held it out to
her.
“What’s this?” she asked, taking the jacket and pants.
“For you.” He came to sit on her perch. Their hips touched as he sat
down, but he didn’t move away. “I need your help.” Rune cocked a brow. “Yeah?”
“The sibyl has a child. A little girl named Meadow. We’ve been using her as leverage to make the witch talk.”
Rune’s stomach clenched. A child.
She had assumed the Blood Guard must be doing something horrible to Aurelia Kantor to get information. Otherwise, why would a witch give away the location of other witches, knowing they’d be hunted down?
This was why. They had her child.
“She refuses to leave the prison unless I free Meadow first.”
A heist?
Gideon wanted to do a heist. With Rune. It shouldn’t have, but it thrilled her.
“I suppose I could help.” She ran her hands down her dress, trying not to sound pleased about being needed.
“Good,” he said, already rising and making his way to the roof’s edge. “Then put on that uniform and let’s go. I have boots for you inside.”
“Wait … now?” said Rune, grabbing her shoes and following him down on bare feet, the stolen uniform tucked under her arm. “Could we at least eat something first? I’m starving.”
 |
GIDEON BOUGHT THEM DINNER from a street vendor. It would have scandalized Nan to see Rune gobbling up chicken pie with her fingers and licking off the grease. But Rune was so hungry, she didn’t care.
Gideon tried not to laugh as he offered her the rest of his.
Afterward they fetched his horse, Comrade, from the stable and rode to the city’s east side, where most of the aristocracy lived in residential neighborhoods along the water, away from downtown’s hustle and bustle.
Rune illusioned herself before coming, because she knew the area well. Many of Nan’s friends had lived there before the Blood Guard purged them and redistributed their homes to revolutionaries. The neighborhood butted up against a quiet port where the wealthy docked their boats. Alex had kept one here before he died.
As Gideon went to tie up Comrade, Rune waited. The house they needed to infiltrate backed onto the promenade, and Rune wanted to inspect it before they went in.
She looked out over the calm water, where several sailboats were anchored. Nan had taught Rune how to sail when she was a child. Since her birth parents had died at sea, Nan was determined that Rune would never be afraid of it. Rune had even sailed Alex’s two-person sailboat on occasion.
As she waited for Gideon to return, she read the names painted on each boat, until one that was painfully familiar made her breath catch.
Dawn’s Aria.
What was Alex’s sailboat still doing here?
“Here,” said Gideon, interrupting her thoughts.
Rune tore her gaze away from the boat to find him holding out two ice cream cones. “What’s this?”
“I didn’t know what flavor you’d like. All of them are good, honestly.” “You bought them … for me?”
“One’s for you. The other’s mine. I’ll take whichever one you don’t want.”
Rune eyed the ice cream cones—one chocolate, the other vanilla—then glanced to Gideon in his blood-red uniform. She’d gotten used to him in regular clothes—if you could call a prince’s clothes regular. In uniform, it was harder to forget what he was.
A soldier.
A witch hunter. Her enemy.
Yet here he was, buying her ice cream.
Is he trying to lower my guard again?
Rune reached for the chocolate ice cream. He relinquished it.
“What were you staring at out there?” He nodded toward the water. “You seemed deep in thought.”
“Oh, um…” She looked back to Dawn’s Aria. “Is that Alex’s boat?”
Now that Gideon knew she planned to smuggle witches aboard the
Arcadia—and intended to stop her—Rune needed a new escape plan.
Would a sailboat work?
It wasn’t her first choice. The Barrow Strait was known for its rough waters, and Rune alone could only handle a small boat. Something easily tossed about—or capsized—in a bad storm.
But if she didn’t have another option … Gideon followed her gaze to the water.
“It’s Alex’s boat, yes.” His voice softened. “I couldn’t part with it after…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I suppose it can’t sit out there forever. I’ll have to sell it eventually. Ancients know I can’t sail it.”
Rune, who was plotting out her new escape plan, distractedly said, “I could teach you.”
Gideon glanced at her. “Teach me to sail?” Their gazes met.
Why had she said that? They weren’t friends. If she managed to pull this off and escape with her life, she’d never see him again.
And that was the best-case scenario.
“Forget it. It’s silly.” Desperate to change the subject, she motioned to her ice cream. “Thank you for the treat.”
Gideon hesitated, as if he wasn’t ready to let the topic go.
Not wanting to linger on Alex’s boat, in case it made him suspicious, Rune forced a change of subject: “So, is this your standard romance routine? You take whatever girl you’re courting for ice cream and a promenade?”
His mouth quirked. “Are we courting? I wasn’t aware.”
What? Heat rushed into Rune’s cheeks. “That’s not … no. I didn’t mean
—”
He glanced back over his shoulder, toward the ice cream parlor. “Actually,” he said, interrupting her spluttering. “I come here whenever
I miss my family.”
Oh.
“My parents first took us here for Tessa’s tenth birthday,” he said, nodding at her to walk with him, leaving the view of Alex’s boat in the distance. “It was the first time we had ever eaten ice cream. My mother’s designs were getting popular, and there was suddenly extra money to splurge on things we didn’t absolutely need.”
They walked side by side along the waterfront path, eating their ice cream. When groups of women or other couples strolled past, taking in the sea air and sunlight, Gideon would step off the path to give them room, then rejoin Rune.
“Tessa loved chocolate best, and Alex loved vanilla. My mother’s favorite was pistachio.”
“And your father?”
“He didn’t like sugar.”
Didn’t like sugar? Rune licked her cone. Cold and sweet. Mmm. “I can’t imagine not liking sugar. Or spending my childhood without eating ice cream…”
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
Why had she said that?
What an insensitive thing to say!
But Gideon didn’t notice—or, if he did, he didn’t seem to mind. Only glanced at the row of houses ahead, each one facing the waterfront. Which one was keeping the sibyl’s child captive?
“It never bothered me, how we lived. I had nothing better to compare it to. Not until…” He glanced at her. A small smile tugged at his mouth. “You have ice cream on your face.”
Mortified, Rune swiped at her chin. Gideon shook his head. “No, it’s…”
Pulling off his riding glove, he brushed his thumb across her lip. When he drew his hand away, the pad of his thumb was smeared with chocolate. Gideon studied it, as if he didn’t know what to do.
He offered it back to her.
Rune didn’t hesitate. It was chocolate, after all.
She took his thumb in her mouth, sucking off the ice cream. As her teeth grazed his skin, she heard Gideon swallow. The sound made her glance up to find him staring at her, eyes going dark. The last time he’d looked at her like that was right before he kissed her on the Arcadia.
Right before he remembered that what she was repulsed him.
Rune pulled away, releasing his thumb. Her heart thundered in her ears as she quickly turned and kept walking. “Which house is it?”
Her voice sounded shaky.
Gideon cleared his throat. “The yellow one.” Up ahead stood a lemony three-story house. It was gated on all sides, and dark green ivy climbed the iron bars, obscuring their view of the yard.
Rune slowed her pace, taking it in. With the gate leading to the waterfront locked, they couldn’t get in or out this way. Which left the front door as their only entrance and exit.
Through the ivy, Rune counted four uniformed guards in the back gardens. There would be more security out front and inside.
She glanced at the pistol at Gideon’s hip, her hand going to the revolver Soren had given her, holstered at her own. Two guns would run out of bullets fast if they ran into trouble.
“I’ll need your jacket,” she told Gideon, turning away from the house and starting back in the direction they’d come.
“What for?” “You’ll see.”
