RUNE RACED NAN’S TIRED horse, Lady, through the fog-laden streets of the capital.
Electric lamps lit the way, their white light buzzing as they illuminated the closed shops flanking her on both sides. Lady’s galloping hoofbeats on the cobbles contrasted sharply with the surrounding quiet.
Two years had passed since these streets ran with the blood of witches and the Republic of the Red Peace was born. Rune had spent those two years searching for Seraphine Oakes, determined to fulfill her grandmother’s last request.
The regime had executed all of Nan’s witch friends, seizing their holdings and inheritances. The sole friend who’d escaped the purge was Seraphine, but only because she’d been sent by the former queen into exile nearly two decades ago and no one had seen her since.
Now, on the night Rune finally found her, witch hunters had gotten there first.
Was it a coincidence? Or was someone onto Rune? She supposed it was bound to happen. But now she would need to be especially careful. If someone within the Blood Guard suspected her, she needed to throw them off her scent.
Rune tried not to think about the bloody X on the door or the torn clothes left in the mud. She knew exactly what had happened to Seraphine. She’d seen it firsthand the day the Blood Guard came for Nan.
It had been Rune who invited them.
Immediately after the uprising, soldiers rounded up every known witch and purged them. The New Republic’s army had taken control of the harbors, ensuring no one could leave the island.
They seized Nan’s ships, and it was only a matter of time before witch hunters came to Wintersea House to arrest her.
But Nan had a plan. Her old business partner had a fishing boat and was smuggling witches off-island. The boat left from his private cove at midnight, and there was room for both Nan and Rune aboard the small craft if they could get there in time.
Back then, Rune was only sixteen and hadn’t yet come into her magic. It had never crossed her mind that she would, since her birth parents hadn’t been witches, and only witches begat witches—though magic sometimes skipped children, and even generations, making it hard to predict. Rune’s parents had drowned in a terrible shipwreck when she was a baby, leaving her an orphan with no family to take her in. So Nan had adopted her.
But it didn’t matter that Rune wasn’t a witch or related to Nan by blood. Under the Red Peace, it mattered that Rune hadn’t turned Nan in. When the Blood Guard came for her grandmother, they would declare Rune a sympathizer and execute her alongside Kestrel Winters for the crime of not turning in a witch.
This was their only chance to escape.
Rune was hurriedly packing her things when a message arrived from Alexander Sharpe, her oldest friend.
Someone’s betrayed you, it read. The Blood Guard know your plans. Soldiers seized the fisherman earlier this evening and are waiting for you in his cove.
But the news in Alex’s message got even worse: The roads leading out of town are closed off and they’re arresting anyone who doesn’t have permission to be traveling.
There was nowhere to run; they were trapped in Wintersea House. They could hide, but for how long?
You need to report her, Rune. Before it’s too late.
The message was clear: if Rune didn’t turn Nan in immediately, they were both going to be executed.
Refusing would earn Rune a brutal death. But Nan was her grandmother. The person Rune loved most in the world. Turning her in would be like carving out her own heart and handing it over. So she brought the note to Nan, trusting her grandmother would know how to get them out of this.
She remembered the look of steel in Nan’s eyes as she read the note. But instead of coming up with a new escape plan, she said: He’s right. You must report me immediately.
Horrified, Rune shook her head. No. There must be some other way.
Nan pulled Rune into her arms, holding her close. Rune could still remember the smell of the lavender oil dabbed behind Nan’s ears. My darling: they’ll kill you if you don’t.
Rune wept and ran to her room, locking herself in.
If you truly love me, said Nan from the other side of the door, you will spare me the agony of watching them kill you.
Rune’s eyes burned with tears; her throat choked on sobs.
Please, darling. Do this for me.
Rune squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to wake from this nightmare. But it wasn’t a nightmare. These were her choices: turn her grandmother in or die a grisly death at her side.
Hot tears spilled down her cheeks.
Finally, Rune opened the door and came out.
Nan squeezed her in a fierce hug. She stroked Rune’s hair, the way she used to do when Rune was a child. You must be very clever now, my love. Clever and brave.
With Lizbeth’s help, Nan put Rune on a horse and sent her galloping into the night.
Rune remembered the biting wind and pelting rain. Remembered the way her body trembled. The night was freezing cold, but the fear in her heart was colder.
She could have refused to do it. Could have marched straight up to the soldiers and handed herself in instead of Nan.
But she didn’t.
Because deep down, Rune didn’t want to die.
Deep down, she was a coward.
Drenched and shivering, Rune stumbled into Blood Guard headquarters and spoke the words that would doom her grandmother.
Kestrel Winters is a witch planning to escape, she told them, forsaking the person she loved most in the world. I can take you to her. But we must hurry, before she gets away.
She led the Blood Guard straight back to Wintersea, where they arrested Nan, dragging the old woman out of the house while Rune watched, silent and still. Holding everything in.
It was only after the soldiers were safely away that she collapsed to the floor and wept.
Rune had spent the past two years trying to make amends for that night. But Nan was right: turning her in had proven Rune to be as loyal to the
New Republic as the rest of them. More loyal, even. After all, what kind of person betrayed their own grandmother? A person who hated witches above all else.
The lives of countless witches now depended on that ruse.
Rune’s trembling hands squeezed Lady’s reins, and the leather strips bit through her deerskin gloves as she scanned the foggy streets of the capital. If she was lucky, the Blood Guard would detain Seraphine at a holding location. The Guard would wait until they hunted down a few more witches before transferring them to the palace prison together.
If Rune was unlucky …
The thought of the alternative—Seraphine already imprisoned beneath the palace, waiting to be purged—made a sick feeling surge in her stomach.
Rune pushed her horse harder, trying to outrun it.
That’s what she needed to learn tonight: whether Seraphine was still alive, and if so, where the Blood Guard was keeping her.
As she and Lady arrived in the city center, a massive domed structure arose out of the gloom, rivaling the palace in magnitude.
The opera house.
There would be witch hunters within, not to mention Tribunal members.
Some of them were bound to know where the new holding location was.
The opera house’s copper-domed pavilion, where carriages dropped off patrons, came into view first. Five massive columns, each one rising to five stories in height, bordered the pavilion.
It always surprised Rune that the Good Commander allowed it to remain open. Shortly after the revolution, patriots ransacked the opera house, stripping it of much of its previous splendor. Paintings, statues, and other decor hearkening back to the Reign of Witches were smashed, burned, or thrown into the sea. But the interior, with its gold leaf and red velvet seating, remained—a stark reminder of the decadence of the witch queens.
As they entered the pavilion and Lady slowed to a trot, an elderly stable hand dressed in a trim black uniform stepped forward from the entrance arch.
Rune dismounted. As her silk flats hit the stone walkway, her legs nearly buckled beneath her. Every bone in her body hurt from riding so hard to get here tonight.
“Citizen Winters. You’re mighty late this evening.”
Rune winced internally at the familiar voice. She preferred the younger stable hands to this old patriot. The young ones stood in awe of not only Rune’s wealth and connections, but her reputation as a hero of the revolution.
Carson Mercer, however, remained unimpressed by Rune, and his low regard unsettled her. Did he suspect her, or was he just a miserable old man?
“The opera’s half over.”
At the disapproving tone of his voice, Rune stepped into her role. Pushing back the hood of her fine wool cloak, she shook out her hair, letting it fall in a sea of rust-gold waves. “I prefer to miss the first act, Mister Mercer. It’s so tedious, otherwise. All you really need to know is how it ends. Who cares about the rest?”
“Indeed,” Carson said, narrowing his eyes. “One wonders why you go at all.” He turned to lead her horse toward the opera stables.
Not liking the edge in his voice, she called after him: “For the gossip, of course!”
The moment he was out of view, Rune anxiously tapped the secret pocket sewn into her gown, where her vial of blood lay hidden. Comforted, she forced the curmudgeonly stable hand out of her mind and entered the opera house—where members of the Blood Guard would be gloating about their recent capture. All Rune had to do tonight was keep her ears open and ask the right questions, and by the time the curtain fell, she’d have the information she needed to save Seraphine.
She passed several children begging for coins or food on the way in. By the marks carved into their foreheads, she could tell they were Penitents. The descendants of witch sympathizers. Meaning someone in their family had refused to inform on a witch, or had hidden one from witch hunters.
Instead of executing or imprisoning the descendants of witch sympathizers, the Good Commander carved the Penitent symbol into their foreheads, letting everyone know what they’d done. It was a warning. A way of dissuading others from helping witches.
Rune’s fingers itched to dig into her money pouch and drop several coins, but it was illegal to directly aid a Penitent. And with Carson nearby, she didn’t dare. So she only smiled a little. The children’s echoing smiles twisted her heart with guilt as she passed them by.
Inside, Rune discovered Carson was correct: the opera was half over. Before her, the ceremonial staircase—divided into two divergent and interwoven flights of steps—was mostly empty. But the cacophony of voices coming from the grand foyer far above was an unmistakable sign that intermission was well underway.
Pressing her hand to the cool marble balustrade, Rune pushed the Penitent children out of her mind and started upward. She felt aware of the men around her as she ascended the stairs, their attentive gazes lingering on her long after she passed, reminding her of a recent conversation she’d had with her friend Verity.
Don’t you think it’s time you picked one?
A suitor, she’d meant. One of the many eligible young men who lined up to take Rune’s dancing ribbons at balls, invited her out on romantic dinners, and took her on long carriage rides. It wasn’t Rune who tempted them. Sure, a few might genuinely be interested in the pretty face she
presented to the world. Most, though, were after Nan’s fortune, her profitable shipping business, and her vast estate. All of it “gifted” to Rune by the New Republic for her heroism during the revolution.
Rune had been stringing the useful ones along for over a year—all from well-connected families with access to secrets she needed. Secrets she could often get them to spill in dark corners and shadowed alcoves.
But she couldn’t keep doing it forever. Their patience was limited, and Rune couldn’t afford to make enemies of them.
Verity had made a list of the most valuable suitors and left it on Rune’s pillow the morning after their talk.
She would need to choose one, and she’d need to do it soon.
But not tonight, she thought, hurrying up the steps. Tonight, she would mingle with the sons and daughters of the revolution, stealing whatever secrets she could.
When Rune arrived at the top of the interwoven staircase, the grand foyer stretched out before her, full of opera patrons dressed in muted silks and frothy lace, with cream-colored pearls strung through their hair, all of them illuminated by a dozen pairs of winking chandeliers hanging down the massive hall.
“Rune Winters,” said a voice that stopped her in her tracks. “Sneaking in late, I see. Out on a tryst with one of your lovers?”
Several scandalized giggles followed.
The voice belonged to Verity de Wilde—Rune’s best friend.
Verity stood beneath the lights with her hands on both hips and a playful smile tugging at her mouth. Wispy brown ringlets framed her white face, and her eyes were dark behind her spectacles. She wore a dress the color of sunflowers, with white lace sleeves and a low-cut back—one of Rune’s hand-me-downs from last season. It had originally been sleeveless, but since sleeveless dresses were out of fashion now, Rune had enlisted her seamstress to add them before gifting it to Verity.
Flanking Verity was a group of their fashionable friends. Young men and women who’d dined at Rune’s table and danced in her ballroom hundreds of times—and would do so again tonight, at her after-party.
Friends was perhaps too generous a term, since not one of them would think twice about turning her in if they knew what she was.
“Or perhaps,” said another voice, causing everyone to turn, “Rune has been out rescuing witches all night. They say the Crimson Moth only works beneath the cover of darkness.”
The words chilled Rune, who looked directly into the piercing eyes of Laila Creed. Laila was several inches taller—which always made it seem like she was looking down her nose at Rune—and a member of the Blood Guard.
She was also beautiful, with prominent cheekbones and raven-black hair crowned high on her head. Rune recognized the design of the high-waisted peacock blue dress. It was the work of Sebastian Khan, a popular dressmaker from the mainland whose wait list was almost a year long and whose dresses were the envy of the season. It was impossible to acquire one unless you had considerable wealth and connections.
Rune had two in her closet.
That fact that Laila wore the rare dress and not her uniform meant she was off duty tonight. She likely hadn’t been one of the witch hunters who’d brought Seraphine in.
Rune’s blood ran cold at the memory of Seraphine’s empty house. Of how the Blood Guard soldiers found the witch right before Rune showed up. If she was being spied on, that spy could very well be Laila, who had never liked Rune, for reasons she could only guess at.
Donning her mask—the one she hid the true Rune Winters behind— Rune threw back her head and laughed.
“Ha! Can you imagine it? Me, spending my nights gallivanting across this damned island, with its ghastly weather and endless mud and rain? Think of what it would do to my Minews!”
She pulled up the hem of her skirt to show off the silk shoes, custom made by Evelyn Minew, a couture artist halfway across the world whose designs were one of a kind and never replicated. It had taken half a year for Rune to get in touch with her, and another year for the shoes to arrive.
Take that, Laila Creed.
At the looks of astonishment and envy, Rune dropped her hem and, smiling, entered the circle forming around her, stepping a little in front of Laila to edge her out. Lowering her voice, a little conspiratorially, she said, “Did you hear? The vigilante smuggled her last batch of witches out through the sewers. The sewers! Just think!”
Their noses wrinkled with disgust.
Rune didn’t need to fake her reaction. Her stomach twisted at the memory of it: the putrid odor of raw sewage filling the dark tunnel, sloshing around her knees as she and the twin sisters she’d rescued—they were barely thirteen—walked through the stench for miles beneath the city. A servant had found their bedsheets hidden beneath the floorboards and informed on the girls. The bloodstains weren’t red, but black—the telltale sign of a witch who’d come into her powers at the onset of her first bleeding.
That night, Alexander Sharpe—the same friend who had tipped Rune off to the Blood Guard closing in on Nan—had been waiting on the other end with fresh clothes and a horse that would take the girls directly to the docks, where one of Rune’s loaded cargo ships was ready to set sail. Alex was always waiting on the other end. Sometimes with horses or a carriage; other times with boats. He was the getaway man in their heists, and he never let Rune down.
The cargo ship arrived in port two days ago, and the twins had sent a coded message saying they were safe on the mainland.
“Anyone who prefers wading through poo to sleeping soundly in a soft, clean bed is, well, revolting.” Growing warm beneath her cloak, Rune untied the tassels at her throat.
The surrounding party murmured their agreement. Except for one person—Laila.
“But isn’t that precisely what the Crimson Moth would say?”
Rune’s fingers stiffened as the tassels of the cloak came undone. The garment slipped from her bare shoulders, and before she could grab it, someone stepped behind her, catching the fine wool and folding it over his arm.
“Come now,” said a comforting voice near her ear. “If Rune was the Moth, would she have delivered her grandmother to be purged?”
As the owner of the voice stepped beside Rune, she glanced up. Alex Sharpe. In the presence of her oldest friend—a genuine friend, like Verity— every muscle in her body relaxed.
He looked like a lion tonight, with his golden hair shining beneath the light of the chandeliers. His gaze was warm and steady on her face, but his forehead creased ever so slightly, saying he knew where she’d been, and he’d worried about her.
Noah Creed—Laila’s brother and a young man who’d made Verity’s short list of Suitors Rune Needs to Consider—cut in.
“The Crimson Moth hasn’t struck in weeks,” Noah said, also defending Rune. To support this theory, he added: “I heard they brought in another witch tonight, completely unhindered. The Moth didn’t even try to rescue her.”
Rune’s attention homed in on Noah.
Where did you hear that, I wonder?
Noah shared his sister’s deep brown eyes, high cheekbones, and ocher skin tone. Not only was he handsome in his black overcoat with sloping shoulders and silk lapel, but he was also the son of the Good Commander. That position put him very close to a firsthand source of the most classified intel, making him a fine option indeed.
But will he notice his wife slipping out of bed in the night? Or coming home exhausted after dawn … sometimes with bruises?
Rune turned her smile on Noah. “A witch? Brought in tonight? Don’t tease us, Noah. Tell us more.”
Noah’s eyes widened at finding himself the subject of her attention. But he lifted his hands in protest. “Gideon Sharpe brought her in. That’s all I know.”
Gideon Sharpe.
Rune’s lip nearly curled at the name of Alex’s older brother. Devoutly loyal to the New Republic, Gideon was a ruthless, bloodthirsty witch hunter who’d sent more of Rune’s kind to the purge than any other member of the Guard.
He’d also famously helped assassinate the Sister Queens, sparking the revolution into a blaze.
Rune hated him.
The two Sharpe brothers couldn’t be more different.
Catching Rune’s gaze, Verity raised a dark eyebrow, asking a silent question. In answer, Rune tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, showing off her grandmother’s ruby earrings. She’d put them on earlier tonight, and they dripped from her ears like beads of blood. The earrings were her answer—failure—telling her partner in crime everything she needed to know about how tonight went. Seraphine is in enemy hands. Either Verity would figure out the rest herself or Rune would fill her in before the after- party she was hosting later tonight.
At the sight of the rubies, Verity’s mouth pinched. Turning away from Rune, she quickly cleared her throat.
“Well, I’ve always thought Missus Blackwater is the Moth,” she said, commanding the group’s attention as she glanced across the loud, brightly lit hall toward an old woman with frizzy hair and a neck strung with too many pearls. Missus Blackwater sat alone on the opera café’s terrace, murmuring to herself. “Can you imagine the old biddy leading the Blood Guard on a wild goose chase? What a perfect disguise!”
At that, everyone burst out laughing.
As more guesses were made, Rune took the chance Verity gave her and slipped silently into the crowd, armed with a new purpose: tracking down Gideon Sharpe.
