MINORA: (n.) a category of small to medium spells.
Minora Spells require a witch’s fresh blood. Old blood will typically not work and may cause painful consequences for the witch. Exceptions can be made when using the blood of another. Examples of Minora Spells include: closing a door from across the room or lighting a candle without a match.
—From Rules of Magic by Queen Callidora the Valiant
HER GRANDMOTHER’S SPELL BOOKS stared down from the musty old shelves of the casting room.
“Your supply is low,” said Verity, running her fingers along the corked glass vials that hung on the opposite wall. Of the six vials, four were empty and two were full; one contained Rune’s blood, the other Verity’s.
“I know,” said Rune from her casting desk, where she was tracing the mark for a spell called Truth Teller onto the bottom of a ceramic cup. Her guests would be here within the hour, and she needed to be ready. “But my cycle doesn’t start for another two weeks.”
Rune had developed her blood storage system shortly after learning she was a witch, using vials Verity stole from chemistry labs at the university. It was how Rune kept her body free of casting scars: by collecting her blood at every monthly cycle, she could usually get enough to see her through the month—if she used it sparingly and mainly cast simple Mirage spells. The more complicated a spell was, the more spellmarks it required, and the more blood needed to keep it alive.
A few months after her grandmother’s purging, Rune bled for the first time. All of her friends had started their monthly cycles years before,
around the age of thirteen. But Rune’s first bleeding arrived late, at sixteen, after the revolution. Bringing with it the knowledge that she was, in fact, a witch.
She still remembered the painful cramping in her lower abdomen. She’d been at a party when it started, and had to excuse herself. In the bathroom, she’d found the black stain in her underwear, shining like ink.
Rune had stared at it, disbelieving.
It was the initial sign of a witch: at the onset of your first bleeding, you didn’t bleed red, but black.
Rune had seen Nan cast, and had gleaned some of the fundamentals from her. But everything else she’d learned from Verity, whose two eldest sisters had been witches and had let their younger sister help them with their spells. It was Verity who started collecting her own blood and giving it to Rune in order to help her cast stronger spells.
Like this enchantment. Truth Teller was a Minora spell and therefore more advanced than Rune’s usual Mirages. So she was using Verity’s blood instead of her own.
Verity turned away from the vials, moving toward the center of the room, where Rune sat at the desk. A spell book lay open beside her. On the yellowed pages in red ink was the symbol for the truth-telling spell. It was what Rune was using to enchant the wine cup.
“I’ll worry about my supply later,” said Rune, still drawing the mark in blood. The taste of salt stung her throat, and the roar of magic was loud in her ears. “Tonight, we need to find out where they’re holding Seraphine.”
The moment the spellmark was complete, magic swelled inside Rune like a wave. She swallowed back the briny taste in her mouth and waited for the roar in her ears to recede.
As the blood dried and the spell solidified, Verity pushed her spectacles further up her nose. Rune couldn’t help but notice the shadows under her friend’s eyes. Likely from too many late nights helping the Crimson Moth, then staying up until morning to finish her biology homework.
Verity was a scholarship student at the university in the capital.
“We’ve been trying to find the new holding location for weeks and have nothing to show for it,” Verity pointed out. “What makes you think tonight
will be any different?”
“Because it has to be?” said Rune, desperate.
Pushing herself onto the desk, Verity seated herself next to the spell book, and her lavender perfume invaded Rune’s senses. Floral scents were in fashion these days, and the one Verity doused herself in had been a gift from her sisters.
“Rubbing elbows with patriots and witch hunters worked a year ago,” said Verity. “But the Blood Guard have gotten smarter. If we want to rescue Seraphine in time—if the Crimson Moth intends to stay one step ahead of the witch hunters—we’ll need a better tactic. Have you given any more thought to my idea?”
“The one where I say goodbye to my freedom by marrying some smug suitor?”
Verity rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. You say goodbye to running yourself ragged by strategically marrying someone who will unwittingly help you save witches.” She started casually turning the thin pages of the book, absently skimming through the spells. “Did you see Charlotte Gong tonight? She was wearing a gold ring on a chain around her neck.”
“So?” said Rune, setting the enchanted cup down now that the bloody spellmark on the bottom was dry. No one ever thought to check the bottom of their beverage for evidence of magic. Especially not in a witch hater’s house.
“So: she’s engaged. To Elias Creed.” Elias was Laila and Noah’s eldest brother. “He works for the Ministry of Public Safety. I put him at the top of your list of suitors, remember?”
“Pity,” said Rune, without a hint of disappointment. She was happy for Charlotte, who had a sweet temperament and once told her the witch purgings gave her a stomachache.
“Pity indeed. Elias would have been perfect for you. Boring. Not too intelligent. Close to a source of valuable intel. Soon all the good ones will be taken, and you’ll be out of options.”
“Perhaps you could marry instead and give me all the intel you extract.”
Verity gave a small smile. “I would if I could. But no one useful wants the poor little charity case.”
This was, unfortunately, true.
Verity’s mother had hated witches so deeply, she’d outed her eldest daughters to the Blood Guard, resulting in their deaths. Because of this, Verity had cut all ties with her parents, and in doing so, cut herself off from their monetary support. Rune suspected the story was even darker than her friend let on, from the way Verity went icy quiet when people brought it up, her eyes blackening like thunderclouds.
Verity’s position at the university was now dependent on scholarships. Scholarships she could keep only if she attained top grades. Otherwise, she’d be stripped of her room and board and forced out onto the street.
Rising from the desk, Rune crossed to the window of the annex and looked out. Her grandmother’s garden labyrinth sprawled out below, illuminated by the waxing moon. The sea was a black mirror in the distance.
She didn’t feel ready to marry. It wasn’t a matter of not being in love with any of her suitors; Rune had never expected love. In fact, in her grandmother’s absence, sometimes Rune felt half-alive. Like her heart was a withered thing in her chest.
Rune was no longer capable of love, nor did she need it. What she needed was to make the most strategic choice.
It was more the finality of yoking herself to someone for the rest of her life that made her balk, especially when that someone could never know who she really was.
But Verity’s right: it’s time.
For a plan like this to be most effective, the person would have to be someone with intimate knowledge of the Blood Guard’s secrets. Maybe she was being too picky, but when Rune looked at the list of suitors Verity had drawn up for her, when she considered the ones who were the most well connected, she suspected she could do better.
That she must do better.
Like there was a name missing from her list.
“Noah Creed is a good choice. They say his father is grooming him to become the next Good Commander. But he’s clever,” said Verity, still skimming the spells in the book on Rune’s desk. “Bartholomew Wentholt is
a better option. He’s not that bright, and his mother is a celebrated witch hunter.”
“Bart is obsessed with himself,” said Rune, still staring out the window. “Yes, but that could benefit you. He can’t pay much attention to your
comings and goings if he’s checking his reflection every ten minutes.”
Rune sighed and walked back to the desk, where Verity had the book open to two spells Rune had been trying to master for weeks now: Deadbolt and Picklock. They were for locking and unlocking cell doors.
“Fine,” said Rune, pressing her fists to her hips. “Here’s the plan. I’ll woo Bart. Invite him to my room. Ply him with wine.” She glanced at the cup, now enchanted with Truth Teller. “If the information he gives me is valuable, I’ll choose him. If not, I’ll try again with Noah.”
If a suitor didn’t have access to good information, or wasn’t capable of retaining that information, he wasn’t worth her time.
A knock interrupted them. Rune’s blood spiked at the sound. The false wall of her bedroom hid this room, and she always shut it when she came here—she didn’t want the servants catching her red-handed in her grandmother’s casting room.
“Miss Winters?” called a muffled voice.
Rune blew out a breath through her lips. It was only Lizbeth.
After Nan’s arrest, the staff of Wintersea House all fled in the night, not wanting to serve in the house of a known witch. Or not wanting to serve in the house of an informer. Possibly both.
Only Lizbeth had stayed. “Your guests are arriving.”
“Thank you. We’ll be right down.”
Rune lifted the enchanted cup from the desk. She would leave it in the kitchen for Lizbeth, who would fill it with wine and await Rune’s summons. They’d done this so often, with so many suitors, it was rote.
Rune glanced over to find Verity shrugging. “Noah or Bart—either will get you what you want, I think. And while you’re making your decision tonight, Alex and I will find out where they’re keeping Seraphine.”
She jumped down off the desk.
Rune opened the latch in the false wall and pushed it open. She waited for Verity to exit the casting room before stepping out after her.
“I was thinking yesterday, while feeding Henry …”
Henry was a spider. A mimic spider, Verity liked to remind her. Rune shivered, remembering the collection of arachnids Verity kept in jars on the shelf of her dormitory room. It was for a research project she was working on.
“Remember how I told you the mimic spider preys on small mammals?”
Rune preferred to not remember, actually. She hated spiders, and was now recalling the last time she’d visited her friend’s dormitory, when Verity handed her a massive jar containing a sleek, long-legged creature that stared at Rune while it feasted on a fuzzy lump twice its size. Possibly a mouse.
“Their webs need to be strong enough to catch and hold much bigger food,” Verity continued, oblivious to Rune’s squirming. “They feign weakness, and their cries summon rodents looking for an easy meal. But once the predator stumbles into the mimic spider’s web, they quickly become the prey. And once they’re caught, the spider devours them slowly over days. Eating them alive.”
Verity glanced pointedly back at Rune. “Be like the mimic spider.”
Rune wrinkled her nose. “That’s … disgusting.”
But the image stuck in her mind as she shut the door behind them.
 |
“I NEVER WALK ANYWHERE if I can help it. Why walk when I have three carriages at the ready to take me wherever I want?”
Bart Wentholt was boring Rune out of her mind. She swallowed a yawn as the two of them strolled the perimeter of her ballroom, which was alive with dancing guests.
“You should join me for a ride in my newest one. Maybe this Sunday? It would have to be in the afternoon, of course. I never get out of bed before noon.”
How convenient, thought Rune. I only fall into bed at noon.
Bart glanced toward the windows, where his reflection smiled back at him. Rune wanted to catch Verity’s gaze and roll her eyes, but there were too many others watching her. Alex, who was half engaged in a conversation a few feet away. Noah, who was dancing with a girl across the room. And several other young men on Verity’s short list of Suitors Rune Needs to Consider, all waiting to pounce the moment Bart left her side.
Instead, Rune fiddled with an ice-blue ribbon tied around her wrist, its silky surface embroidered with the Winters’ crest. She’d already given out the rest of her dancing ribbons to young men who’d asked at the beginning of the night. Rune had saved this one for Alex, as she always did. It was not only a way of passing on information to each other without looking suspicious, but a welcome respite.
“Will your mother be home?” Rune hoped that wasn’t too forward. “I so enjoy her witch-hunting stories. Or does her work for the Blood Guard keep her very busy these days?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard the dreadful news?” Bart was still looking at his reflection. Rune watched him brush his copper hair off his forehead so that it fell more stylishly to the side. As if the news he was about to relay didn’t disturb him at all. “They honorably discharged her last week. One of the little beasts she was hunting slashed the tendon in her ankle with a knife. She’ll never walk straight again.”
What? “That’s terrible!”
Terribly inconvenient. Rune made a face. His mother’s position as a witch hunter was the sole reason she was considering Bart. She mentally struck him from the number one spot on Verity’s list, already turning her attention to the young man who held second place: Noah Creed.
As the song played by the hired quartet ended, Noah’s gaze fixed on her. She fiddled with the last remaining ribbon on her wrist, marked for the next song, and looked to where Alex danced with Charlotte Gong, who was indeed wearing a gold ring on a chain around her neck.
People considered it bad luck to wear a wedding ring on your finger before your wedding day. So girls hung engagement rings around their necks to show them off.
Her gaze moved from Charlotte’s ring to Alex.
Rune had considered Alex as the solution to her suitor problem, of course. He was her oldest friend, and like a brother to her. Things between them might not be romantic, but good marriages were built on a lot less.
The problem was, Alex wasn’t the most strategic choice. If Rune’s prime directive was getting access to a source of regular, valuable intelligence, choosing Alex was impractical. Any information he gleaned, he gave to her freely.
Rune tore her gaze away from her friend, fixing it on Noah instead.
If she disentangled herself from Bart—who was currently using his reflection to adjust his cravat—she could give the ribbon she’d saved to Noah before the next dance began.
It seems I’ve made my choice, she thought, swallowing her disappointment.
Noah was perfectly acceptable. He was the son of the Good Commander—arguably the most powerful man in the Republic. And his sister, Laila, was a witch hunter. So, as the hum of instruments faded into silence, signaling the end of this dance, Rune abandoned Bart to his reflection. It would likely be several minutes before he even realized she’d left his side.
As dancers moved off the floor, she started across the ballroom toward Noah, whose face brightened at her approach.
Untying the ribbon from around her wrist, Rune fastened on a smile. She was preparing to continue her tiresome charade a little longer, when someone stepped into her path, cutting her off from her mark.
“Citizen Winters.”
Rune halted at the voice. Her mind clanged like the bells of a firehouse, raising the alarm.
She knew that voice.
Gideon Sharpe.
What was he doing here in her ballroom?
Her brain was in the middle of shutting down, preparing her body to fight or flee, when she suddenly saw the flower he held out.
“I owe you an apology.”
A what?
His palm cupped the rose, its stem hanging down between a gap in his fingers. If there were a more perfect rose, Rune had never encountered it. Crimson petals spiraled out from the center, bending back in mid-bloom.
“I was unthinking earlier,” said Gideon, holding it out to her. “And unkind.”
Knowing that every set of eyes was on them, Rune reluctantly took the rose. She found the stem not full of thorns, or even living; it was soft and sheer. Looking closer, she discovered jade-green silk wrapped tightly around some kind of wire. The petals, too, were fabric. Someone had delicately stitched the edges of each one.
Rune’s gaze skimmed the front of Gideon’s gray suit. It was rare for her to see a garment and not be able to place the designer. Fashion was her specialty. But this style of suit was wholly unfamiliar to her. Vintage? she wondered, impressed despite herself at how perfectly it fit his frame.
He seemed even bigger and broader out of uniform than in one.
“I was returning from a tiring witch hunt tonight,” he explained. “It’s no excuse, but the fatigue made me short-tempered. I was not myself.”
She lifted her eyes to his face.
As their gazes clashed, the ballroom went quiet. The lights, the voices, and the fashions of her guests faded to nothing as an unexpected thought struck Rune.
Gideon Sharpe is the missing name on my list.
It both terrified and tempted her.
But it was one thing to spend her nights as the Crimson Moth, outwitting the Blood Guard and rescuing witches from execution—that kind of danger was familiar. It was something very different to seduce the deadliest witch hunter of all: a cold, brutal soldier who wanted nothing more than to put the Crimson Moth to death.
I’d have to pretend more than ever.
Continuously pulling the wool over his eyes would be Rune’s biggest challenge yet. She would be in constant danger.
But it would be worth the risk …
Because Gideon Sharpe was by far the most tactical choice. If she and Gideon were courting, Rune would have intimate access to all the
information she needed to rescue every witch—now and in the future.
She cleared her throat. “You have impeccable timing.” If he’d been fifteen seconds later, she would already be in Noah’s arms, her decision made. “I’ll gladly accept your apology …” Lifting the ribbon she’d untied from her wrist, Rune held it out to him. “… if you’ll dance with me?”
