NORMALLY, GIDEON WENT OUT of his way to avoid parties like this. So when Rune held her ribbon in the air between them, he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do with it.
As it hung in the space between them, catching the light, every guest in the room fell quiet, their eyes moving to the bumbling idiot standing awkwardly before their hostess, reminding Gideon that he didn’t belong here. How the revolution had changed so much, and also nothing at all.
He was still the poor son of a tailor. The outdated suit he wore declared that to everyone. Gideon had grown up playing on dirt floors, eating watered-down soup to last the bitter winters, feeling his clothes get tighter and more threadbare because there was no money to replace them. All while the people currently gawking at him ate off gold-rimmed plates, fed their leftovers to their fat hounds, and retired their wardrobes at the end of every season.
While Gideon led a desperate group of men through the rat-infested cellars of the palace to murder tyrants in their beds, the “revolutionaries” around him hadn’t stooped to pick up a gun. Or gotten their hands dirty at all. Instead of losing their loved ones in the fighting on the eve of the New Dawn, many of these aristos had handed those loved ones over to be purged, betraying family and friends to keep their status in the New Republic after paying lip service to the Sister Queens for years. As if politics, for them, was not life or death, but simply a matter of swapping outdated gowns for whatever the newest trend was.
Gideon would rather ride his horse through a foot of mud, uphill, in a bloody hurricane than rub shoulders with the people here tonight.
And Rune Winters was the worst of them.
The brush of warm fingers on his wrist broke the spell in the room. Gideon looked down to find the hostess herself tying a blue dancing ribbon around his wrist.
His skin itched where she touched, and he fought the instinct to excuse himself, walk out the doors, and never look back. Gideon forced himself to hold still, thinking of Harrow’s report. Of the casting mark found on Rune’s cargo ship.
You’re here for the Moth, and the sooner you catch her, the easier it will be to purge the world of every last witch.
Gideon studied the girl before him. Was this her?
It seemed absurd. This darling of the New Republic, picking the locks of his holding cells, making off with his prisoners in the night, slaughtering Blood Guard officers in the street. And yet, it could be the reason he’d failed to catch the Moth these past two years: because she’d hidden herself so skillfully in plain sight.
When Rune finished tying the ribbon, she lifted the silk rose, tucking it into her red-gold hair, which was now braided into a semi-crown at the back of her head.
He’d spent the last two hours making it for her, feeling slightly ill as he sewed every petal. Roses always brought the painful memories rushing back. But Harrow’s advice—to woo Rune—kept ringing through his head, and his mother could never resist the silk roses his father used to make her after they argued.
That, of course, was before the Sister Queens broke his mother’s mind. “Oh dear. Clumsy me! I’m making a mess of it …”
Gideon looked down to find Rune struggling with the stem of the rose
—which was snagged in her hair. “Here, let me …”
Rune dropped her hands as Gideon worked to separate the strands of gold from the wire stem. They stood so close now that her fragrance filled the air. Gideon braced himself, remembering another girl, another scent.
But there was no reek of magic on Rune. All he could smell was the salty sea air blowing in through the open windows.
Which means nothing.
After a long soak in the bath, Cressida hadn’t smelled of magic either.
Cressida.
The name was a growl in his mind. Had Cressida ever dined beneath this roof? For all he knew, Cressida and Rune might have been friends.
He swallowed the sick feeling in his throat, carefully tucking the silk flower into the weave of Rune’s hair until it sat snug and fashionably to one side. The way his mother used to wear the flowers his father made her.
Before he could step back, the music started. Gideon glanced up to find himself surrounded by pairs of dancers on all sides.
Rune’s eyes sparkled as she reached out her gloved hand, positioning it high in the air. She stepped in closer, settling her other hand on his shoulder. “Ready, Captain Sharpe?”
Beneath the soft weight of her grip, Gideon tensed.
What am I doing?
He didn’t know this song, never mind the steps of whatever dance it cued.
Unlike the couples already moving around him, mirroring each other as they glided and twirled along with the melody, Gideon stood frozen as a statue while Rune held herself gracefully poised, ready to dance.
Her eyebrows arched, as if to say, What are you waiting for?
His neck grew hot beneath his collar. “Miss Winters …”
She must have heard it in his voice, because she quickly lowered her hands and stepped back. “Oh. You … don’t know how.”
Most of her friends still watched them, some of them murmuring behind their hands. Were they laughing at him?
Was she laughing at him?
He thought again of another girl. Another party. One where he’d been paraded around and humiliated.
Gideon thought he’d extinguished that shame. But it flared now like glowing embers.
Harrow was mistaken. Gideon had no chance in hell of successfully courting a girl like Rune. He’d just arrived and was already embarrassing her. When she realized he had no wealth or grand estate—he’d given his spoils of war to Alex after the revolution—she would join in their laughing, if she hadn’t already.
He needed to salvage this.
Remembering Harrow’s advice, he closed the distance between them. “If we were at a different type of party,” he said, close to Rune’s ear, “I
could give you a different answer.”
Another memory seeped up, filling his mind with the fast-paced melody of a fiddle. He could see his little sister in her cotton nightgown, still awake despite it being far past her bedtime. The humidity of the kitchens made her hair curl and stick to her sweaty skin as she danced with the dishwashers, cotton towels tucked into their waistbands. The cook, cheeks pink from the ovens, stood in the corner slashing his bow across his fiddle as the palace staff clapped and stomped and passed around a skin of ale before joining in the dancing themselves.
Sweet memories were rare for Gideon. This one almost made him smile.
But as the memory faded and the flickering lights of the room around him came back into focus, he remembered that Tessa wasn’t here. He’d buried his little sister deep in the earth, where she’d never dance again.
Because of a witch.
Remembering where he was, and who stood before him—a girl who might be a witch in disguise, a girl who loved to be the center of attention— he said, “I seem to have scandalized your guests. I wonder if we should give them something more to discuss?”
Rune turned her face to his, clearly intrigued. “What did you have in mind?”
Getting you alone.
Alone, she would be vulnerable.
“Care to give me a private tour of your home?” It would provide him with the opportunity to search not only Rune for evidence of witchcraft, but also her house.
A smile curled her pretty mouth. “Of course. I should have offered.”
Her hand slid into his, surprising him. She was smaller than he’d realized, her palm nearly half the size of his.
“Come with me.”
Gideon let her plunge them through the murmuring guests, scattering their gossip like moths. For such a small thing, her grip was startlingly strong as she led him to the grand staircase on the other side of the room. Letting go of his hand, she started upward, leading them out of the noisy ballroom.
He was halfway up the steps behind her when a familiar voice called from below.
“Gideon?”
With one hand on the railing, Gideon froze, then turned to find his brother standing at the bottom of the stairs. Alex had discarded his suit jacket somewhere in the room, revealing brown suspenders over a crisp white shirt. His eyes flickered to Rune at the top of the steps, and back to Gideon, who stood between them, then lowered to the pale blue ribbon tied around Gideon’s wrist.
“What are you doing here?” Alex demanded. “You hate parties.”
“Not all parties,” said Gideon, thinking again of the ones he and his sister used to attend after midnight in the palace kitchens.
“This kind, you do. Which means you’re here hunting.” “Rune invited me,” said Gideon, a little defensive.
“No doubt.” Alex’s eyes narrowed on Rune. To her, he said, “I’d like to claim my dance now.”
Gideon glanced back to find Rune’s eyes full of bullets, all directed at Alex.
Sweet Mercy. What had he walked into?
Rune clearly did not want to dance with Alex. And if she truly was the Moth, Gideon didn’t want his brother anywhere near her.
“She’s already promised me a tour of the estate,” he said.
“I’ll give you a tour,” said Alex, moving up the steps. “After I dance with Rune.”
His brother wasn’t even looking at him; his icy glare locked with Rune’s.
This was not a battle he wanted to be in the middle of. But if Gideon hoped to convince Rune he was truly vying for her affection, he needed to stake his claim. Doing so would drive a wedge between him and his brother, and there was already a sizable fissure in their bond, one cracked open years ago that had been growing wider ever since.
He thought of the casting signatures on Rune’s cargo ship.
I couldn’t protect Tessa, he thought, watching Alex. But I can still protect you.
He was about to cut his brother off when Rune herself stepped between them. Alex stood on the stair below hers, peering down at her.
“The song is already over, Alex. You’ll have to wait until next time.”
Before he could argue with her, Rune turned and left both brothers behind, her rust-colored gown shimmering as she went. At the top of the stairs, she glanced over her shoulder, eyes glittering in the gaslight. It was darker there, and the shadows sharpened her edges.
“Coming, Gideon?”
He paused, shooting an apologetic glance back at Alex.
I’m doing this for you.
But his brother didn’t look wounded. He looked worried.
Exactly who Alex was worried about, Rune or Gideon, was hard to decipher. And he didn’t have time to figure it out. Fixing his attention on the task at hand—unmasking the Crimson Moth—Gideon quickly caught up to Rune. Together they left the party, and Alex, behind.
