RUNE
RUNE WAITED THREE HOURS for Gideon to show up. When the sun set and there was still no sign of him, she rocked Meadow to sleep and put her in his bed. Then she found the closet where Gideon kept several spare weapons and boxes full of bullets. She loaded two guns and set them down on the table, in easy reach. In case the Blood Guard showed up.
This was a terrible idea. She drummed her fingers against her leg as she paced. What was he thinking?
What was she thinking?
I shouldn’t have left him.
What if he didn’t make it out alive?
When another half hour passed and the apartment grew dark, Rune lit several candles to see by. She considered leaving the sleeping Meadow with a neighbor so she could find out what happened to Gideon and rescue him if need be.
Footsteps on the stairs made her freeze. Rune picked up one of the loaded pistols and aimed it at the door, her body buzzing as she listened to the sound of a key turning in the latch.
Rune’s grip tightened on the gun.
But when the door swung open, Gideon stood in the frame.
The sight of him undid every knot in her body. She let out a breath, glancing to the dried blood on his jacket.
Gideon’s gaze swept down her, pausing at the pistol lowered to her side. “Are you all right?”
“Am I all right?” Rune started for him, drawn like a magnet. Wanting to fling her arms around him and hug him tight. “Are you hurt? How—”
A woman stepped out from behind him. Rune halted.
The woman’s clothes hung off her thin frame, as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks, and her hair hung in limp strings down her back and shoulders. Beneath the grime, Rune guessed her hair was a deep shade of coppery red. Her sunken eyes frantically scanned the room.
“Where’s Meadow?”
Oh.
This was Aurelia Kantor.
“She’s sleeping,” said Rune. “In the bedroom.”
She pointed to Gideon’s room. The sibyl swept past her, disappearing through the doorway beyond.
As Gideon shut the door, Rune went to him. “How did you get out?”
“I surrendered to the guards.” He studied the long skirt and blouse she’d changed into—fit for riding long distances. In her anxious state, she’d forgotten to button the cuffs of her sleeves. Noticing, he tugged off his riding gloves, tucked them into his pocket, and buttoned them for her—first one wrist, then the other. “They brought me to Laila. After that, it was simply a matter of talking my way out.”
That’s it? But of course it was probably all part of his plan to betray her.
Before she could press him, the floorboards creaked behind them.
Rune turned to find Aurelia cradling Meadow as she emerged from the bedroom.
“The captain says you wanted to see me,” said Aurelia.
Realizing how close she and Gideon stood, Rune quickly stepped back, turning away from him. But it was too late. The expression on the sibyl’s face said she’d noticed precisely what Rune hadn’t wanted her to.
Rune cleared her throat. “That’s right.” She set her pistol down on the table and paused. Hadn’t she loaded two? She scanned the room, looking for the second gun.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Rune Winters. Our enemies”—Rune glanced at Gideon
—“call me the Crimson Moth.”
“The Crimson Moth?” Aurelia’s eyebrows arched. “Well, if we’re playing games, then I’m the witch queen herself.”
She didn’t believe Rune.
It wouldn’t have mattered, except Rune needed her trust. And her help. So she slid her casting knife from its sheath at her thigh beneath her skirt. Nicking her skin, Rune drew the symbol for Torch on her open palm. A flame ignited several inches above it, and a few seconds later, over Rune’s head, a casting mark appeared in the air, shaped like a blood-red moth.
“Proof enough for you?”
The skeptical look on Aurelia’s face vanished.
Rune fisted her hand, smudging the mark, and the flame extinguished. “What do you want from me?” said Aurelia, glancing between her and
Gideon.
“I need your help with a summoning spell.”
The spell was a Majora, which meant Rune needed the blood of someone else—given willingly—to cast it. Hers alone wouldn’t suffice.
“And why should I help you?” asked Aurelia, kissing Meadow’s cheek, holding on tight as the child clung to her.
“To make amends for all the deaths you’re responsible for?” suggested Rune.
The sibyl’s eyes flashed.
“And because if you help me, I can get you and Meadow safely off this island.”
She saw Aurelia silently making the calculation. It was too good an offer to refuse, and they both knew it.
“How soon?”
“That depends on you, I suppose. The spell can only be cast from one location, and it will take several hours to ride there.”
“I’m ready when you are,” said Aurelia. Rune nodded. “Then let’s go.”
But as Aurelia turned for the door, clutching Meadow to her, Gideon stepped in front of it. His attention fixed on the sibyl. “You’re forgetting something.”
Aurelia glared at him. “And what’s that?”
“I promised to deliver your child safely to you. You promised me answers.”
“Don’t you think you’ve tormented me enough?” she said, trying to go around him.
Gideon crossed his arms over his chest, blocking her way. “We had a deal, Aurelia.”
Rune glanced from one to the other. This was why he had helped rescued Meadow? Not because it was the right thing to do, but because he’d been promised something in exchange?
Her mouth soured.
“If you think I owe you anything—” “What deal?” interrupted Rune.
Gideon glanced at her. That’s all it took—a second’s distraction—for Aurelia to act. The witch drew the missing gun and pressed the barrel under Gideon’s chin.
He froze as she cocked it. Which was when Rune realized he was unarmed. All Aurelia had to do was pull the trigger—and from the look on her face, she would do it with relish.
“I’ll give you one minute to say your goodbyes, Captain.”
With the gun’s barrel still pressed beneath his chin, Gideon held Rune’s gaze, his jaw clenched.
Aurelia’s next move was plain on her face. She was going to shoot Gideon and leave him for dead. It was safest that way. If he was dead, he couldn’t follow them.
Rune agreed with Aurelia’s logic. And if it were any other witch hunter barring the door, she might have done it herself.
But it was Gideon.
Even though he was plotting to betray her, even though he would try to follow them—she knew he would—Rune couldn’t let him die.
He was Alex’s brother.
He’d been tortured and cursed by a cruel witch queen.
More importantly: she loved him, despite a million reasons not to.
So before Aurelia fired, Rune reached for the second gun, still on the table, and aimed it straight at the witch.
Aurelia shot her a startled look. “Stupid girl!” Her eyes burned like green fire. “Whatever he’s made you believe, it isn’t true.” Aurelia cradled Meadow with one arm, still holding the gun beneath Gideon’s chin. “He’s going to betray you. He has no other choice. If he lets you go, they’ll execute him.”
Execute him?
The words rippled through Rune.
She knew the laws had changed. There was no longer leniency for sympathizing with witches. But execution?
Aurelia pressed the gun harder, forcing Gideon’s chin upward.
Rune lifted her second hand to her own gun, gripping it tightly. Keeping it trained on Aurelia. To Gideon, she said: “Step away from the door.”
With his hands in the air, Gideon glanced at Aurelia, as if he suspected she’d shoot him anyway. But her child was in the line of fire; she wouldn’t risk it. Or so Rune hoped.
Slowly he backed away from her.
To Aurelia, Rune said: “Take Meadow downstairs and wait for me outside.”
Aurelia scowled her disapproval, pushed open the door with her hip, then stepped out, leaving Rune and Gideon alone.
Rune lowered the gun.
“I heard your conversation with William in the cargo hold,” she said. “I know what you’re planning. You’re going to follow me, kill the Roseblood heir, then arrest me so you can barter with Soren. Do you deny it?”
Gideon dragged his hands through his hair, turning it into a ragged mess.
“No,” he said, heaving a sigh. “I don’t deny it.”
“Is that still your plan?” she asked him. After everything?
He dropped his hands to his sides. “What would you have me do, Rune? Let you escape? If our positions were reversed, you’d be planning the same.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true.”
“No?” He stepped toward her. At his proximity, a tiny bell rang in alarm: danger, danger. “Then tell me, what would you do?”
Rune stepped back. “I already told you. I’m going to find the last living Roseblood and get them away from Cressida. Then I’m going to break off the engagement with Soren and sever the alliance.”
“And if it doesn’t work? If Soren decides he has a taste for war despite your broken promises? If Cressida hunts you and this Roseblood down and drags you both back?”
“I…”
His presence scrambled her thoughts. “I … don’t know.”
“Because you don’t have to know,” he growled at her. “All three witch queens back on their thrones would be a boon to you—not horror and misery. If it’s a Reign of Terror for everyone else, what’s that to you … right, Rune?”
That wasn’t true or fair.
“What am I supposed to do? Side with you?” She raised the gun again, keeping it cocked and ready to fire. The way he’d shown her. “You want me dead, just like every other Blood Guard soldier.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off. “Not every witch is a monster, Gideon. Most of us aren’t.”
He took another step. Rune narrowed her eyes. If he came much closer, she’d be forced to shoot.
“And yet,” he growled, “you did nothing while people suffered under witches like Cressida. None of you did.”
Rune swallowed. This was true. She might not have known the kinds of cruelty suffered by people like Gideon and countless others at the hands of powerful witches. But her grandmother surely had, as had Nan’s friends, all of whom Rune had admired.
Too many witches had done nothing when they should have stood against it.
“Should I hand myself over in penance?” she asked him. “Give you the honor of marching me to the purging platform?”
Gideon looked away, as if remembering he’d done exactly that.
Aurelia was right. She still couldn’t trust him. He was still planning to betray her.
He was in too deep not to.
If Gideon let Rune save the witches she’d come here to save, if he let Rune escape, he would betray everything he believed in—his friends and fellow soldiers, the citizens he’d sworn to protect, the Republic he’d fought so hard for.
Rune wasn’t a fool. He wouldn’t choose her over all of that. If he did, they would kill him.
It didn’t matter what he’d admitted in the yellow house. None of it mattered. Rune knew he would never choose her. He couldn’t. Not even if he wanted to.
The thought sobered her. Sharpened her.
This is almost over.
All she needed to do was stay a few steps ahead. For a few hours longer. Rune kept her gun aimed at his chest.
This is where we part ways.
“Don’t try to follow me,” she said.
Gideon said nothing. But Rune read him as easily as he read her, and the look in his eyes said: I wish I could say that I won’t.
