GIDEON
GUARDS GRABBED GIDEON’S ARMS and hauled him to his feet, locking his wrists into manacles behind his back.
Cressida approached. Her hair was damp, as if she’d ridden through a storm to get here. And her gaze was a knife plunged into his chest. Gideon’s pain vanished, replaced by a numbing fear.
This was his worst nightmare come to life.
Cressida glanced from him to Rune, who held Gideon’s gun and was still aiming it at him. A question flared in the young witch queen’s eyes, but she didn’t voice it. Only held out her hand to the guards, demanding the key to his chains.
“Ava, I need you,” Cress told the young woman who’d come in with her. “Everyone else: get out.”
Gideon recognized the girl who stepped forward: Ava Saers. A witch and former scar artist to the Rosebloods. During the Sister Queens’ reign, wealthy witches employed scar artists—talented artisans adept at cutting casting scars to form beautiful patterns in a witch’s skin. The Roseblood sisters liked to carve each other’s scars, but would partake of Ava’s artistry on special occasions. He remembered watching Ava carve with almost delicate ease into their skin.
She was one of the first witches the Crimson Moth had stolen from his holding cells.
Ava’s auburn hair was knotted fashionably to one side of her head, and her sapphire gown shimmered in the candlelight as she walked toward her queen. She must have been a guest at the recital tonight.
How many other witches is Soren giving sanctuary to?
After popping open her sequined clutch, Ava withdrew a small knife.
Cressida unclasped her cloak and let it fall to the floor, giving Gideon an unobstructed view of both arms. Silver scars covered every inch of her skin, each one painfully familiar to Gideon. Like a garden of flowers starting at her wrists and twining upward, growing toward her shoulders.
Ava pressed the knife to Cressida’s skin and started to cut, adding petals to a lily in the botanical pattern.
The smell of Cressida’s magic bloomed in the air: the coppery tang of blood mingled with the sickly sweet scent of roses.
When Ava finished, Cress dipped her fingers into the blood seeping up. Gideon blanched as the witch queen crouched, smearing bright red spellmarks across the floor before him. Magic thickened the air, making him nauseous as her spell took hold.
Thick, invisible ivy crawled up his legs, securing him to the floor. The magic didn’t stop there: it climbed up his arms and chest and shoulders. Immobilizing him.
Gideon strained against the spell. His muscles bunched and his teeth clenched. As if his will alone could break the bonds of her magic. But the more he struggled, the tighter it bound him.
Cressida’s spell held him fast.
You deserve this.
If he hadn’t hesitated at the sight of Rune’s tears, if he’d simply pulled the trigger, he’d be riding back to Caelis right now, his mission accomplished.
Cressida rose to her feet and walked toward Gideon before pausing. “Rune?” She glanced over her shoulder. “Did you hear what I said?”
Gideon looked past the witch queen to find Rune still in the room, standing a few paces beyond them. She seemed frozen in place, the pistol in her hands trained on him, her gray eyes unreadable.
Their gazes locked. An invisible charge electrified the air.
End this. Put me out of my misery.
She knew what Cress had done to him in the past. She knew what Cress would do to him now.
“Rune.” He stared her down, pleading. “Shoot.”
Her eyes were a raging storm. If she pulled the trigger, it would not be out of pity but something much stronger.
Cressida stepped between them. “Give Ava the pistol.”
Like a severed thread, the command snapped Rune out of whatever thoughts ensnared her.
“The pistol, Rune.”
Rune glanced down at the gun in her hands. And then, like a good little foot soldier, she handed it over to Ava.
She didn’t look at Gideon again. Just turned and walked away, shards of glass crunching beneath her shoes. The door swung shut behind her, leaving Gideon alone with Cressida and her scar artist.
Like she didn’t care at all.
Ava walked to the sink and set his gun down on its ceramic edge, then stared into the mirror as she fixed her makeup.
“Look at us. Reunited at last.”
He tore his gaze from the door Rune had exited, returning his attention to the enemy in the room. Cressida Roseblood was beautiful—in a cold, terrifying way. Like being lost in a blizzard, knowing it was going to kill you.
Blood dripped down her arm and smudged the fingers of her hand. She stopped a foot away from Gideon and drew out her casting knife. Pressing its flat, crescent edge beneath his chin, she forced his gaze to hers.
Running the edge of the blade down his throat, she said: “Did you come to Larkmont alone?”
His mouth went dry. “Yes.”
She walked around him, trailing the knife across his shoulders, stopping at his back. He felt her slip the key into his manacles, then twist. The chains rattled to the floor.
He tried to reach for the knife, for her, but his freed hands were still bound by her spell.
Cressida continued circling, dragging her blade over his body, until she faced him once more. Hooking her knife into the collar of his stolen jacket, she tugged downward, popping open the top button. Gideon heard the rip of his undershirt beneath.
His heart pounded.
“And your purpose here?”
“To assassinate Rune Winters.”
She continued, popping the next jacket button, tearing his undershirt further. “Why?”
Gideon swallowed. “To stop her from securing an alliance between you and Soren Nord.”
“And was she happy to see you?”
Gideon paused, not understanding the question.
Cressida sliced swiftly downward, cutting open the jacket and the shirt beneath. The fabric fell open, revealing Gideon’s chest.
The corner of her mouth curled as her gaze slid from his throat down.
He knew that look. It made him break out in a cold sweat. “You stole everything from me, Gideon.”
“I’m pretty sure it was the other way around.” “I want to forgive you. I do.”
Forgive him?
“After you murdered my sisters, I wanted you to suffer. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I’d do to you, once I had you in my hands again. And I’ve realized … well, I’m indebted to you.”
He stared at her. Had she gone mad?
Cressida took his jaw in her grip, forcing him to look at her. Her ice- blue eyes chilled him to his core.
“You made me realize how much I took my sisters for granted. How much I need them. Elowyn, Analise, and I are so much stronger together. Which is why”—she bared her teeth in a smile—“I’m going to bring them back.”
She’d definitely gone mad.
“Your sisters are nothing but bones in the ground.” He didn’t know this for certain. Analise and Elowyn’s bodies went missing in the chaos of the New Dawn. People had assumed the corpses were stolen and defiled or thrown into the mass graves reserved for witches killed in the revolution.
“Oh, Gideon.” Cressida laughed. “You think I’d let my sisters rot?” She shook her head, sending her pale hair scattering like snow. “I hid their bodies somewhere safe. For two years, I’ve kept them preserved with magic.”
“That’s not possible.”
But this was Cressida Roseblood. He knew exactly what she was capable of.
“A resurrection spell simply requires the sacrifice of a close kin— someone with strong blood ties to the deceased.” She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. “I could do it in my sleep.”
“Your entire family is dead,” Gideon pointed out. “You don’t have any kin.”
“Oh, but it turns out I do.” He frowned. What?
“A long-lost sibling.” She smiled. “Unfortunately, I don’t know who or where they are. All the sibyls in my employ can’t See them. Someone’s concealed them with an ancient spell—for now.”
A missing Roseblood heir?
Dread filled his chest like lead. Cressida alone was one thing. She might retake her throne, but she’d struggle to hold it by herself. With the purgings, witch numbers had drastically declined. People remembered the tyranny at the Reign of Witches’ end, and they would not welcome its return. She’d have to use force and fear—which was precisely why she needed Soren’s army.
Does Rune know about this?
Elowyn and Analise were the more powerful—and the more vicious— Roseblood sisters. They had tortured Gideon’s mother and were the reason both his parents were dead. If Cressida resurrected them, it would mean the return of all three witch queens. Together, they would end the New Republic.
“But enough about that.” Cressida’s hands coasted up the lapels of Gideon’s jacket, pushing it and his tattered shirt back over his shoulders and down his arms, staring all the while at the brand seared into his pectoral.
Her brand.
“Let’s talk about us. I’m doing this for your own good, Gideon.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” he said, trying to figure out what this was. “In order to forgive you, I need to trust you.”
She came closer, until only a sliver of space separated them. Gideon’s entire body tensed against her closeness, her spell holding him fast.
“And in order to trust you, I need to ensure you’re mine.” She traced her casting knife softly over his exposed collarbones. “Mine alone.”
He could not revert to past Gideon—the pathetic boy who crawled back to her night after night. Like an abused dog returning to its master, hoping maybe this time, he would get kindness instead of a kick in the ribs.
You’re not that Gideon anymore.
That Gideon had no choice but to submit to her. The lives of those he loved were in her hands.
“You can’t escape me,” she said. “Even when we were apart, I’ve haunted your every step. Prowled your every dream. Haven’t I?”
Gideon gave a tight smile. “In truth, I never think of you.”
“Liar.” Her mouth snarled. She pressed her knife back to his throat. “A horse once broken can be broken again. By dawn, I’ll have you begging for me. Just like the old days.”
The thought of it scared him more than anything.
Gideon stared her down, trying to conceal his fear. “Do what you like to me. I won’t grovel to you again.”
Where had he learned to lie, so boldly, to his enemy’s face? Perhaps he’d learned it from Rune.
“Everyone I love is dead,” he said as she pressed the cold steel of her knife to his skin. “You have nothing left to bind me to you.”
Cressida’s eyes glittered like ice. “If that were true, you’d have shot the Crimson Moth and walked out of Larkmont before anyone noticed her missing.”
He frowned. What?
“I see the way you look at her, Gideon. You once looked at me the same way.”
Gideon nearly laughed. “At Rune? You’re mistaken.”
“Rarely.” Her voice flattened. “I’m not blind. Rune is beautiful. I understand why you’d be tempted.”
Tempted?
“I’m the opposite of tempted. My feelings for Rune are as dead as my feelings for you.”
Cressida smiled. “Fine. I’ll play along.” She pressed her hands to his bare chest. He couldn’t tell if her skin was cold as a corpse, or if that was just the effect she had on him. “Just remember: I don’t need you willing, Gideon. I only need you obedient. And I will have your obedience…”
She pressed her palm to the brand seared into his pectoral.
“I left something here, the day I branded you.” She tapped her fingertips against the raised edge of the scar: a rose inside a crescent moon. Her insignia. “A spell I intended to activate long before now, but never got the chance.”
She leaned in and pressed her lips against the scar.
Gideon shivered, his body wanting to recoil. But no matter what she did, he couldn’t fight back.
“This is going to hurt,” she murmured.
Hurt was an understatement.
Pain flooded Gideon like lightning. Scorching hot. Bright white. As if she were branding him all over again. Only this time, there was no red-hot iron pulled from the fire and held to his skin. No burning flesh.
But the pain was just as intense.
One minute, Gideon was trying not to flinch. The next, he was screaming.
It seemed endless, this fire. Burning him from the inside out. Making him wish for death—or at the very least, the vicious stab of Rune’s knee between his legs. That pain was nothing compared to this.
Rune.
He latched onto the memory of her. The defiant tilt of her chin. The lash of her insults. The whiskey bottle sailing toward his head.
It was nonsensical. They hated each other. But the moment Gideon tried to focus on something else, the pain rushed in again, overwhelming him.
So when the pain grew to agony, his mind sharpened on Rune alone. The smell of her skin; the alcohol on her breath; the heat of her pressed between him and the wall.
But soon, not even the memory of her was enough, and the fire spread, devouring Rune, burning her out of him.
Only when Gideon begged for death did it stop.
Cressida pulled her hand away and the pain dissolved. Gideon would have collapsed if not for the spell fixing him in place. Sweat beaded his hairline and dripped down his back. His entire body shook from the pain.
At the sink, Ava still faced the mirror, reapplying her makeup. Cressida stepped closer.
“Tell me you missed me,” she whispered, running the tip of her finger down the center of his chest. “Tell me you never stopped thinking about me.”
Gideon tried to slow his racing heartbeat. Tried to remain calm. Whatever happened, whatever pain she inflicted on him, he could not give in to her. He needed to be made of cold hard iron this time, not flesh.
Her eyes flashed like shards of ice. “You can have my love, Gideon. Or you can have my wrath.”
Is there a difference?
Sliding her arms around his neck, she pressed herself against him, lifting her mouth to his. “What’s it to be, darling?”
Gideon stared at the wall behind her, trying to prepare himself for what was coming. If he hardened himself, if he willed himself to feel nothing—to be as emotionless as the pistol resting on the sink—it wouldn’t matter what she did.
“Will you come to me willing, or shall I force you?”
