GIDEON
“ALL WITCHES ARE TO be shot on sight.”
Gideon stood against the wall, watching as junior soldiers ran back and forth, packing crates of Noah’s belongings to bring from Wintersea to the Rookery, where the army was headed.
“Do not hesitate. Do not give them the benefit of the doubt.”
Gideon watched the small council of ministers who’d managed to escape the capital confer with Noah around his dining room table.
Rune’s dining room table, he corrected himself.
Gideon rubbed at the manacles chafing his wrists, prompting the soldiers on either side of him to glance his way.
One of them—a young man named Felix—had enlisted when he was just sixteen. He was a scrawny little thing with fiery red hair. No one believed he’d survive the first week of training. Gideon remembered Laila and some of the others placing bets on when he’d pack up and go home.
Gideon had watched as the other recruits beat the boy into the dirt again and again. But Felix always got up, battered and swaying on his feet. Determined to prove them wrong.
So Gideon had taken him aside and trained him himself. That was a year ago.
Now he’s my jailer.
He supposed it could be worse. They could have left him in that cell for Cressida to find. They could have killed him on the road for his crimes.
Instead, they’d kept him alive. With Cressida on the throne, Gideon was a valuable asset. He knew the witch queen intimately, could predict her behavior—or so they hoped.
But Gideon had also proven himself sympathetic to witches. So they couldn’t exactly trust him, either.
Hence the chains. And the guards.
“You need to leave within the hour, sir.” Aila Woods, the former minister of public safety, looked haggard from nights spent trying to organize their scattered numbers and get them to a safer location. They’d decided on the Rookery—an old citadel on the island’s western coast. It had been abandoned half a century ago, but was still heavily fortified. “Prince Nord’s army has ransacked the estates closer to the capital. They’ll come for Wintersea any day now.”
“Yes, yes, I’m aware.” Noah looked equally tired, his face lit by the dim glow of a lantern.
Reports of executions came daily, and morale was lower than ever. They’d lost a lot of soldiers, and the only weapons and ammunition in their possession were what they’d carried out. If they had any hope of stopping what was coming, they needed to regroup, acquire more arms, and launch a counterattack.
Which was why they were retreating to the coast.
“I’ll make sure my brother gets out in time,” Laila told Aila. She stood to the side, arms crossed as she glanced at the map of the Rookery laid out across the table. “You all should leave now. Take the back roads. Soren’s soldiers have been spotted twenty miles up the main one.”
Thump!
Gideon looked to the ceiling, where the sound had come from. From his previous visits to Wintersea, he knew the bedrooms lay directly above them.
“Did you hear that?” he asked his guards. They exchanged a look between them. “Hear what, sir?” said Felix.
Both were younger than him and clearly nervous. He was Gideon Sharpe, after all. Former Blood Guard captain, not to mention a hero of the Republic who’d killed two witch queens in the revolt.
Gideon glanced at the emergency meeting happening around the table, but the conversation continued unabated. Neither Noah nor his ministers
had heard the sound.
Laila, however, glanced his way.
So I’m not hearing things.
He raised an eyebrow, motioning with his chin toward the ceiling.
Going to check that out?
Perhaps it was a clumsy soldier packing Noah’s belongings. Or perhaps it was something more insidious.
Grabbing a lantern, Laila crossed the room to him. “That noise—did you hear it too?” She looked to the ceiling. But no sounds were forthcoming.
He nodded. “Could be a bandit.”
In the aftermath of Cressida’s attack, estates had been ransacked, not just by Soren’s army but by thieves hoping to fill their pockets with valuables. From the frown creasing her brow, though, Laila wasn’t worried about bandits. She was worried about something worse.
“I know this house better than you do,” he said. “Take me up with you.”
Laila studied Gideon in the glow of her lantern. She might trust him more than the other soldiers, but not by much.
“I’m not going to run off and join Cressida,” he told her. “I’d rather drown myself in the sea.”
Laila breathed in. “Fine.” She turned to Felix and held out her hand. “I’m borrowing the prisoner. Give me his keys.”
Since Laila was acting captain, Felix did as she said. He seemed relieved to hand Gideon over, honestly.
After Laila removed his manacles, Gideon followed her out of the room and up the staircase to the second floor. The gaslights were off, plunging the main hallway into darkness.
“I’ll start at the far end,” said Gideon. “If you start here, we can meet in the middle.”
Laila nodded, stepping into the first bedroom and taking her lantern with her.
Gideon strode quietly down the dark hall. On his way to the end, he passed the door to Rune’s bedroom.
He’d made the calculation already, downstairs. The thump had come from this general area. But stronger than his knowledge of the house’s layout was a feeling in the pit of his gut.
A knowing.
Gideon stepped inside Rune’s bedroom.
It still smelled like her. Like the wind and the sea and the rain. Like something wild and untamable. He breathed it in.
In the moonlight flooding through the windows, he searched the room quickly. The floorboards creaked beneath his weight as he checked closets and the space beneath the bed. But there was no one here.
Gideon was about to turn and leave when he remembered the false wall. He turned to face it.
Beyond the wall lay Rune’s casting room. Discovering it was what had led Gideon to realize she was the Crimson Moth.
Gideon pressed his hands to the wallpaper, feeling for the crack. When he found it, he pushed in, and the latch clicked.
The wall swung open.
The smoke of a freshly extinguished candle wafted out.
Gotcha.
Gideon stepped into the room …
… where a blunt object whacked him over the head.
