RUNE
THEY BROKE INTO THE Wentholt family’s summer home.
Well, technically, they walked in. The back door was unlocked.
After escaping Wintersea, Rune agreed with Gideon it was the safest place at the moment—the cottage was tucked away in the woods, far from the main roads, and likely the family had already fled. With any luck, they’d be able to get supplies and tend his wounds before moving on.
Gideon was eerily quiet as she helped him through the Wentholts’ house, searching for first aid supplies. The ashen hue of his face worried Rune, who knew her spell would wear off soon. She could recast it, but what he really needed was someone to dig out the bullets, then sanitize and stitch up the wounds.
In the empty servants’ quarters, Rune lowered Gideon into a chair to rest and then rifled through cupboards, trying to find what she needed. Torch blazed overhead, the white flame following her as she searched drawers and boxes.
Her body buzzed with panic. There was nothing here. She was about to go look in the kitchens, where she might find a cleaner, sharper knife to dig out the bullets. But then what? She needed to disinfect the wounds somehow. She needed a needle and thread to stitch them closed.
Rune cursed herself for not learning more healing spells. If she got the chance, she would correct that.
She was crossing the room toward Gideon when the sound of voices stopped her in her tracks. Rune smudged the spellmark on her hand, extinguishing Torch and plunging them into darkness.
A man laughed—a low, husky sound.
“I don’t care,” said the other voice. “Let the bastards find us. I’ll fight them all off. For you, I’d…”
A low groan cut him off, followed by the sound of a belt buckle hitting the floor.
Rune glanced at Gideon in the dark, her face heating. Were they…?
Was this…?
The gaslights flickered on.
Two young men entered the room—both in the midst of undressing, their hair messy, their lips swollen from kissing—and froze at the sight of intruders.
“Bart?” said Rune, staring at the redheaded boy whose unbuttoned shirt gave them a full view of his chest.
“Rune?” said Bart, his mouth falling open as he looked from her to Gideon.
Rune drew the gun at Gideon’s hip and raised it. “Call for help, and I’ll shoot you both.”
The young man beside Bart lifted his hands in surrender. He was shorter and stockier than the Wentholt heir, his complexion darker, and unlike Bart
—who was wearing a three-piece suit in complete disarray—he wore plain clothes.
“I thought you were dead,” said Bart, raising his hands. “Both of you.” Bartholomew Wentholt had always been the silliest boy at every party.
His obsession with himself and his constant bragging about his newest purchases—be they shoes or carriages or tea sets—got him easily dismissed. Bart was the heir to a massive estate, and therefore an excellent catch for any girl looking to increase her station, but his annoying personality put off most families.
Rune studied Bart from across the room. Perhaps it was his disheveled state, but she found someone very different from that empty-headed aristo staring back at her.
“Who else is in the house?” asked Gideon, who hadn’t risen from his chair. Likely because the act of doing so would put him on the floor.
“My maid, Bess,” said Bart. “No one else.”
“And who knows you’re here?” Bart shook his head. “No one.”
Rune glanced to the young man at his side. He’d been utterly silent since entering the room. “Who’s this?”
“This—”
“Antonio Bastille.” The boy interrupted Bart. “I’m a cook employed by the Wentholts. What’s wrong with him?” He nodded toward Gideon, who looked like he was trying very hard not to fall out of his chair.
“He’s been shot. We hoped to find supplies here.”
Antonio dropped his hands to his sides. “I’m trained in the healing arts.
I can help him.”
His way of speaking was too formal for a cook, and a little strange. Rune couldn’t place it. She tightened her grip on the gun, unsure if she should trust him. But Gideon needed help—desperately—and thus far she hadn’t been able to provide it. Hesitantly, she lowered her pistol and stepped aside, nodding for Antonio to approach.
She kept her finger on the trigger. “If you hurt him—”
“I took an oath before the Ancients,” said Antonio, rolling up his sleeves as he came forward. “I can’t hurt any living thing. Can you help me take off his coat?”
“Antonio was an acolyte,” said Bart as Antonio undid Gideon’s buttons. “From the Temple of the Ancients.”
It was where Rune had tried to summon the Roseblood heir. The same temple that had been destroyed during the revolution and its acolytes either killed or driven underground.
Had Antonio been there the day the Blood Guard stormed the temple?
Had he seen the slaughter with his own eyes?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s horrible, what they did.”
Antonio only nodded, silent, as he finished unbuttoning Gideon’s coat. Rune helped lean Gideon forward, and together they carefully stripped off the blood-soaked coat. The white shirt underneath was stained red.
“What’s this?” Antonio touched Gideon’s neck, where Rune had drawn spellmarks to stop his bleeding. He glanced up, staring at her. “You’re a
witch?”
“Got a problem with that?” growled Gideon.
As if he could do anything about it in his weakened state.
Antonio only nodded in approval. “He would have bled out had you not cast this,” he told Rune. “You saved his life.”
He sounded genuinely pleased. That pleasure—at her skill and at Gideon being alive—reassured Rune. She took her finger off the trigger and set the gun down on the table. “How can I help?”
“You can help me take off his shirt. Bart, can you boil some water? And fetch a bottle of the strongest spirits we have in the house.”
Rune moved to pick up the gun again and tell Bart to stay right where he was, because what was to stop him from sending a message to the Commander—or worse, Cressida? What was to stop him from simply fetching a weapon of his own and killing them both?
But Antonio touched her arm, and the gesture was so gentle, it coaxed Rune’s attention back to him.
“We all need to trust each other.” He nodded to the empty doorway where Bart had stood a moment ago. “You are in a position to damn him as much as he is to damn you.”
Rune assumed he was talking about their relationship, which was obviously far more than master and cook.
“He’s tried very hard to put people off him—young eligible women especially—to keep us a secret,” explained Antonio.
Rune studied the acolyte, who obviously lacked the two things aristocrats like Bart Wentholt required in a partner: the ability to give him heirs, and the ability to advance his position in society. For this reason, Bart and Antonio could never marry. And if they were found out, the Wentholts would likely force their son to marry some girl against his will. If he refused, they could disown him outright.
“You’ve just exposed what he’s successfully kept hidden for years,” said Antonio.
“I see,” said Rune.
Had it all been an act, then? Had Bart Wentholt merely pretended to be a shallow, narcissistic airhead to repel courtship attempts?
If so, Rune applauded him. He’d certainly fooled her—and she was a master of pretending to be something she wasn’t.
Bart returned a few minutes later with not only boiled water and spirits but a kit of supplies. Inside were tweezers, bandages, and a needle and thread—everything Rune had searched for and failed to find.
Gideon crossed his arms over the table and leaned his head against them as Antonio worked. He clenched his teeth as Antonio dug out the bullets and sanitized the wounds with alcohol. Rune crouched beside Gideon, holding his hand and letting him squeeze as hard as he needed when the pain was too much.
Finally, he was cleaned, stitched, and bandaged. Some color had even returned to his face. While Antonio cleaned the instruments and Rune washed her bloodied hands, Bart poured them all drinks from the bottle of whiskey he’d fetched.
Gideon declined. Rune followed suit, remembering what happened the last time she’d imbibed.
As Antonio pulled up a chair, Rune turned to Bart. “Where’s the rest of your family?”
“On the Continent. They sailed two weeks ago, to join my sister in Umbria. She’s married to a man from Caelis and begged them to come as soon as she heard rumors of war brewing.”
Rune nodded. Bart’s mother was a retired witch hunter; she would have been executed.
“Why didn’t you go with them?”
“I didn’t believe the rumors.” He looked at Antonio, eyes glittering in the gaslight. “Or maybe I did, and didn’t care.”
“I refused to leave,” said Antonio, filling in what Bart had left out. “This island is my home.”
And if Antonio wouldn’t leave, was the unspoken sentiment, neither would Bart.
A soft silence settled over them. The gaslights hummed on the walls, but they weren’t bright enough to fully light the room, leaving the four of them half in shadow.
“It’s only a matter of time before Cressida takes over the countryside,” said Rune, breaking the silence. “She’ll find this place. She’ll find both of you.”
Bart shrugged. “Where else are we supposed to go? Her soldiers already ransacked my family’s estate. This is all we have left.” He swirled his whiskey, then set down his glass. “I was never fond of the Republic, or the Rosebloods. I don’t care who wins in the end. I’m tired of hiding and pretending.” He glanced at the boy sitting next to him. “Antonio and I have decided to live out the rest of our days—however numbered—the way we’ve always wanted to: beside each other. No more hiding.”
Antonio gazed at him, the corners of his mouth turning up in a sad smile.
“What if they don’t have to be numbered?” said Gideon, breaking the silence.
Everyone turned to look at him.
“What if you could live a full life as you are, without repercussions?” Bart glanced away. “You’re speaking of a fairy tale.”
Rune had to agree.
But Antonio set down his drink and said, “I’m listening.” That small encouragement was all Gideon needed.
“This island has known tyranny for too long,” he said. “It’s time to try something new. A world where we can all live as equals.”
“You’re being naive,” said Rune. Gideon turned to look at her. “How so?”
“How are you going to bring this new world into existence? You have no army. No support. Meanwhile, Cressida has taken the capital, and the Blood Guard are regrouping, intending to take it back. Neither side wants a world where people like you and I live as equals. Either Cressida will win, or the Blood Guard will. And if it’s the former, you’ll be killed—or worse.” At the thought of what worse entailed, she glanced away. “If it’s the Blood Guard, I’ll be killed. Those are the only possible outcomes.”
Which was precisely why Rune intended to get on a train and ride it as far as she could, then pay someone to sail her‚ or just sail herself, away from here.
Gideon was silent for a long time, studying her in the lamplight. “You’re wrong.”
She frowned up at him. What?
“There’s a third possible outcome.”
He glanced across the table to the only person in the room eating up his words: Antonio.
“Most of us are sick of the options we’ve been handed. We don’t want to go back to being ruled by a corrupt dynasty of witches, but neither are we okay with the Republic’s authoritarian control. Deep down, we’re hungry for something else.” He glanced at Rune. “Those who say they aren’t are too scared to imagine such a world is possible. If they could be convinced, we would stand a chance.”
But Rune remembered the bloodthirsty mob cheering on Nan’s gruesome death. She remembered the witches in the throne room, all too happy to pledge their loyalty to Cressida, knowing full well what her reign would entail.
Rune could no longer think about Cressida without feeling the whip stripping flesh from her back or remembering the smell of her blood in the air. Or that horrifying moment when she realized Cressida wouldn’t stop lashing her until she was dead.
A tide of fear rose in Rune’s throat. Threatening to pull her out to a dark sea and drag her down to its depths.
Rune had known this kind of fear only once before: on the night she and Nan realized they couldn’t escape the new regime and the only way for Rune to survive was to turn her beloved grandmother in.
Rune pushed her chair out and strode from the room, gulping down air. Reminding herself it had been two years, and being turned in was what Kestrel wanted. That she had forgiven herself for the decisions she’d made in the past.
Besides, Cressida was far away. Rune was safe here.
But for how long?
“Rune.”
At the sound of his voice, she squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want him to see her like this: so scared, she couldn’t catch her breath.
Steeling herself, Rune turned to face him.
Gideon had followed her into the hall and stood with his hand planted against the wall, letting it hold him up. His face was haggard in the dim light.
She couldn’t leave him yet. It was her fault he’d been shot. So she’d wait. And then she’d do the safest thing for them both: disappear.
“Do you know any witches who might be willing to defy Cressida?” he asked.
She and Seraphine had been speaking of this very thing before she fled the palace. Now that Soren was dead, how many of his soldiers would stay and fight for Cressida? Not all. And those who did would expect payment, not promises.
Without Soren, her position was not as strong as it had been a few days ago.
“I could summon Seraphine.” She, at least, might be interested in hearing Gideon out. As for others … “I doubt the rest would risk themselves.”
Just like I won’t risk myself.
If Gideon wanted to get himself and everyone close to him killed, that was his business. Rune wasn’t getting involved.
Gideon nodded. “One is better than nothing.”
One? Against a legion of witches? Against an army of soldiers?
Had some sort of blood poisoning set in from those bullets, affecting his ability to think clearly?
She turned to face him fully. Perhaps she could talk him out of this. “Gideon. You and I both know there are only two possible paths here.
One leads to a malevolent witch queen; the other leads to an authoritarian regime. Alex was right: if we want to be free, the only option is to leave and never look back.”
“No,” said Gideon, pushing away from the wall. She saw what it cost him—the way he swayed; how his jaw clenched. “There’s a third path. You’re just refusing to consider it.”
Rune shook her head. “Trust me, I’ve considered every option.”
“This path doesn’t exist yet,” he said, stepping in close. “It needs to be forged.”
His words were making her teeth hurt.
“By who? You and me? Pitting ourselves against not one, but two armies? Have you gone completely mad?”
“Maybe.”
That tide of fear rushed up again, coming to drown her.
“I know you’re trying to be noble, but this isn’t the time,” she said. “You’re being foolish, and it’s going to get everyone you love killed.”
“And you,” he said, studying her in the darkness, “are letting your fear rule you.”
Rune’s hands fisted.
“Fear is the only response in this situation! If you hadn’t misplaced your brain somewhere between here and Wintersea, you’d be afraid, too!”
She turned on her heel.
“Cowardice doesn’t suit you, Crimson Moth.”
Her anger flared like red-hot embers. A coward, am I?
“I’d rather be a coward than a fool,” she said.
 |
AFTER STORMING OFF, RUNE was still fuming as she paced the rooftop gardens of Bart’s summer home, muttering angrily to herself.
Deep down, she knew Gideon was right: she was being a coward. But being a coward was the only way to stay alive, which was exactly what Rune intended to do.
Besides, she was also right: Gideon’s idea was foolish.
Being right did nothing to squash the guilt, however. And since her pride wouldn’t let her apologize, Rune did the next best thing: she cast a Messenger spell to tell Seraphine where she was. She used the knife she’d stolen from the first aid kit to nick another mark in the back of her calf, letting it join the dozens of silver moths in flight that etched her skin.
I shouldn’t have called him a fool.
The shape of a luminescent crow flared to life in front of her, perching on the balustrade. The crow shimmered, bright as starlight.
A hundred years ago, Queen Callidora used magical crows to send her messages. Or so the history books said.
This spell was allegedly one of hers.
The moment Rune breathed the name Seraphine Oakes onto the spell, the crow spread its wings and launched into the air, heading east. It would fly to the palace and present Rune’s location to Seraphine, at which point it would disintegrate.
Seraphine could decide if she wanted to come here or not. “Miss Winters?”
Rune turned. An elderly woman in servant livery stood between two lattices creeping with ivy.
“Mr. Wentholt asked me to make up a room for you.” This must be Bess.
The maid led Rune to a bedroom in the guest quarters, where she touched the white nightgown laid out on the bed. “This was Miss Celia’s,” she said. “You’ll find more of her clothes in the armoire. Help yourself to them; she won’t mind. My mistress hasn’t set foot here since her wedding three years ago.”
“Thank you,” said Rune, rubbing her arms to keep out the chill. With no fire in the hearth, the room was colder than she was used to. But no one wanted to risk the smell of smoke, which might lead unwanted guests straight to their location.
“Normally I’d invite you to warm up in the bathhouse—it’s heated by underground hot springs. But Mister Wentholt only arrived this evening, and I haven’t had a chance to get it ready. However, there’s a hot spring nearby you can wash in. I can give you directions tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” said Rune, who looked forward to getting properly cleaned up. “I’d like that very much.”
“If there’s nothing else, Miss Winters, I’ll take my leave.”
Rune was about to bid her good night, when she stopped herself.
“There is one more thing.” She turned to look at Bess. “Do you happen to know the schedule for the nearest train station?”
“I can fetch it for you. But…” “But?”
“There are rumors, miss. People are saying Westport Station will soon be shut down. The queen doesn’t want anyone else escaping.”
Rune narrowed her eyes. Of course she doesn’t.
“In that case…” Rune reached into her dress pocket and pulled out the pouch full of coins she’d taken from her casting room. “Could you buy me a ticket for whichever train is going furthest northwest, while it’s still in operation?”
Bess blinked as Rune placed the pouch in her hand. “Of course, miss.
I’d be happy to.”
