Heartless Hunter (Crimson Moth, #1) (51)

Oh.

Gideon stepped back, away from them all. If Rune had come to this masked ball with his brother, she couldn’t have also been in Seldom Harbor.

It was another strike against him.

Rune might lie, but Alex wouldn’t. His brother would never knowingly sabotage him by aiding a dangerous witch. Not after everything their family had been through.

As the three friends turned to leave, Gideon watched Alex press his hand to the small of Rune’s back.

At least he’s taking my advice.

For some strange reason, this didn’t make Gideon feel better.

It made him feel much worse.





TWENTY-SEVEN

RUNE




THE CARRIAGE BUMPED AND jostled Rune as Alex’s driver took them down the cobbled lanes of the city. Verity and Alex sat facing Rune, who sat alone on the opposite bench.

She should have felt victorious at the look on Gideon’s face when he realized she’d turned the tables on him. Instead, she felt … drained. Like she could sleep for a month straight if given the chance.

Maybe that’s what I’ll do in Caelis, she thought. Then caught herself. She still hadn’t decided if she was going with Alex, never mind going for a month.

An unfamiliar tension radiated between them since leaving the warden’s study, and she could feel his eyes on her from the other side of the carriage. What had he been about to say before Verity barged into the room?

“Let’s get a look at this map.”

Right. The map.

Outside, the moon was almost full. It cast just enough light through the windows to see. Sinking down to the floor of the carriage, Rune pulled out the tracings and unrolled them, piecing them together.

Verity and Alex leaned forward to get a better look.

“There are seven sections,” said Rune, squinting at the circles she’d traced. A gate marked the entrance to the first and biggest section, the outermost circle. In each concentric circle after it, moving toward the center, were more gates. Seven in total. And each entry was named after one of the seven Ancients.

Mercy, Liberty, Wisdom, Justice, Amity, Patience, Fortitude.

Rune remembered when the opera house columns still bore the painted likenesses of the Ancients. The images were destroyed by fire when patriots ransacked the building during the revolution. The columns had since been painted over, but Rune could still picture the renderings of the witches in her mind: Amity, mid-laugh and her hair a wild tangle; Wisdom, with her secretive smile; Justice, turning her face toward the sky …

“Do you know which section they’re keeping Seraphine in?” asked Alex.

Rune shook her head. Not only did she not know what section or cell Seraphine was in, Rune didn’t know how many guards she’d need to evade. Or how one passed through the gates, which would be locked. Who held the keys? Once she was on the other side of all the gates, how would she get back out?

“This feels impossible,” said Rune, her shoulders slumping.

“There’s a reason they call it impregnable,” said Alex.

“Unhelpful,” said Verity, shooting him a look. She joined Rune on the floor, crossing her legs beneath her dress and leaning over the map as the carriage jolted beneath them. Rune’s nose prickled. One of these days, she would gently suggest to her friend not to dab so much perfume on …

But not tonight. Tonight, if Rune felt exhausted, Verity looked it. There were dark circles under her eyes, and every few minutes, her loud yawns broke the silence in the carriage. Not for the first time, Rune felt guilty stealing Verity away from her studies, certain her friend’s grades were suffering for it.

Verity would scold her if she knew what Rune was thinking. She and Rune were in this together. In it in a way Alex never would be. Rune had lost her grandmother to the purge; Verity had lost her sisters. Both wanted to rescue as many witches as they could—to make up for the ones they hadn’t been able to save.

“I wish I had a spell for walking through walls,” said Rune, leaning her head back against the carriage seat and staring at Alex.

“Is there such a thing?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never come across one.”

Verity pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose. “I’m sure there’s a spell for blasting through walls. But you’ll need a lot more blood to pull off that kind of thing. Blood you don’t have.”

She pulled a pencil and notepad from her pocket and started writing. The edge of her tongue popped out of the corner of her mouth as she dutifully made a list.

“We’ll need to know: where Seraphine is located; how the gates work; roughly how many guards …”

“How Rune will get out after she gets in,” Alex added, sounding displeased but taking part.

“What day they’re planning to purge her,” said Rune.

This was her last chance. If she arrived too late this time, she wouldn’t get another.

When she finished her list, Verity lowered her notepad to her knee and started tapping the paper with her pen. “That’s a lot of information.”

“Laila will know some of these answers,” offered Alex. “Her mother’s the warden, and she’s a witch hunter. She’ll have been inside that prison more than once.”

“The girl who shot me tonight?” Rune arched her brows, remembering the opera house, and Laila’s less-than-playful guesses about why she’d been late.