That can’t be right.
“Are you certain?”
Harrow leaned back, taking another sip. “My contact saw the signatures himself, in her ship’s cargo hold.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s involved,” said Gideon, thinking it through. “Just because Rune owns the ships doesn’t mean she knows everything that goes on with them. It could easily be one of the crew stowing witches away without her knowledge.”
“But it makes her a suspect,” Harrow pointed out. “And the best lead you’ve had in a long time.”
For months now, Gideon had suspected the Crimson Moth was someone who traveled in elite circles. Someone with access to the most exclusive balls and private dinner parties. Someone who regularly rubbed shoulders with the powerful and well connected.
Could that someone be Rune Winters?
Gideon remembered Rune at the opera, her conversation growing more and more irritating the longer she kept talking.
“It’s not possible,” he said. “There’s not an intelligent thought in that girl’s head.”
And the Moth was intelligent. To go toe-to-toe with Gideon, to outwit him, she had to be. And if the mutilated bodies they kept finding across the city were her victims, she was also ruthless. Disturbed.
Evil.
It was difficult to reconcile those things with the ridiculous girl in the opera box.
If he needed more proof of Rune’s innocence, all Gideon had to do was go back two years. He’d been at the Winters’ estate when the Blood Guard arrested Kestrel Winters in her home. His orders? To watch Kestrel’s adopted granddaughter, Rune, while the other soldiers seized the witch from her chambers.
Gideon hadn’t taken his eyes off the girl—not an arduous task, to be sure. Rune was just as beautiful then. Like those marble sculptures adorning the lavish mansions of the aristocracy, existing solely to impress the guests. When a Blood Guard officer smashed his pistol into Kestrel’s face, her granddaughter hadn’t even flinched. Only watched, coldly and calmly, as they stripped the old woman down, found her scars, and dragged her off to be executed.
Rune had shown no hint of remorse.
If Rune had been Kestrel’s blood relative, Gideon might consider her more carefully. But the girl’s birth parents had been nothing more than fancy merchant folk. There were no witches in her bloodline—Gideon had checked—making it impossible that she was a witch.
“Rune sent her grandmother to the purge,” Gideon told Harrow. “She’s no witch sympathizer. Just an empty-headed patriot.”
“Maybe that’s what she wants you to think,” Harrow countered.
Gideon shook his head. It made no sense. “Why would she risk her life to save other witches now when she heartlessly betrayed her grandmother two years ago?”
“It could be a deception.”
Gideon was about to shrug this off, except that kind of deception was exactly what he’d learned to expect from the Crimson Moth.
What if Harrow’s right?
His comrade picked up her glass and slowly swirled the ale inside, watching Gideon chew on his thoughts.
He’d dismissed it, but there had been a moment in the opera box when Rune’s mindless prattling had suddenly turned biting. Someone like you obviously prefers the company of stupid brutes with terrible style.
It didn’t prove anything. Aristocrats like Rune Winters had always looked down on Gideon. The Blood Guard paid well, but good pay didn’t elevate a man’s station. Gideon might not be dirt-poor anymore, but he was far from her equal.
In Rune Winters’ eyes, people like him—soldiers, sons of tailors, members of the working class—would always be less than.
But they’d found signatures on her ship. Gideon couldn’t rule out the possibility that Rune might be the Moth—or at least in league with her.
“I’ll keep my eyes on the docks,” said Harrow.
He glanced up to find a thoughtful expression on her face. “I’ll pay for whatever information you find.”
The light in her golden eyes winked out. She stopped swirling her drink. “No.”
Gideon sighed. Over a year ago, Harrow had approached him, offering her services. The Crimson Moth had stolen yet another witch from him the day before, and Gideon was desperate to outmaneuver her. He accepted Harrow’s offer, expecting her to gouge him with her fees. Instead, she refused payment. When he asked her why, Harrow had simply pointed to her missing ear and walked away.
“Doesn’t your little brother run in Rune’s circles? Get him to spy for you.”