Gideon would rather ride his horse through a foot of mud, uphill, in a bloody hurricane than rub shoulders with the people here tonight.
And Rune Winters was the worst of them.
The brush of warm fingers on his wrist broke the spell in the room. Gideon looked down to find the hostess herself tying a blue dancing ribbon around his wrist.
His skin itched where she touched, and he fought the instinct to excuse himself, walk out the doors, and never look back. Gideon forced himself to hold still, thinking of Harrow’s report. Of the casting mark found on Rune’s cargo ship.
You’re here for the Moth, and the sooner you catch her, the easier it will be to purge the world of every last witch.
Gideon studied the girl before him. Was this her?
It seemed absurd. This darling of the New Republic, picking the locks of his holding cells, making off with his prisoners in the night, slaughtering Blood Guard officers in the street. And yet, it could be the reason he’d failed to catch the Moth these past two years: because she’d hidden herself so skillfully in plain sight.
When Rune finished tying the ribbon, she lifted the silk rose, tucking it into her red-gold hair, which was now braided into a semi-crown at the back of her head.
He’d spent the last two hours making it for her, feeling slightly ill as he sewed every petal. Roses always brought the painful memories rushing back. But Harrow’s advice—to woo Rune—kept ringing through his head, and his mother could never resist the silk roses his father used to make her after they argued.
That, of course, was before the Sister Queens broke his mother’s mind.
“Oh dear. Clumsy me! I’m making a mess of it …”
Gideon looked down to find Rune struggling with the stem of the rose—which was snagged in her hair.
“Here, let me …”
Rune dropped her hands as Gideon worked to separate the strands of gold from the wire stem. They stood so close now that her fragrance filled the air. Gideon braced himself, remembering another girl, another scent. But there was no reek of magic on Rune. All he could smell was the salty sea air blowing in through the open windows.
Which means nothing.
After a long soak in the bath, Cressida hadn’t smelled of magic either.
Cressida.
The name was a growl in his mind. Had Cressida ever dined beneath this roof? For all he knew, Cressida and Rune might have been friends.
He swallowed the sick feeling in his throat, carefully tucking the silk flower into the weave of Rune’s hair until it sat snug and fashionably to one side. The way his mother used to wear the flowers his father made her.
Before he could step back, the music started. Gideon glanced up to find himself surrounded by pairs of dancers on all sides.
Rune’s eyes sparkled as she reached out her gloved hand, positioning it high in the air. She stepped in closer, settling her other hand on his shoulder. “Ready, Captain Sharpe?”
Beneath the soft weight of her grip, Gideon tensed.
What am I doing?
He didn’t know this song, never mind the steps of whatever dance it cued.
Unlike the couples already moving around him, mirroring each other as they glided and twirled along with the melody, Gideon stood frozen as a statue while Rune held herself gracefully poised, ready to dance.
Her eyebrows arched, as if to say, What are you waiting for?
His neck grew hot beneath his collar. “Miss Winters …”
She must have heard it in his voice, because she quickly lowered her hands and stepped back. “Oh. You … don’t know how.”
Most of her friends still watched them, some of them murmuring behind their hands. Were they laughing at him?
Was she laughing at him?
He thought again of another girl. Another party. One where he’d been paraded around and humiliated.
Gideon thought he’d extinguished that shame. But it flared now like glowing embers.
Harrow was mistaken. Gideon had no chance in hell of successfully courting a girl like Rune. He’d just arrived and was already embarrassing her. When she realized he had no wealth or grand estate—he’d given his spoils of war to Alex after the revolution—she would join in their laughing, if she hadn’t already.
He needed to salvage this.
Remembering Harrow’s advice, he closed the distance between them.
“If we were at a different type of party,” he said, close to Rune’s ear, “I could give you a different answer.”
Another memory seeped up, filling his mind with the fast-paced melody of a fiddle. He could see his little sister in her cotton nightgown, still awake despite it being far past her bedtime. The humidity of the kitchens made her hair curl and stick to her sweaty skin as she danced with the dishwashers, cotton towels tucked into their waistbands. The cook, cheeks pink from the ovens, stood in the corner slashing his bow across his fiddle as the palace staff clapped and stomped and passed around a skin of ale before joining in the dancing themselves.