Whoever she was, the Moth had been in his grasp tonight. It was as close as he’d ever come. If he and Rune had been courting longer, he’d be able to tell if that slight frame pressed against him in the darkness belonged to her. He’d know how Rune felt beneath him and would have been able to compare it to the girl he’d pinned down tonight. But as close as he’d come to Rune Winters, it wasn’t nearly close enough to know the difference.
Gideon’s shoulder hurt from throwing himself at the door. He had just lifted his good leg to kick it down when Laila said, “It won’t work.”
She motioned to something out the window.
Striding over, Gideon glanced through the pane. A blood-red moth fluttered below the hanging lantern outside, its delicate wings thin as residue. Like a fingerprint he could almost see through.
“It’s a spell.”
Gideon sighed. It would likely be hours before it faded and the door unlocked.
He turned to Laila. “Did you get a look at her?”
Laila shook her head. “She kept her face covered and moved too quickly. We should have brought the hounds with us. And the Taskers.”
Gideon had intentionally left the Tasker brothers behind after they’d defied his orders and abused the last witch. Clearly that had been a mistake. Two more soldiers would have made the difference. Not to mention the witch-hunting hounds.
If Gideon were being honest, he hadn’t brought the hounds because the thought of siccing them on Rune made his stomach turn. He’d remembered her trembling beneath his touch in her bedroom; shivering in nothing but her underwear as he took her measurements.
Gideon had gone soft on a murderous witch—or at the very least, a witch sympathizer.
Fool.
He’d let her dupe him into thinking she was an innocent girl. Someone vulnerable and in need of protection.
He admitted none of this to Laila, who was smashing the rest of the broken pane out of the window frame with the butt of her pistol.
“This is what we know,” he said, giving up on the enchanted door, which wouldn’t open until the signature faded. “The Crimson Moth showed up at the wrong location tonight. A location I gave to only one person: Rune Winters. Even if she isn’t the Moth, she’s obviously in league with her.”
It was enough to arrest her.
“If it was Rune, she’ll know you set a trap for her,” said Laila, using the scarlet sleeve of her coat to clear glass shards out of the pane. “She’ll know we’re coming for her. I’d be on the first ship off the island if I were her.”
It was a desperate move. And though it was undoubtedly what any criminal should do if they wanted to escape him, the Crimson Moth didn’t strike Gideon as someone who made desperate moves.
There’s a masked ball at the Creeds’ tonight, Rune had told him that morning. You could meet me there.
When the window was free of glass, Laila pulled herself through and out the other side. “We should ride for the docks.”
“I have a better idea.” Gideon winced as he limped to the window, trying not to put weight on his wounded leg. “You head back to headquarters, assemble a hunting party, then go to the docks and make sure no ship leaves port tonight.”
From outside, Laila frowned at him. The lantern hanging above her head illuminated her face. “You’re not coming?”
“I’m going to your parents’ ball.”
Laila frowned harder.
“Rune invited me,” he explained. “If she wasn’t here tonight and the Moth is someone else, Rune won’t yet know this was a trap. She’ll be at Oakhaven Park.”
Grabbing hold of the windowsill, he glanced out at the moth still fluttering over the door.
“And if she is there?” Laila asked, stepping away from the window.
Gideon pulled himself through with a grimace. “I’ll arrest her for treason.”
TWENTY-FIVE
RUNE
THE GROUNDS OF OAKHAVEN Park backed onto a forest that spanned hundreds of acres. The home itself was modest compared to Wintersea House and had belonged to Seraphine Oakes before the queen sent her into exile.
Once a close friend to the Rosebloods, Seraphine fell out of favor with the previous queen—the mother of Elowyn, Analise, and Cressida. Nan never spoke of it, because it distressed her, but some believed that Seraphine’s power surpassed the royal family’s. So out of fear, or jealousy, or both, the witch queen banished her.
Oakhaven Park sat empty until the revolution, when the Good Commander gave it to his wife, Octavia Creed, as a spoil of war.