Worse than all of this, if Gideon didn’t come tonight, he’d ruin her plan before she could even put it into action. She needed him to come, to be interested in her, so she could get the information required to rescue Seraphine.
“I’m coming with you,” said Verity, wrenching Rune from her thoughts.
“What? No. Don’t ruin your evening.” Rune sat on her bed. “You have homework to do, and tests to study for.”
“And you have to give that dreadful speech. All alone. The least I can do is provide moral support. Who knows? Maybe I can do some poking around while I’m there. I could pretend to get lost, and when some helpful guard escorts me back, I’ll ask a few innocent questions about the prison’s security …”
In truth, if Gideon was going to jilt her, and so publicly, Rune wanted Verity close by. Looking her friend’s uniform up and down, she said, “You’ll have to borrow a dress.”
“Obviously,” said Verity, smiling as she moved toward Rune’s closet full of clothes.
“Take whatever you like,” said Rune. “Except for the green one hanging on the door.”
It was the gown Gideon had made her.
She’d sewn a hidden pocket inside it. As her friend searched for something to wear, Rune opened the false wall of her casting room and stepped inside. As she went to retrieve her blood vial—in case she needed any extra spells tonight—a book on the desk caught her eye.
Rune rarely left spell books lying around, and she didn’t immediately recognize this one. She stepped up to the desk, glancing down at its gilt edges and thick spine. Opening to the first page, she realized it was one of Nan’s rarer spell books, full of powerful curses.
That’s odd.
The spells in this book were too powerful for Rune to cast. So why was it on the desk? She didn’t remember bringing it down from the shelves.
Maybe Verity did? Her friend liked to search these books for new spells that might be useful for Rune to learn.
The only other person who knew about this room was Alex.
And Lizbeth. Lizbeth sometimes came in uninvited to dust the shelves and sweep the floor.
Symbols graced the spell book’s pages, along with stylized illustrations and detailed descriptions. As she flipped through it, the book fell open near the middle, to a spell called Earth Sunderer.
On the left page were seven golden spellmarks, each one more complicated than the last. Beneath them lay a description of what the curse did. The opposite page contained an illustration of a town carved in half. An earthquake had ruptured the city, breaking buildings and severing streets while the town’s inhabitants screamed in fear.
“Don’t even think about trying that one.”
Rune glanced up to find Verity beside her, peering down at the page, a dress hanging over her arm.
“If an unlocking spell makes you faint, this spell will put you in a coma.” Turning the book so she could see it better, Verity’s gaze skimmed the description. “You need someone else’s blood—and a lot of it—to cast this one.”
The words reminded Rune of her conversation with Gideon in the woods, and the things he’d said about the Sister Queens. If anyone knew the truth, it would be Verity. Her sisters were friends with the Rosebloods, and they had often cast spells together.
“Verity? Do you think the Roseblood sisters used Arcana spells?”
Verity glanced up from the spell book’s pages. “Why do you ask?”
“Gideon told me something strange the other night.” A warm burn moved across Rune’s cheeks as she thought of him on the beach. Of his clothes hitting the sand and the sea sluicing over his chest.
Of his mouth on hers.
She forged ahead. “He accused Cressida and her sisters of killing people and using the blood to cast spells. He said they were corrupted by bad magic.”
“And you believe him?”
Rune thought of the brand on Gideon’s chest: the raised, red skin in the shape of a rose and crescent. That scar alone seemed proof that Cressida, at least, was more than capable of extreme cruelty. “I don’t know what to believe. It would explain why they were so powerful.”
Verity’s eyes grew clouded. “This was how my stepfather turned my mother against my sisters.”
Rune drew back, startled. “What?”
“My sisters used each other’s blood for their Majora spells. With permission, of course. But my stepfather walked in on them one day, in the middle of a casting. After, he declared their magic an abomination and convinced my mother the only way for my sisters to cleanse themselves and be pure again was to beat the wickedness out of them.”