With the smell of smoke lingering in her hair, Rune drew her shawl tighter around herself. She’d spent two years being hunted by the Blood Guard. She was used to people wanting her dead. But it had never occurred to her that a witch might want her dead, too. The realization rattled her.
The conservatory door hung open. Sighting the pianist, Rune paused to watch him play.
Alex’s lean shoulders hunched as his hands moved like spiders over the keys. The sight of him was like coming home. Like wrapping herself in a warm blanket on a chilly day.
Alex was constant and safe. Gentle and kind.
Rune leaned against the lintel and let herself wonder, just for a moment, what it would be like to accept his offer. To leave everything behind and go to Caelis, where she could live a life without fear and finally be herself.
No. She had a purpose here in the New Republic. A duty.
Witches were still being hauled to prison and purged. Rune couldn’t abandon them. They were innocent people, and she owed it to her grandmother. Saving girls from being murdered by the Republic was the only way to make Nan’s death mean something.
It was the choice she’d made.
And no matter how she might dream of a different life, this was the one she belonged in.
Alex’s right hand stumbled, hitting the wrong key, and the song halted.
“Rune.” He brushed his golden hair out of his eyes to look at her. “You startled me.”
“Sorry.” She stepped out of the door frame and into the room, moving toward him. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
He rose from the bench, his gaze sweeping over her. “What happened?”
Rune looked down at herself. Ashy soot streaked the beautiful gown Gideon had made her. It probably streaked her face, too. “I … it’s a long story. I’ll tell it once Verity gets back from the kitchen.”
Alex made room for her on the bench, looking worried. Rune sat down, letting her shawl fall to the floor behind them.
She nodded toward the keys. “Don’t stop on my account.”
With his eyes still on her, Alex placed his fingers on the piano and resumed the song.
And like that, he was gone again. Soaring away from her.
“You play better than your brother, that’s for sure,” she said when he finished, remembering Gideon plunking piano keys in her library.
“Oh? Has he been serenading you?” The playfulness of the question couldn’t hide the edge in his voice. Before she could answer, he closed the fallboard, and the keys disappeared. “I have something to show you.”
He rose from the bench and walked to the far wall, where his writing desk stood between two windows. He picked up a large sheet of paper, then brought it back and handed it to her.
“It’s the deed to the house in Caelis.”
Rune stared at the deed. A strange numbness flooded her. “You bought it?” The realization gave her a stomachache. “So soon?”
“I’m putting Thornwood Hall up for sale tomorrow. Please don’t look so unhappy.”
“Of course I’m happy for you.” Rune handed it back to him. “This is what you want.”
It just wasn’t what she wanted.
Alex was her safe place. She could be herself with him. Alex, along with Verity, had filled the gaping hole in her life after Nan died. He and Verity were always there—after every dangerous night of saving witches, after every ridiculous after-party where Rune’s head ached from gossiping and flirting and pretending to be someone she wasn’t, in the quiet moments and the loud ones.
And unlike Verity, who was a fire constantly spurring her on, Alex was a cool spring, giving her a place to rest and recover, reminding her that she was a girl with needs and weaknesses, not some invincible savior.
What will I do without you?
Maybe that was the problem. Rune needed Alex more than he needed her. He’d given her so much, and she’d given so little in return.
She was doing it now. Being selfish. The selfless thing to do was let him go.
Rune swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth and tried to be a better friend.
“I want you to finish your studies.” She smiled, hoping it didn’t look forced. “And then I want you to become a world-famous composer whose name I can flaunt at parties, telling everyone I knew you when you didn’t know the difference between adagio and allegro.”
He studied her for a long time, deliberating something.
“Will you come back to visit me?” she asked.
“If … you want me to.”
It wasn’t the answer Rune needed. She wanted him to want to come back. To need her the way she needed him.