“Fine,” said Gideon.
As they arrived at the entrance to Thornwood, Alex pulled open the front doors while Gideon shrugged on his coat. Rain dripped from the lintel and splashed across the slabs of stone. The sun had set a long time ago, and darkness cloaked the woods beyond the doors.
A question was burning inside Gideon. Before he stepped out into the rain, he turned to ask it. “Alex? Is there any chance Cressida wasn’t dead after you shot her?”
Alex stared at him. “I shot her three times.”
Gideon nodded. Alex hated revisiting that night. His brother didn’t have a violent urge in his body. It would have gone against everything he stood for to take a girl’s life. He’d done it for Gideon’s sake.
The bodies of all three sister queens had gone missing the next morning. Defiled, Gideon had always suspected. But if Cressida was truly alive, what had happened in her bedchamber that night? Had Alex unknowingly not finished the job, or was some dark magic at play? There were stories of witches in the past powerful enough to raise the dead, but Gideon had always assumed those were tales witches used to frighten people into obedience.
He wondered now if they were true.
“Never mind.” He put a reassuring hand on his brother’s shoulder. “It might not be her. It could be another witch imper sonating Cressida. Either way, we’ll catch her. And this time, I’ll finish the job myself.”
Alex only nodded, saying nothing. Feeling like he’d ruined his brother’s night, Gideon dropped his hand and changed the subject.
“When do you leave for Caelis?”
“Four days from now.”
So soon? thought Gideon, swallowing the lump in his throat.
“Will you come to see me off?”
“Of course.” Gideon turned to leave, thought better of it, then pulled his little brother into a tight hug. “I’ll miss you.”
As hard as it was to say goodbye to Alex, there was something that was going to be a lot harder.
If Alex was leaving for good in a matter of days, and if Gideon had truly decided Rune wasn’t a witch, now was the time to step aside. That way, his brother could make his feelings clear to her before he left.
It was the only decent thing to do. And it would make amends for his previous betrayal.
The next time I see her, thought Gideon, stepping miserably into the rain, I’ll tell her it’s over between us.
FORTY-FOUR
RUNE
A KNOCK ON THE false wall broke Rune’s concentration. She glanced up from the Earth Sunderer spell, which lay open in front of her, and found Alex standing a few feet from her desk. He wore a collared white shirt and pinstripe trousers. His hair shone like spun gold.
“Am I interrupting?”
She shut the spell book. “Oh. No. Of course not.” Glancing down, she found herself still in her nightgown, and blushed. “I … wasn’t expecting any visitors this morning.”
He stepped further into the room, leaving the passageway open. Alex was always forgetting to shut it behind him. If anyone wandered into her bedroom and saw the wall opened, and the spell books beyond … Rune would be finished.
Rising from the desk, she went to close it.
“I brought you something,” he said as the wall snicked shut beneath her hands.
When Rune turned to face him, he pressed a silver coin into her palm. It was nearly as wide as the length of her thumb, and still warm from his hand. A woman’s image was imprinted on the silver.
Fortitude.
The Ancient’s hair was braided over one shoulder as she held her chin high, and across her chest was a bandolier.
“Gideon’s access coin,” Rune murmured, not believing it. “You stole it?”
“Won it,” he said. “In a game of cards.”
Rune marveled at the coin, then glanced up. “You hate pitting yourself against your brother.”
“Actually.” He held her gaze. “I no longer mind so much.”
He was choosing her, she realized. This boy who saw exactly who she was—what she was—and didn’t care. Or rather: cared so much, he wanted to give her back what the revolution had taken.
In Caelis, we’ll go to the opera house every day of the week. Where they show real operas, not that propaganda you despise.
Again, Rune let herself imagine it: a life far away from the Republic. No more worrying about who was watching or listening. No more pretending to be something she wasn’t.
Rune would be free.
But what kind of person would that make her? How could she live a safe, comfortable life full of good, beautiful things knowing the Blood Guard was hunting down witches? Knowing she could stop it—but didn’t?