Rune wouldn’t be able to live with herself.
“There’s something else,” he said, turning away and letting out a rough sigh.
Rune studied him. “What’s wrong?”
“Cressida Roseblood is alive.”
Rune frowned, certain she’d misheard him. “What?”
Alex turned briefly back to her. “The fire that almost killed you the other night? It was Cressida’s spell, not Seraphine’s. Gideon found her signature after the fire.”
“That can’t be true,” said Rune, shaking her head. “Cressida’s dead.”
Alex strode to the window, his footsteps echoing on the floorboards. At the pane, he stopped and looked out.
“She couldn’t have been at the Luminaries Dinner,” Rune said, suddenly needing him to agree with her. “Because you killed her.”
He was silent for a long time. The silence turned the room cold.
“You killed her,” she said again, forceful this time. “Right, Alex?”
“That’s the other thing I came to tell you. I never finished my story the other night.” He stared out the window. “On the eve of the New Dawn, while my brother was murdering her sisters, I did go to Thornwood Hall to kill Cressida. I found her asleep in her bedroom. She woke to the barrel of my pistol pressed against her head.” He drew in a ragged breath. “I told her to get out of the bed, and she fell to her knees on the floor, begging me to spare her life. She told me she loved my brother, and that was why she did the things she did—because Gideon belonged to her.”
Rune heard the anger in his voice as he spoke the words.
“Before that moment, I’d never wanted to hurt anything in my whole life. But Rune: I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to squeeze the air out of her hateful lungs and watch her writhe. I had one of the most powerful witches in the world on her knees at my feet, with my gun pressed to her forehead. The girl who’d killed my little sister and damaged my older brother beyond repair. All I had to do was pull the trigger. And I relished it.”
“And that’s when you shot her,” said Rune, gripping the edge of her desk, the color leaching from her knuckles. Say it. Tell me you shot her.
He shook his head, staring out the window as if staring into the past.
“It was like there were two of me: the Alex who wanted to destroy her, and the Alex who knew dead witches weren’t the answer. Deep down, I didn’t believe the bloodshed and vengeance my brother craved would bring about a better world. Murdering them would make us no better than them. And that was what scared me: that despite my convictions, it could be so easy to give in to the bloodlust.
“So I raised my gun to the roof and shot three rounds. And then I told her to run. I told her if I ever saw her, if she ever touched Gideon again, I’d make her wish she was dead. I watched her disappear into the woods behind Thornwood Hall.”
Rune suddenly felt light-headed. Still gripping the desk, she lowered herself into the chair.
“You lied,” she whispered, feeling the world crumble in on her.
If Alex had told her this a few weeks ago, before she’d known what monsters Cressida and her sisters truly were, she would have adored him for it. A girl as powerful as the youngest Roseblood queen could save so many more witches from the purge than the Crimson Moth ever could. This alone should have made Rune happy. Or at least relieved.
But now …
Rune thought of the brand on Gideon’s chest. Of the things Cressida did to him. If the witch queen was alive, Gideon was in terrible danger.
It frightened her.
It angered her.
Her fists trembled. “Why would you lie?”
“I thought if Gideon believed Cressida was dead, he might move on. Maybe even heal.”
A tremor was building deep within Rune, shaking everything loose. She looked up at her oldest friend, but it was as if a fog had descended, and she could no longer see him clearly through the gray.
Alex turned from the window and strode towards the hidden door. “I need to tell Gideon the truth. I should do it now, before I lose my nerve.”
“No,” she said, rising from her chair. She might be disappointed in Alex, but she wasn’t going to let him admit to sparing Cressida’s life. “You’ll be convicted of sympathizing with witches.”
He stopped to look down at her. Quietly, and a little sadly, he said, “I do sympathize with witches.”
The words softened her. This was Alex, after all. The boy who, upon learning she was a witch, had drawn Rune a warm bath to ease her cramps instead of handing her over to be killed. Who else would have done that?