Someone’s there.
Still, Rune hesitated, unable to shake the feeling that something was off. But if Seraphine was down there and Rune walked away right now, they would transfer her to the palace tonight, and Rune might never get another chance to save her.
And if they’d already transferred her …
I’ll just go down and look around.
Rune touched the small knife she’d strapped onto her thigh, drawing courage from its freshly honed steel. With her feet on the rungs, still cloaked by her Ghost Walker spell, she lowered herself into the darkness.
It got colder and damper the lower she went, and the ladder rungs were slick beneath her hands. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she let go and turned into the pitch black, her gaze seeking the warm glow in the distance.
There was a rush of air. Movement in the dark.
The hair on her nape rose. Trap, said her brain, seconds before her body caught up.
Rune spun to grab the ladder and haul herself up, when a hand seized her wrist and clamped down with viselike strength.
“Gotcha.”
Rune swung with her fist, but the darkness made her assailant as invisible as she was, and she missed his face.
Before she could try again, he seized her other wrist and forced her to her knees. Rune quailed at the strength in him as he easily wrestled her to the ground, pressing her cheek into the cold rock and pinning her there with his knees on either side of her hips.
Immobilizing her.
The smell of fresh-cut cedar and gunpowder overwhelmed her.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this day.”
The voice was unmistakable.
Gideon.
White-hot anger burned in her breast. He’d set her up. Baited the trap and waited for her to step into it.
I am such a fool.
And now he had her pinned. Defenseless. Exactly where he wanted her.
But how did he see her?
He doesn’t, she realized. This level was so dark, he couldn’t see anything. Neither of them could. He must have heard Rune coming down the ladder.
If she survived this, she would need to tweak her spell to muffle her sound.
“Your friend isn’t here.”
I gathered that, yes, thought Rune, crushed beneath his weight. He’d planted both palms on her shoulder blades, immobilizing her. Her hands were still free, but because of the way he pinned her, she couldn’t use them to reach for her knife.
“Someone got your tongue, little Moth?”
No way was Rune talking. If it was too dark for him to see her, she might still have a chance of keeping her identity intact. She’d have to wait for him to let her up before she tried anything. He couldn’t keep her pinned forever.
And if he has a lamp?
Ghost Walker kept Rune shielded so long as someone didn’t know she was there, by nudging their attention away from her. The spell could try its hardest to force Gideon’s gaze away, but he was sitting on top of Rune. He knew exactly where she was. Her spell could no longer deceive him.
And if Gideon had a lamp, the moment he lit it, all he’d have to do was yank her cowl down and pull back her …
There was the soft hiss of a flare. Then a red glow, like an ember, behind her.
No.
Panic zipped through her.
As the flare sizzled and the glow brightened, he reached for her hood. The moment he pulled it back and set free her hair—a red-gold shade he would instantly recognize—it would mean the end for Rune.
In order to hold the flare and pull back her hood, though, Gideon had to remove his hands from her. With the weight of him gone, Rune was free to reach for the knife strapped to her thigh. So she did.
Her fingers wrapped around the hilt.
He tugged at her hood, sliding it back from her forehead.
Rune drew the knife from its sheath and stabbed hard, not caring where the blade went in, so long as it went in deep.
Gideon howled and rolled off her.
Free, Rune stumbled to her feet and ran.
She’d never been inside a mine. She knew nothing about them. One thing Rune was pretty sure of, though: there was only one way in and out. And she was running in the opposite direction of it.
Rune quickly found the source of the light she’d seen from above: a lamp hanging midway down a narrow tunnel. The ceiling was so low, Rune had to duck to keep from hitting her head on it.
She thought of Verity and Alex. She should have taken their advice. Avoided the Blood Guard captain at all costs.
He hasn’t won yet.
She heard Gideon stumbling behind her, cursing as he closed in. So long as he didn’t catch her, she could still make it out of this.
But if he caught her, she’d go straight to the purge.
That thought made her run faster.
At the end of the illuminated tunnel was another ladder, this one leading to the level below. She didn’t want to go further down, wading deeper into his trap, but as she glanced over her shoulder and sighted a limping Gideon in the distance, neither could she go back.
So down she went.
It was even colder on the level below, and the floor was slick with water. Rune slipped multiple times and had to grope the wall to keep from falling. Without the lamp on the first level, she couldn’t see a thing. Several times she found the way blocked by cave-ins and had to double back.
The water deepened, too, the further in she went.
When Gideon’s boots thudded on the ladder behind her, adrenaline zipped through Rune. Stumbling through the water, she lurched down another tunnel, feeling along the walls, trying to put as much space as possible between herself and the witch hunter.
She stepped into a pool of water and nearly fell straight in. At the last second, she scrambled, throwing her weight back and slamming into the rock wall behind her.
This mine isn’t just caving in on itself, she thought, breathing hard as the damp seeped through her clothes. It’s being swallowed by the sea.
Water flooded this whole level.
In the dark, Rune tried to follow the walls around the flooded hole … and nearly fell in again. There was no lip or ledge. Just a watery, seemingly bottomless, pit. Behind her lay the tunnel she’d come down.
A dead end.
Light flashed, and Rune turned to see Gideon in the tunnel, headed straight for her. He had that flare in his hand, and the closer he came, the more the small cavern she stood in brightened.
Rune glanced around her, trying to think. Her spell was still intact, and since Gideon didn’t know for sure that she was in here, the spellmarks on her wrist would keep working their magic, pushing his attention away from her. Or so she hoped.
But even if it did hold, all Gideon had to do was continue walking and he’d bump right into Rune. There was nowhere for her to go. It was too cramped to dart around him.
Unless …
She eyed the dark pool. The top of a ladder poked up a few inches above the surface, suggesting this hole had once been the entrance to the mine’s third level.
The water was murky, the color of mud. Rune couldn’t see three feet down, never mind the bottom, even with Gideon’s light growing stronger.
Pulling her hood down toward her eyes, Rune stared at the water. It would be cold. Freezing cold. Could she hold her breath long enough to stay hidden? She didn’t know. But if she didn’t want Gideon to catch her, she only had one option. And it was this one.
Reaching down, she grabbed the slippery sides of the ladder and slowly lowered herself in, gasping at the icy temperature.
She descended slowly, not wanting to make too many ripples. As she did, her eyes locked with Gideon’s—or they would have, if he could see her. He glanced right past Rune, scanning the cavern’s shadows.
Relieved, Rune let out a breath.
Ghost Walker was still doing its job. Convincing him she wasn’t here.
He’ll be able to see me as soon as I come up for air, she realized, glancing at the bloody marks on her wrist, knowing the water would wash them away in moments. But what other choice did she have?