“If Seraphine is being kept in the prison’s seventh circle,” said Rune. “In order to get her out, I’ll need a Blood Guard uniform and an access coin for Fortitude Gate.”
The question was: How would they obtain them?
Verity withdrew her pad of paper and pen from her gold clutch.
“If I used my Ghost Walker spell to sneak into Blood Guard headquarters, I could steal a uniform and someone’s access coin there. The problem is, I only have one blood vial left. I’d like to save it, if I can. In case something goes wrong inside the prison.”
Verity tapped her pen against her chin, thinking. “I might be able to get you a uniform. There’s a girl in my dormitory who’s an intern at the Ministry of Public Safety. She wouldn’t have an access coin, but they gave her a uniform as part of her training.”
Verity looked Rune up and down. “You’re about the same size. All I’d have to do is get into her room, which is easy enough. And the access coin—”
Alex cut in. “I can get the coin.”
Rune and Verity glanced at him. “How?”
“You said every Blood Guard of high rank carries one.” Alex spun the slender silver ring on the smallest finger of his left hand. “My brother is a Blood Guard captain, and he has only one weakness that I know of. If you give me a few days, I’ll get you his coin.”
For as long as she’d known Alex, he’d refused to choose a side. Or rather, refused to choose Rune’s side over Gideon’s.
What had changed his mind?
“Unless you think they’ll purge Seraphine before then.”
“I have a feeling they’ll wait until Liberty Day,” said Verity, eyes shadowed in the firelight.
Liberty Day marked two years since the New Dawn—the night revolutionaries overthrew the queens. There was always a citywide festival, with celebrations from dusk till dawn.
“I agree,” said Rune. “It’s a public event, and the Good Commander always wants as many eyes as he can get on a purging when it’s a legendary witch he’s slaughtering. With Liberty Day less than a week away, he won’t have to wait much longer.”
They were deprived of their entertainment tonight, and Liberty Day was the next best opportunity to make a spectacle of Seraphine.
Which meant they needed to be ready to set this plan in motion before then.
FORTY-ONE
RUNE
A CRASH OF THUNDER shook the house, cutting their meeting short.
“Perhaps it would be best if you both stayed the night,” said Alex as the rain came down harder, roaring against the roof.
Verity shook her head. “I have an exam first thing in the morning.” She rose to her feet. “I need to go.”
“Then take my carriage,” said Rune, noticing how her friend drooped with exhaustion. “It’ll keep you dry, at least.”
Lightning flashed, and the windows in the conservatory all lit up at once. Rune went to look out. Already, water was pooling on the ground. She hoped the roads weren’t too muddy. The last thing she wanted was her friend stuck on the street in the middle of a storm.
After giving instructions to her driver, Rune watched from the front doors of Thornwood Hall as the carriage drove off with Verity inside.
Alex stepped up beside her. “I’ll have the servants make up a room for you.”
* * *
RUNE HAD STAYED OVERNIGHT at Thornwood dozens of times. But that was before Gideon told her the terrible things that had happened in this house. She suspected there were things he hadn’t told her, sparing her the worst of it. Thinking about them made her skin crawl.
As Rune lay in the guest bed, staring at the ceiling she’d slept beneath so many times before, she couldn’t help wondering: Which room did Cressida lock their dying sister inside? Which bed did she coerce Gideon into, night after night?
Was it this one?
Rune sat up, her entire body prickling. This was a mistake. She should have gone with Verity. There was no way she’d be able to sleep in this house when all she could think about was Gideon and his sister here, at the mercy of a cruel witch.
Throwing back the covers, she trod barefoot to the windows and pulled back the curtain. The thunder had only grown louder in the hour since Verity left, and the rain hadn’t stopped. If the roads were muddy before, they were swampy now. It would be foolish to ride home to Wintersea.
But neither was she going to get any sleep in this house.
The chill of the floor crept up her legs as she walked into the darkened hallway. The servants had turned down the lamps and gone to bed, making the house feel abandoned. She counted doors until she came to Alex’s room, then went inside.
When the floorboards creaked beneath her weight, Rune heard him stir in the bed.
“Rune?” Alex sat up. His hair was mussed as he squinted through the dark.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, padding to the bedside. “Do you mind if …?”
Alex shifted, making room for her. Rune crawled into the warm spot where his body had been and burrowed into it. The pillow smelled like him. A warm, masculine smell.
They lay side by side for several moments, silent and still.
“Do you know what happened in this house?” she finally whispered. “To your brother, I mean.”
Alex turned toward her in the darkness.
“He never speaks to me about it, but I have my guesses.”
He stretched, pulling both hands behind his head. “It was after the funerals for Tessa and our parents that I noticed something was wrong. Gideon looked … like someone had turned out the light inside him. At first, I thought it was grief. We’d lost our mother, father, and baby sister in the span of a few days. Of course he wasn’t himself.
“But it wasn’t just grief. When I came home for the funerals, it was like Gideon couldn’t bear to look at me. He threw himself into his tailoring work for Cressida, avoiding me even though I was only home for a short while and didn’t know when I’d see him next.
“When I first moved to the Continent for school, Gideon and I wrote each other every week. After the funerals, when I returned to school, I kept writing him letters, but they now went unanswered. I asked some of our old friends to check on him, but no one had seen or talked to Gideon in months. There was something he wasn’t telling me, and I couldn’t understand why. We’d always told each other everything.
“I didn’t realize what he was doing was saving me. I didn’t know it was him who needed saving.”
Alex swallowed, rubbing a hand over his forehead. Rune kept silent, waiting for him to go on.
“Just before the start of spring term, I received a letter from a friend who’d seen my brother at a boxing match the night before. Stoned out of his mind were the words he’d written. Gonna get himself killed. That didn’t sound like my brother. So the same day, I asked for a leave of absence and boarded a ship home.
“I went to the boxing arena, looking for him. I checked every seat in the building, and when I couldn’t find him, I asked the bartender if he’d seen someone by the name of Gideon Sharpe. The man nodded to the boxing ring. The witch’s whore? He’s right there. It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. That the young man getting beaten in the ring was Gideon. His face was so bruised and bloody, I didn’t recognize him.
“The whore comes here every night, the man told me. After she’s done with him. I could see the disgust in his eyes. In all of their eyes. When Gideon got hit for the last time, when he went down and didn’t get up, I watched them throw his body into the alleyway with the rest of the trash. As if this were routine. Like he came there every night, drunk or high, and let them beat him half to death. Like he thought he deserved it.”
The words pressed down on Rune’s chest, heavy as a boulder. She closed her eyes against them.
Sensing it, Alex reached for her beneath the covers. His fingers found hers, knotting them tightly together.