“I need it to enter the prison,” said Gideon, already returning everything to his pockets.
“You can get a new one, can’t you? Besides, don’t the prison staff know who you are by now?”
“Sure. Except—”
“Just one more round,” said Alex. As if he truly wanted his brother to stay. “For me.”
Gideon remembered their fight in the boxing ring. He remembered daring Rune to strip down naked and swim in the sea with him, even though he knew how Alex adored her. He remembered kissing her in the garden, his mouth and hands insistent. Then kissing her again in that alley.
The shame of it scorched him.
Gideon sat.
“One more game,” he said, tossing the prison coin into the pile of money in the center of the table. “And then I’m out.”
Fifteen minutes later, he lost that round, too. And with it, his prison clearance.
“I’ll walk you out,” said Alex, tossing the coin once and depositing it into his pocket.
* * *
IT WAS RAINING LIGHTLY by the time they left the parlor. Drops speckled the windows and plinked against the roof as the brothers strode side by side toward the front hall.
“There’s something you should know,” said Gideon, trying to ignore the lingering scent of roses in this hallway. “But until I have more information, I need you to keep it between us.”
Alex shot him a look. “All right.”
“Cressida Roseblood was at the Luminaries Dinner. It was her spell that came for Rune.”
Alex’s stride halted. Slowing, Gideon turned to find the color seeping from Alex’s face, turning his skin white as parchment.
“You’re certain?”
“We found her casting signature under a table.”
“Does Rune know?”
Gideon shook his head. “I haven’t told her yet.”
“Shouldn’t you? If Cressida—”
“I believe Rune is aware of the danger she’s in, but yes: she should know. I haven’t had the chance to—”
“I’ll tell her.” Alex ran long fingers through his hair, walking on, like he was still trying to make sense of what Gideon was saying. “I’ll ride to Wintersea first thing in the morning.”
“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?
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.”