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?
No one.
“If you tell the truth, they’ll kill you.” Rune reached for his arm, keeping him with her. “You can’t speak a word of this to anyone. Especially not Gideon.”
Gideon would be the first to hand him over.
Alex wouldn’t look at her, ashamed of the lie. Ashamed of himself and the mercy he’d shown.
Rune wanted to stay angry at him, and yet she knew the qualities that made him spare Cressida were the same ones that made him spare her. His gentleness and compassion; his firm refusal to take part in cruelty; his willingness to risk his life in order to do what was right … These things allowed him to see who Rune was, not what she was, and love her despite the danger.
“Sparing the life of someone you hate doesn’t make you weak,” she said, perhaps more to herself than to Alex. “It makes you better than the rest of us.”
It was the lie that was wrong.
She cupped his jaw in her hands and tilted his face to hers, holding his gaze. “If anything happened to you …” She shut her eyes against the thought of it. “Please, Alex. Promise me you won’t tell a soul.”
His breath trembled out of him. Finally, he said: “I promise.”
FORTY-FIVE
GIDEON
GIDEON PRESSED HIS BACK to the wall, breathing in the smell of oiled metal and ink. He drew his pistol and glanced at Laila, who mirrored him on the other side of this door, her scarlet uniform a pop of color in the darkness.
At Gideon’s request, the Ministry of Public Safety had instituted a curfew, decreeing a temporary postponement of citizens’ rights and allowing the Blood Guard to conduct raids wherever a casting signature had been found—or was suspected to be found.
It was Harrow who’d tipped Gideon off to this print shop. Three casting signatures were seen in one of its storerooms last week. The tip had come from one of the shopworkers, and as a result, Harrow had several spies watching the shop. She’d notified him less than an hour ago that seven people had entered after hours, when no one should have been there, and they hadn’t come out yet.
On my count, Laila mouthed, holding up three fingers. A printing press loomed at the bottom of the stairs behind her, where the darkness hid the rest of their raiding squad.
Three.
Two.
One.
They pushed off the wall. While Laila covered for him, Gideon kicked the door with all of his might.
It burst open.
They entered the shop’s uppermost room, their guns held high, while the rest of their raiding squad rushed in behind them. From the center, back-to-back, Gideon and Laila scanned the room, turning in a circle, their pistols pointed at empty space.
“There’s no one here.”
Dozens of freshly lit candles ringed the perimeter. Inside the circle of flames, where Gideon and Laila stood, someone had drawn symbols in blood on the floor.
Gideon looked from the bloody marks to the rafters, which were also empty. The door he’d just kicked in was the only way out. So where were they?
He lowered his pistol, eyeing the shadows cast by the flickering flames. “Where the fuck did they go?”
“Maybe they’re not gone,” said Laila, glancing at him.
Her words cast a chill over the room.
Stepping into the circle of flames, he walked toward the center, where a white casting signature glimmered in the air. Strange, how much could change in so little time. Because as Gideon approached, he was hoping for a different one.
This signature was neither crimson, nor moth shaped. Its thorns and petals made Gideon’s blood run cold.
“Gideon?”
He glanced at the three guards still standing beyond the flames, as if afraid to step inside the circle. Behind them, Laila was staring at something over Gideon’s head.
“I know where they went.”
Turning away from Cressida’s signature, he looked to where Laila’s attention was focused: the long horizontal windows roughly ten feet up the wall. One of them was open.
“You three.” He nodded to the soldiers outside the circle. “Check the alleys.” Moving for the window, he called to Laila: “Give me a leg up?”
She strode over and cupped her hands. As he stepped into them, Laila pushed him upward. Gideon grabbed the frame of the open window and pulled himself into it. Reaching down, he grabbed Laila’s outstretched hand and hauled her up beside him.
Gideon climbed onto the slanted roof first. But the fog was so thick, he could only see a few feet in front of him.
The print shop was part of several blocks of continuous row houses. This, combined with the fog cover, gave Cressida and any witches with her ease of movement tonight. They could be halfway across the city by now.
“We’ll cover more ground if we split up,” said Laila, half crouching beside him. Her eyes narrowed, scanning the fog. “Wait … there’s something there!”
“Where?”
Laila took off, scrambling up the sloped roof and disappearing into the gray, her gun drawn.