Verity had reacted almost defensively when questioned about the Roseblood sisters using Arcana spells. And Verity had been at the Luminaries Dinner the night Cressida Roseblood was also in attendance. What if Verity was responsible for the spellfire?
What if Verity de Wilde was Cressida Roseblood in disguise?
“I’m sorry,” said Seraphine. “But your friend Verity doesn’t exist. Or if she did, she doesn’t anymore.”
“Are you saying Cressida killed Verity and stole her identity?”
“It’s very likely, yes.”
“But that means …”
Cressida Roseblood, not Verity de Wilde, had been Rune’s closest confidant for two years—without her knowing.
This whole time, Rune had trusted and confided in a murderer. In the girl who’d tortured Gideon and killed his little sister.
She rested her restrained hands on the wood railing to steady herself.
It can’t be true.
Verity was her friend.
But Rune had only become friends with Verity in the months after the revolution. By then, Cressida was dethroned and on the run. That left plenty of time to kill the girl and subsume her identity before befriending Rune.
The thought of Verity—the real Verity, a girl Rune was forced to concede she didn’t know at all—being cornered by the witch queen made Rune feel like she was going to throw up.
How could I have missed the signs?
Rune watched the girl she’d formerly known as Verity cut through the crowd, a small army of witches in her wake. Despite Rune’s horror and loathing, that girl was the closest thing she and Seraphine had to an ally right now.
Everyone else in that crowd wanted them dead.
Rune remembered the countless times Verity—no, Cressida—had absently traced the spellmarks on the open pages of her spell books. If she’d been memorizing all of Rune’s spells, then she likely knew the one that would set Rune and Seraphine’s hands free.
Picklock.
Leaning as far as she could over the railing, Rune’s voice battled with the thunder as she shouted: “My Queen!”
The girl who’d stolen Verity’s identity glanced up, her gaze swooping like a hawk to Rune.
As smoke filled the air, Rune raised her ironclad hands.
“A little help?”
The witch queen smiled, and Rune shivered at the sight. Holding out her pale forearm, which was covered in bloody spellmarks, she smudged the symbols with her hand.
The illusion fell away.
She was Verity no longer.
That curly brown hair straightened, lightening to moon-white. Her dark eyes turned crystalline blue. And the curves of her body fell away, flattening and lengthening into the wispy queen Rune remembered.
Snatching a young woman from the crowd, Cressida pulled back the girl’s hair. As her victim screamed and fought, trying to get away, Cressida bared the girl’s pale throat to her knife’s crescent edge, and slit it.
Rune glanced away too late to unsee the red blood, running like rivulets down her neck. The girl dropped to the stones, choking on it. Cressida dipped her fingers in the blood and drew a new symbol.
The spell flared to life. The locks of Rune and Seraphine’s manacles clicked. The heavy iron blocks imprisoning their hands opened, along with the chains around their ankles. Both fell, hitting the burning platform with a clattering thud.
Rune and Seraphine were free.
FIFTY-NINE
GIDEON
THE CROWD ERUPTED AROUND Gideon. Everywhere he looked, people screamed and pushed, trying to get out of the square and away from the witches descending on them. Gideon leaned into the jostle and crush, drawing his pistol.
Witches outnumbered his soldiers. The spellfire had killed the Blood Guard soldiers on the platform, leaving only those on the ground. There were enough left to handle a purging, but not a full-on attack. And the furious sound of gunfire cracking across the square meant the witches were armed.
His soldiers were outnumbered and outgunned.
Gideon had known Cressida was planning something. He should have prepared for this. He should have been ready for anything.
The crowd scattered and thinned, leaving only the witches—dozens of them, cloaked in gray. They advanced, moving like a synchronized unit. Those in front fired and fell back to reload, while those behind stepped forward to cover them.
Crack crack crack!
Bullets whizzed past Gideon. He returned their fire, calling for the Blood Guard to fall back to the purging platform, whose wooden frame—now going up in flames—could be used to take cover.
Gideon kept firing as they followed his commands. All except Laila, who stood shooting alongside him.
“Go,” he told her.
She ignored him, her pistol smoking. “Some of those girls are the witches we captured.”
Gideon nodded. The very ones Rune set free, with the help of his brother.
“And the witch leading them …”
Gideon shuddered. Cressida. The girl from his nightmares was here, in the flesh. He didn’t want to think about what that would mean. If they lost this fight …
Suddenly, the witches halted. Their firing stopped and silence rang out through the square.
“Gideon Sharpe!” Cressida shouted. “Tell your dogs to stand down!”
Her voice sent a lightning-like jolt down Gideon’s legs, unbalancing him.
He and Laila both stopped firing. But they kept their guns raised. When the Blood Guard behind them did the same, Cressida stepped forward, out of the formation, with another witch at her side.
The second witch dragged someone along by the collar. Her captive stumbled. His face was so bloodied and bruised that Gideon didn’t recognize him at first.
“Papa!” Laila cried out.
Gideon looked closer. It was Nicolas Creed. The man who’d picked him up from the alley stones behind the boxing ring; the man who’d taught Gideon how to fight back.
How did she capture him?
The Good Commander was heavily guarded at all times.
But if Cress could disguise herself as Verity, she could disguise herself as anyone. One of Nicolas’s most devoted soldiers, perhaps. His wife, or one of his children. He wouldn’t have stood a chance.
The witch threw the Good Commander to the ground at Cressida’s feet.
Laila lowered her gun and stepped forward. Gideon’s arm shot out to stop her.
“Keep your head,” he said. “It’s the only way to help him now.”
Laila swallowed, nodding, and fell back beside Gideon, her eyes trained on her father.
Cressida sheathed her cutting knife—a crescent-shaped blade Gideon knew too well—and drew out a pistol. Stepping forward, she pressed the barrel to Nicolas’s temple. Bright red blood stained her fingers, and all down one scarred arm were faded spellmarks.
Her sharp gaze focused on Gideon. “Tell your soldiers to disarm themselves and pile their weapons here.” She nodded to a spot several feet in front of her. “Then bring me Rune Winters and Seraphine Oakes. Do it now, or I’ll kill him.”
Nicolas knelt on the ground, his hands bound behind his back. The Commander raised his eyes to them, one of which was swollen shut.
Laila’s grip tightened on her pistol.
Nicolas’s gaze held Gideon’s. “Do not obey her. Do not stand down.”
Cressida pressed the barrel harder into his temple. Her dark eyes flashed. “Bring me the weapons, Gideon.”
“Remember what it was like when we lived at their mercy.”
Cressida looked sharply down, staring at her quarry. “Nicolas,” she crooned softly. Deceptively. Gideon knew that voice. His senses heightened, morphing into fear. “Stop talking.”
“Commander,” he warned. “Respectfully, I think you should do as she says.”
Nicolas glanced from Gideon to Laila and back. They may have beaten his body, but his spirit was fully intact. He looked not resigned, but resolved. “Think of what she will do to the ones you love. Think of what she will do to you. Do you want to live like that again? Or do you—”
A shot rang out.
Gideon flinched.
Laila sucked in a breath.
Silence bled through the square as the Commander’s body tipped slowly forward, collapsing in a heap. His eyes were blank as they stared at Gideon.
A cold numbness spread through Gideon’s chest. He stared at his mentor—a man who’d been like a father to him—now dead on the stones.
“That’s enough of that,” said Cressida.