Forty. Rune

FORTYRUNE

“QUITE THE PERFORMANCE,” SAID Verity as Rune’s carriage left the palace, bumping along the cobblestone streets. “With acting skills like those, you could audition for the Royal Theater.”

Beside her, Rune sighed. Verity was upset. She’d been worried sick about Rune, who she’d watched get engulfed by spellfire, and when she finally found her alive, Rune was flirting with an equally dangerous force: Gideon Sharpe.

“Truly. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you were smitten with a Blood Guard captain who hunts down your own kind.”

Rune looked away, unable to escape the guilt flooding in. “I’m not smitten,” she said, watching the city center roll by through the window. “And I’m perfectly aware that he hates my kind. That’s why I’m letting him court me, remember? To steal his intel.”

“And how much intel have you stolen, exactly?”

Rune opened her mouth to answer, except the only information Gideon had given her was bad information.

Is she right?

Was courting Gideon nothing more than a dangerous waste of her time?

“I need to wear down his defenses more,” she said. “Once he trusts me completely, he’ll be at my disposal.”

Verity turned to the window. “Whatever you say.”

Knowing that Verity wasn’t really angry at Rune, but at the people trying to hurt her, she changed the subject. “Is Seraphine all right?”

Verity nodded, visibly relaxing. “They removed her back to her cell.”

With the tension defused, they sat in silence until the carriage pulled up to Thornwood Hall.

Alex’s home was nestled inside a forest. The old trees towered over them as they exited the carriage and started toward the stone house.

More of a small castle,thought Rune, staring up at it. A turret graced each of its four corners, and candles burned in most of the windows, giving Rune the impression of eyes. Like Cressida’s former home was watching her approach.

She hurried to catch up with Verity, following her inside.

Now that Verity had obtained information regarding the prison, they needed a cogent plan for breaking Seraphine out of that prison—as soon as possible.

Upon entering Alex’s home, she was greeted by piano music floating through the halls. It soothed her a little. While Verity stalked toward the kitchens in search of refreshments for their meeting, Rune followed the song to the other end of the house, drawn to it like a distressed ship to a beacon.

With the smell of smoke lingering in her hair, Rune drew her shawl tighter around herself. She’d spent two years being hunted by the Blood Guard. She was used to people wanting her dead. But it had never occurred to her that a witch might want her dead, too. The realization rattled her.

The conservatory door hung open. Sighting the pianist, Rune paused to watch him play.

Alex’s lean shoulders hunched as his hands moved like spiders over the keys. The sight of him was like coming home. Like wrapping herself in a warm blanket on a chilly day.

Alex was constant and safe. Gentle and kind.

Rune leaned against the lintel and let herself wonder, just for a moment, what it would be like to accept his offer. To leave everything behind and go to Caelis, where she could live a life without fear and finally be herself.

No.She had a purpose here in the New Republic. A duty.

Witches were still being hauled to prison and purged. Rune couldn’t abandon them. They were innocent people, and she owed it to her grandmother. Saving girls from being murdered by the Republic was the only way to make Nan’s death mean something.

It was the choice she’d made.

And no matter how she might dream of a different life, this was the one she belonged in.

Alex’s right hand stumbled, hitting the wrong key, and the song halted.

“Rune.” He brushed his golden hair out of his eyes to look at her. “You startled me.”

“Sorry.” She stepped out of the door frame and into the room, moving toward him. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

He rose from the bench, his gaze sweeping over her. “What happened?”

Rune looked down at herself. Ashy soot streaked the beautiful gown Gideon had made her. It probably streaked her face, too. “I … it’s a long story. I’ll tell it once Verity gets back from the kitchen.”

Alex made room for her on the bench, looking worried. Rune sat down, letting her shawl fall to the floor behind them.

She nodded toward the keys. “Don’t stop on my account.”

With his eyes still on her, Alex placed his fingers on the piano and resumed the song.

And like that, he was gone again. Soaring away from her.

“You play better than your brother, that’s for sure,” she said when he finished, remembering Gideon plunking piano keys in her library.

“Oh? Has he been serenading you?” The playfulness of the question couldn’t hide the edge in his voice. Before she could answer, he closed the fallboard, and the keys disappeared. “I have something to show you.”

He rose from the bench and walked to the far wall, where his writing desk stood between two windows. He picked up a large sheet of paper, then brought it back and handed it to her.

“It’s the deed to the house in Caelis.”

Rune stared at the deed. A strange numbness flooded her. “You bought it?” The realization gave her a stomachache. “So soon?”

“I’m putting Thornwood Hall up for sale tomorrow. Please don’t look so unhappy.”

“Of course I’m happy for you.” Rune handed it back to him. “This is what you want.”

It just wasn’t what she wanted.

Alex was her safe place. She could be herself with him. Alex, along with Verity, had filled the gaping hole in her life after Nan died. He and Verity were always there—after every dangerous night of saving witches, after every ridiculous after-party where Rune’s head ached from gossiping and flirting and pretending to be someone she wasn’t, in the quiet moments and the loud ones.

And unlike Verity, who was a fire constantly spurring her on, Alex was a cool spring, giving her a place to rest and recover, reminding her that she was a girl with needs and weaknesses, not some invincible savior.

What will I do without you?

Maybe that was the problem. Rune needed Alex more than he needed her. He’d given her so much, and she’d given so little in return.

She was doing it now. Being selfish. The selfless thing to do was let him go.

Rune swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth and tried to be a better friend.

“I want you to finish your studies.” She smiled, hoping it didn’t look forced. “And then I want you to become a world-famous composer whose name I can flaunt at parties, telling everyone I knew you when you didn’t know the difference between adagio and allegro.”

He studied her for a long time, deliberating something.

“Will you come back to visit me?” she asked.

“If … you want me to.”

It wasn’t the answer Rune needed. She wanted him to want to come back. To need her the way she needed him.

Sinking back down to the piano bench, his eyes locked with hers. Alex had the most beautiful eyes. Bright gold with flecks of brown.

“But it’s easier for you to make a clean break,” she said, putting voice to the thing he wouldn’t. “To put this island behind you.” More quietly, she said, “To put me behind you.”

“No.” His voice was soft but firm. His hands lifted to gently cup her face. “Rune, never. I want …”

Before he could finish, Verity flew into the room with a tray of tea and cookies. “Is anyone else starving?”

Alex’s hands dropped and he turned sharply away from Rune. As she watched him slide off the bench and stand before the fireplace, quietly stoking the flames, she remembered Gideon’s words from the garden.

When I saw Alex at your side, I knew exactly who you were … a girl who was entirely off-limits, because my little brother found her first.

Rune had thought he was talking about ruining her and Alex’s friendship. Now she wondered if he’d meant something else.

“So? How did the dinner go?” Alex asked as Verity set down the tray and poured out three cups of tea.

Verity relayed everything she’d told to Rune already—about witches being kept beyond the seventh gate, and the access coin they needed to move through the prison—before telling him about the spellfire Seraphine used to nearly kill Rune.

Alex spat his tea back into his cup. “Seraphine did what?”

Rune, still on the piano bench, crossed the room and lowered herself into the love seat. “We don’t know for sure that it was her. It shouldn’t have been possible, with her hands in restraints.”

“Who else would it be?”

Silence answered him.

With the fire roaring in the hearth, Alex set down the poker and joined Rune on the love seat.

“If they’d intended to purge her tonight,” said Verity, “Seraphine’s days are numbered. We have to break her out of that prison as soon as possible.”

“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.