Текст книги "Heartless hunter"

Автор книги: Kristen Ciccarelli

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EIGHT RUNE

MINORA: (n.) a category of small to medium spells.

Minora Spells require a witch’s fresh blood. Old blood will typically not work and may cause painful consequences for the witch. Exceptions can be made when using the blood of another. Examples of Minora Spells include: closing a door from across the room or lighting a candle without a match.

—From Rules of Magic by Queen Callidora the Valiant

HER GRANDMOTHER’S SPELL BOOKS stared down from the musty old shelves of the casting room.

“Your supply is low,” said Verity, running her fingers along the corked glass vials that hung on the opposite wall. Of the six vials, four were empty and two were full; one contained Rune’s blood, the other Verity’s.

“I know,” said Rune from her casting desk, where she was tracing the mark for a spell called Truth Teller onto the bottom of a ceramic cup. Her guests would be here within the hour, and she needed to be ready. “But my cycle doesn’t start for another two weeks.”

Rune had developed her blood storage system shortly after learning she was a witch, using vials Verity stole from chemistry labs at the university. It was how Rune kept her body free of casting scars: by collecting her blood at every monthly cycle, she could usually get enough to see her through the month—if she used it sparingly and mainly cast simple Mirage spells. The more complicated a spell was, the more spellmarks it required, and the more blood needed to keep it alive.

A few months after her grandmother’s purging, Rune bled for the first time. All of her friends had started their monthly cycles years before, around the age of thirteen. But Rune’s first bleeding arrived late, at sixteen, after the revolution. Bringing with it the knowledge that she was, in fact, a witch.

She still remembered the painful cramping in her lower abdomen. She’d been at a party when it started, and had to excuse herself. In the bathroom, she’d found the black stain in her underwear, shining like ink.

Rune had stared at it, disbelieving.

It was the initial sign of a witch: at the onset of your first bleeding, you didn’t bleed red, but black.

Rune had seen Nan cast, and had gleaned some of the fundamentals from her. But everything else she’d learned from Verity, whose two eldest sisters had been witches and had let their younger sister help them with their spells. It was Verity who started collecting her own blood and giving it to Rune in order to help her cast stronger spells.

Like this enchantment. Truth Teller was a Minora spell and therefore more advanced than Rune’s usual Mirages. So she was using Verity’s blood instead of her own.

Verity turned away from the vials, moving toward the center of the room, where Rune sat at the desk. A spell book lay open beside her. On the yellowed pages in red ink was the symbol for the truth-telling spell. It was what Rune was using to enchant the wine cup.

“I’ll worry about my supply later,” said Rune, still drawing the mark in blood. The taste of salt stung her throat, and the roar of magic was loud in her ears. “Tonight, we need to find out where they’re holding Seraphine.”

The moment the spellmark was complete, magic swelled inside Rune like a wave. She swallowed back the briny taste in her mouth and waited for the roar in her ears to recede.

As the blood dried and the spell solidified, Verity pushed her spectacles further up her nose. Rune couldn’t help but notice the shadows under her friend’s eyes. Likely from too many late nights helping the Crimson Moth, then staying up until morning to finish her biology homework.

Verity was a scholarship student at the university in the capital.

“We’ve been trying to find the new holding location for weeks and have nothing to show for it,” Verity pointed out. “What makes you think tonight will be any different?”

“Because it has to be?” said Rune, desperate.

Pushing herself onto the desk, Verity seated herself next to the spell book, and her lavender perfume invaded Rune’s senses. Floral scents were in fashion these days, and the one Verity doused herself in had been a gift from her sisters.

“Rubbing elbows with patriots and witch hunters worked a year ago,” said Verity. “But the Blood Guard have gotten smarter. If we want to rescue Seraphine in time—if the Crimson Moth intends to stay one step ahead of the witch hunters—we’ll need a better tactic. Have you given any more thought to my idea?”

“The one where I say goodbye to my freedom by marrying some smug suitor?”

Verity rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. You say goodbye to running yourself ragged by strategically marrying someone who will unwittingly help you save witches.” She started casually turning the thin pages of the book, absently skimming through the spells. “Did you see Charlotte Gong tonight? She was wearing a gold ring on a chain around her neck.”

“So?” said Rune, setting the enchanted cup down now that the bloody spellmark on the bottom was dry. No one ever thought to check the bottom of their beverage for evidence of magic. Especially not in a witch hater’s house.

“So: she’s engaged. To Elias Creed.” Elias was Laila and Noah’s eldest brother. “He works for the Ministry of Public Safety. I put him at the top of your list of suitors, remember?”

“Pity,” said Rune, without a hint of disappointment. She was happy for Charlotte, who had a sweet temperament and once told her the witch purgings gave her a stomachache.

“Pity indeed. Elias would have been perfect for you. Boring. Not too intelligent. Close to a source of valuable intel. Soon all the good ones will be taken, and you’ll be out of options.”

“Perhaps you could marry instead and give me all the intel you extract.”

Verity gave a small smile. “I would if I could. But no one useful wants the poor little charity case.”

This was, unfortunately, true.

Verity’s mother had hated witches so deeply, she’d outed her eldest daughters to the Blood Guard, resulting in their deaths. Because of this, Verity had cut all ties with her parents, and in doing so, cut herself off from their monetary support. Rune suspected the story was even darker than her friend let on, from the way Verity went icy quiet when people brought it up, her eyes blackening like thunderclouds.

Verity’s position at the university was now dependent on scholarships. Scholarships she could keep only if she attained top grades. Otherwise, she’d be stripped of her room and board and forced out onto the street.

Rising from the desk, Rune crossed to the window of the annex and looked out. Her grandmother’s garden labyrinth sprawled out below, illuminated by the waxing moon. The sea was a black mirror in the distance.

She didn’t feel ready to marry. It wasn’t a matter of not being in love with any of her suitors; Rune had never expected love. In fact, in her grandmother’s absence, sometimes Rune felt half-alive. Like her heart was a withered thing in her chest.

Rune was no longer capable of love, nor did she need it. What she needed was to make the most strategic choice.

It was more the finality of yoking herself to someone for the rest of her life that made her balk, especially when that someone could never know who she really was.

But Verity’s right: it’s time.

For a plan like this to be most effective, the person would have to be someone with intimate knowledge of the Blood Guard’s secrets. Maybe she was being too picky, but when Rune looked at the list of suitors Verity had drawn up for her, when she considered the ones who were the most well connected, she suspected she could do better.

That she must do better.

Like there was a name missing from her list.

“Noah Creed is a good choice. They say his father is grooming him to become the next Good Commander. But he’s clever,” said Verity, still skimming the spells in the book on Rune’s desk. “Bartholomew Wentholt is a better option. He’s not that bright, and his mother is a celebrated witch hunter.”

“Bart is obsessed with himself,” said Rune, still staring out the window.

“Yes, but that could benefit you. He can’t pay much attention to your comings and goings if he’s checking his reflection every ten minutes.”

Rune sighed and walked back to the desk, where Verity had the book open to two spells Rune had been trying to master for weeks now: Deadbolt and Picklock. They were for locking and unlocking cell doors.

“Fine,” said Rune, pressing her fists to her hips. “Here’s the plan. I’ll woo Bart. Invite him to my room. Ply him with wine.” She glanced at the cup, now enchanted with Truth Teller. “If the information he gives me is valuable, I’ll choose him. If not, I’ll try again with Noah.”

If a suitor didn’t have access to good information, or wasn’t capable of retaining that information, he wasn’t worth her time.

A knock interrupted them. Rune’s blood spiked at the sound. The false wall of her bedroom hid this room, and she always shut it when she came here—she didn’t want the servants catching her red-handed in her grandmother’s casting room.

“Miss Winters?” called a muffled voice.

Rune blew out a breath through her lips. It was only Lizbeth.

After Nan’s arrest, the staff of Wintersea House all fled in the night, not wanting to serve in the house of a known witch. Or not wanting to serve in the house of an informer. Possibly both.

Only Lizbeth had stayed.

“Your guests are arriving.”

“Thank you. We’ll be right down.”

Rune lifted the enchanted cup from the desk. She would leave it in the kitchen for Lizbeth, who would fill it with wine and await Rune’s summons. They’d done this so often, with so many suitors, it was rote.

Rune glanced over to find Verity shrugging. “Noah or Bart—either will get you what you want, I think. And while you’re making your decision tonight, Alex and I will find out where they’re keeping Seraphine.”

She jumped down off the desk.

Rune opened the latch in the false wall and pushed it open. She waited for Verity to exit the casting room before stepping out after her.

“I was thinking yesterday, while feeding Henry …”

Henry was a spider. A mimic spider, Verity liked to remind her. Rune shivered, remembering the collection of arachnids Verity kept in jars on the shelf of her dormitory room. It was for a research project she was working on.

“Remember how I told you the mimic spider preys on small mammals?”

Rune preferred to not remember, actually. She hated spiders, and was now recalling the last time she’d visited her friend’s dormitory, when Verity handed her a massive jar containing a sleek, long-legged creature that stared at Rune while it feasted on a fuzzy lump twice its size. Possibly a mouse.

“Their webs need to be strong enough to catch and hold much bigger food,” Verity continued, oblivious to Rune’s squirming. “They feign weakness, and their cries summon rodents looking for an easy meal. But once the predator stumbles into the mimic spider’s web, they quickly become the prey. And once they’re caught, the spider devours them slowly over days. Eating them alive.”

Verity glanced pointedly back at Rune.

“Be like the mimic spider.”

Rune wrinkled her nose. “That’s … disgusting.”

But the image stuck in her mind as she shut the door behind them.

“I NEVER WALK ANYWHERE if I can help it. Why walk when I have three carriages at the ready to take me wherever I want?”

Bart Wentholt was boring Rune out of her mind. She swallowed a yawn as the two of them strolled the perimeter of her ballroom, which was alive with dancing guests.

“You should join me for a ride in my newest one. Maybe this Sunday? It would have to be in the afternoon, of course. I never get out of bed before noon.”

How convenient, thought Rune. I only fall into bed at noon.

Bart glanced toward the windows, where his reflection smiled back at him. Rune wanted to catch Verity’s gaze and roll her eyes, but there were too many others watching her. Alex, who was half engaged in a conversation a few feet away. Noah, who was dancing with a girl across the room. And several other young men on Verity’s short list of Suitors Rune Needs to Consider, all waiting to pounce the moment Bart left her side.

Instead, Rune fiddled with an ice-blue ribbon tied around her wrist, its silky surface embroidered with the Winters’ crest. She’d already given out the rest of her dancing ribbons to young men who’d asked at the beginning of the night. Rune had saved this one for Alex, as she always did. It was not only a way of passing on information to each other without looking suspicious, but a welcome respite.

“Will your mother be home?” Rune hoped that wasn’t too forward. “I so enjoy her witch-hunting stories. Or does her work for the Blood Guard keep her very busy these days?”

“Oh, you haven’t heard the dreadful news?” Bart was still looking at his reflection. Rune watched him brush his copper hair off his forehead so that it fell more stylishly to the side. As if the news he was about to relay didn’t disturb him at all. “They honorably discharged her last week. One of the little beasts she was hunting slashed the tendon in her ankle with a knife. She’ll never walk straight again.”

What? “That’s terrible!”

Terribly inconvenient. Rune made a face. His mother’s position as a witch hunter was the sole reason she was considering Bart. She mentally struck him from the number one spot on Verity’s list, already turning her attention to the young man who held second place: Noah Creed.

As the song played by the hired quartet ended, Noah’s gaze fixed on her. She fiddled with the last remaining ribbon on her wrist, marked for the next song, and looked to where Alex danced with Charlotte Gong, who was indeed wearing a gold ring on a chain around her neck.

People considered it bad luck to wear a wedding ring on your finger before your wedding day. So girls hung engagement rings around their necks to show them off.

Her gaze moved from Charlotte’s ring to Alex.

Rune had considered Alex as the solution to her suitor problem, of course. He was her oldest friend, and like a brother to her. Things between them might not be romantic, but good marriages were built on a lot less.

The problem was, Alex wasn’t the most strategic choice. If Rune’s prime directive was getting access to a source of regular, valuable intelligence, choosing Alex was impractical. Any information he gleaned, he gave to her freely.

Rune tore her gaze away from her friend, fixing it on Noah instead.

If she disentangled herself from Bart—who was currently using his reflection to adjust his cravat—she could give the ribbon she’d saved to Noah before the next dance began.

It seems I’ve made my choice, she thought, swallowing her disappointment.

Noah was perfectly acceptable. He was the son of the Good Commander—arguably the most powerful man in the Republic. And his sister, Laila, was a witch hunter. So, as the hum of instruments faded into silence, signaling the end of this dance, Rune abandoned Bart to his reflection. It would likely be several minutes before he even realized she’d left his side.

As dancers moved off the floor, she started across the ballroom toward Noah, whose face brightened at her approach.

Untying the ribbon from around her wrist, Rune fastened on a smile. She was preparing to continue her tiresome charade a little longer, when someone stepped into her path, cutting her off from her mark.

“Citizen Winters.”

Rune halted at the voice. Her mind clanged like the bells of a firehouse, raising the alarm.

She knew that voice.

Gideon Sharpe.

What was he doing here in her ballroom?

Her brain was in the middle of shutting down, preparing her body to fight or flee, when she suddenly saw the flower he held out.

“I owe you an apology.”

A what?

His palm cupped the rose, its stem hanging down between a gap in his fingers. If there were a more perfect rose, Rune had never encountered it. Crimson petals spiraled out from the center, bending back in mid-bloom.

“I was unthinking earlier,” said Gideon, holding it out to her. “And unkind.”

Knowing that every set of eyes was on them, Rune reluctantly took the rose. She found the stem not full of thorns, or even living; it was soft and sheer. Looking closer, she discovered jade-green silk wrapped tightly around some kind of wire. The petals, too, were fabric. Someone had delicately stitched the edges of each one.

Rune’s gaze skimmed the front of Gideon’s gray suit. It was rare for her to see a garment and not be able to place the designer. Fashion was her specialty. But this style of suit was wholly unfamiliar to her. Vintage? she wondered, impressed despite herself at how perfectly it fit his frame.

He seemed even bigger and broader out of uniform than in one.

“I was returning from a tiring witch hunt tonight,” he explained. “It’s no excuse, but the fatigue made me short-tempered. I was not myself.”

She lifted her eyes to his face.

As their gazes clashed, the ballroom went quiet. The lights, the voices, and the fashions of her guests faded to nothing as an unexpected thought struck Rune.

Gideon Sharpe is the missing name on my list.

It both terrified and tempted her.

But it was one thing to spend her nights as the Crimson Moth, outwitting the Blood Guard and rescuing witches from execution—that kind of danger was familiar. It was something very different to seduce the deadliest witch hunter of all: a cold, brutal soldier who wanted nothing more than to put the Crimson Moth to death.

I’d have to pretend more than ever.

Continuously pulling the wool over his eyes would be Rune’s biggest challenge yet. She would be in constant danger.

But it would be worth the risk …

Because Gideon Sharpe was by far the most tactical choice. If she and Gideon were courting, Rune would have intimate access to all the information she needed to rescue every witch—now and in the future.

She cleared her throat. “You have impeccable timing.” If he’d been fifteen seconds later, she would already be in Noah’s arms, her decision made. “I’ll gladly accept your apology …” Lifting the ribbon she’d untied from her wrist, Rune held it out to him. “… if you’ll dance with me?”

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NINE GIDEON

NORMALLY, GIDEON WENT OUT of his way to avoid parties like this. So when Rune held her ribbon in the air between them, he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do with it.

As it hung in the space between them, catching the light, every guest in the room fell quiet, their eyes moving to the bumbling idiot standing awkwardly before their hostess, reminding Gideon that he didn’t belong here. How the revolution had changed so much, and also nothing at all.

He was still the poor son of a tailor. The outdated suit he wore declared that to everyone. Gideon had grown up playing on dirt floors, eating watered-down soup to last the bitter winters, feeling his clothes get tighter and more threadbare because there was no money to replace them. All while the people currently gawking at him ate off gold-rimmed plates, fed their leftovers to their fat hounds, and retired their wardrobes at the end of every season.

While Gideon led a desperate group of men through the rat-infested cellars of the palace to murder tyrants in their beds, the “revolutionaries” around him hadn’t stooped to pick up a gun. Or gotten their hands dirty at all. Instead of losing their loved ones in the fighting on the eve of the New Dawn, many of these aristos had handed those loved ones over to be purged, betraying family and friends to keep their status in the New Republic after paying lip service to the Sister Queens for years. As if politics, for them, was not life or death, but simply a matter of swapping outdated gowns for whatever the newest trend was.

Gideon would rather ride his horse through a foot of mud, uphill, in a bloody hurricane than rub shoulders with the people here tonight.

And Rune Winters was the worst of them.

The brush of warm fingers on his wrist broke the spell in the room. Gideon looked down to find the hostess herself tying a blue dancing ribbon around his wrist.

His skin itched where she touched, and he fought the instinct to excuse himself, walk out the doors, and never look back. Gideon forced himself to hold still, thinking of Harrow’s report. Of the casting mark found on Rune’s cargo ship.

You’re here for the Moth, and the sooner you catch her, the easier it will be to purge the world of every last witch.

Gideon studied the girl before him. Was this her?

It seemed absurd. This darling of the New Republic, picking the locks of his holding cells, making off with his prisoners in the night, slaughtering Blood Guard officers in the street. And yet, it could be the reason he’d failed to catch the Moth these past two years: because she’d hidden herself so skillfully in plain sight.

When Rune finished tying the ribbon, she lifted the silk rose, tucking it into her red-gold hair, which was now braided into a semi-crown at the back of her head.

He’d spent the last two hours making it for her, feeling slightly ill as he sewed every petal. Roses always brought the painful memories rushing back. But Harrow’s advice—to woo Rune—kept ringing through his head, and his mother could never resist the silk roses his father used to make her after they argued.

That, of course, was before the Sister Queens broke his mother’s mind.

“Oh dear. Clumsy me! I’m making a mess of it …”

Gideon looked down to find Rune struggling with the stem of the rose—which was snagged in her hair.

“Here, let me …”

Rune dropped her hands as Gideon worked to separate the strands of gold from the wire stem. They stood so close now that her fragrance filled the air. Gideon braced himself, remembering another girl, another scent. But there was no reek of magic on Rune. All he could smell was the salty sea air blowing in through the open windows.

Which means nothing.

After a long soak in the bath, Cressida hadn’t smelled of magic either.

Cressida.

The name was a growl in his mind. Had Cressida ever dined beneath this roof? For all he knew, Cressida and Rune might have been friends.

He swallowed the sick feeling in his throat, carefully tucking the silk flower into the weave of Rune’s hair until it sat snug and fashionably to one side. The way his mother used to wear the flowers his father made her.

Before he could step back, the music started. Gideon glanced up to find himself surrounded by pairs of dancers on all sides.

Rune’s eyes sparkled as she reached out her gloved hand, positioning it high in the air. She stepped in closer, settling her other hand on his shoulder. “Ready, Captain Sharpe?”

Beneath the soft weight of her grip, Gideon tensed.

What am I doing?

He didn’t know this song, never mind the steps of whatever dance it cued.

Unlike the couples already moving around him, mirroring each other as they glided and twirled along with the melody, Gideon stood frozen as a statue while Rune held herself gracefully poised, ready to dance.

Her eyebrows arched, as if to say, What are you waiting for?

His neck grew hot beneath his collar. “Miss Winters …”

She must have heard it in his voice, because she quickly lowered her hands and stepped back. “Oh. You … don’t know how.”

Most of her friends still watched them, some of them murmuring behind their hands. Were they laughing at him?

Was she laughing at him?

He thought again of another girl. Another party. One where he’d been paraded around and humiliated.

Gideon thought he’d extinguished that shame. But it flared now like glowing embers.

Harrow was mistaken. Gideon had no chance in hell of successfully courting a girl like Rune. He’d just arrived and was already embarrassing her. When she realized he had no wealth or grand estate—he’d given his spoils of war to Alex after the revolution—she would join in their laughing, if she hadn’t already.

He needed to salvage this.

Remembering Harrow’s advice, he closed the distance between them.

“If we were at a different type of party,” he said, close to Rune’s ear, “I could give you a different answer.”

Another memory seeped up, filling his mind with the fast-paced melody of a fiddle. He could see his little sister in her cotton nightgown, still awake despite it being far past her bedtime. The humidity of the kitchens made her hair curl and stick to her sweaty skin as she danced with the dishwashers, cotton towels tucked into their waistbands. The cook, cheeks pink from the ovens, stood in the corner slashing his bow across his fiddle as the palace staff clapped and stomped and passed around a skin of ale before joining in the dancing themselves.

Sweet memories were rare for Gideon.

This one almost made him smile.

But as the memory faded and the flickering lights of the room around him came back into focus, he remembered that Tessa wasn’t here. He’d buried his little sister deep in the earth, where she’d never dance again.

Because of a witch.

Remembering where he was, and who stood before him—a girl who might be a witch in disguise, a girl who loved to be the center of attention—he said, “I seem to have scandalized your guests. I wonder if we should give them something more to discuss?”

Rune turned her face to his, clearly intrigued. “What did you have in mind?”

Getting you alone.

Alone, she would be vulnerable.

“Care to give me a private tour of your home?” It would provide him with the opportunity to search not only Rune for evidence of witchcraft, but also her house.

A smile curled her pretty mouth. “Of course. I should have offered.”

Her hand slid into his, surprising him. She was smaller than he’d realized, her palm nearly half the size of his.

“Come with me.”

Gideon let her plunge them through the murmuring guests, scattering their gossip like moths. For such a small thing, her grip was startlingly strong as she led him to the grand staircase on the other side of the room. Letting go of his hand, she started upward, leading them out of the noisy ballroom.

He was halfway up the steps behind her when a familiar voice called from below.

“Gideon?”

With one hand on the railing, Gideon froze, then turned to find his brother standing at the bottom of the stairs. Alex had discarded his suit jacket somewhere in the room, revealing brown suspenders over a crisp white shirt. His eyes flickered to Rune at the top of the steps, and back to Gideon, who stood between them, then lowered to the pale blue ribbon tied around Gideon’s wrist.

“What are you doing here?” Alex demanded. “You hate parties.”

“Not all parties,” said Gideon, thinking again of the ones he and his sister used to attend after midnight in the palace kitchens.

“This kind, you do. Which means you’re here hunting.”

“Rune invited me,” said Gideon, a little defensive.

“No doubt.” Alex’s eyes narrowed on Rune. To her, he said, “I’d like to claim my dance now.”

Gideon glanced back to find Rune’s eyes full of bullets, all directed at Alex.

Sweet Mercy. What had he walked into?

Rune clearly did not want to dance with Alex. And if she truly was the Moth, Gideon didn’t want his brother anywhere near her.

“She’s already promised me a tour of the estate,” he said.

“I’ll give you a tour,” said Alex, moving up the steps. “After I dance with Rune.”

His brother wasn’t even looking at him; his icy glare locked with Rune’s.

This was not a battle he wanted to be in the middle of. But if Gideon hoped to convince Rune he was truly vying for her affection, he needed to stake his claim. Doing so would drive a wedge between him and his brother, and there was already a sizable fissure in their bond, one cracked open years ago that had been growing wider ever since.

He thought of the casting signatures on Rune’s cargo ship.

I couldn’t protect Tessa, he thought, watching Alex. But I can still protect you.

He was about to cut his brother off when Rune herself stepped between them. Alex stood on the stair below hers, peering down at her.

“The song is already over, Alex. You’ll have to wait until next time.”

Before he could argue with her, Rune turned and left both brothers behind, her rust-colored gown shimmering as she went. At the top of the stairs, she glanced over her shoulder, eyes glittering in the gaslight. It was darker there, and the shadows sharpened her edges.

“Coming, Gideon?”

He paused, shooting an apologetic glance back at Alex.

I’m doing this for you.

But his brother didn’t look wounded. He looked worried.

Exactly who Alex was worried about, Rune or Gideon, was hard to decipher. And he didn’t have time to figure it out. Fixing his attention on the task at hand—unmasking the Crimson Moth—Gideon quickly caught up to Rune. Together they left the party, and Alex, behind.

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