A bright flush of red swept up her neck.
“People like you and your grandmother flourished under the Reign of Witches, when things were worse than they are now. So don’t pretend you care. You didn’t then, and you don’t now. The Sister Queens or the Good Commander … it’s all the same to you.”
She winced, as if he’d struck her.
Seeing it, the fight went out of him.
Fuck. That was too far.
“Rune …” He ran his hands roughly through his hair. “I’m sorry.”
Did he have to be so brutally honest? She seemed so small, suddenly. He wanted to close the space between them but was afraid she might recoil.
“I agree with you: the revolution was supposed to make things better, for all of us, but there’s a long way to go.”
She stayed silent, watching him as the wind whipped through her hair.
I’ve ruined it, he thought. She’s going to turn around, go back, and never speak to me again.
But instead of trying to salvage this—his last fraying thread to his only lead on the Crimson Moth—he gave her that out. He felt sick with himself for insulting her, and the right thing to do was suggest they return to the house.
Before he could, she stepped toward him, stopping only inches away.
“If I thought you were beneath me …” Her eyes were hard as pewter, searching his. “… why would I be out on a walk with you?”
He searched hers back.
Why indeed?
Lifting his hands, he gathered the wild tangle of hair blowing across her face. It surprised him when she didn’t flinch away, when she let him scrape it back instead. She seemed to soften as he held it, allowing him to see her clearly.
He shouldn’t have liked it so much—the feel of her hair against his palms, the way she relaxed beneath his fingers.
“Beautiful heiresses might court common soldiers,” he said. “But they don’t marry them.”
Her mouth quirked a little. “Did you just call me beautiful, Gideon?”
“I’m stating the obvious. Don’t change the subject.”
She looked away.
“You know it’s true, Rune. People of your station don’t marry down.”
In Gideon’s experience, those born into wealth and privilege wanted more of it, not less. Like the first hit of a drug, the moment people tasted power, they needed more to quench the craving.
“I don’t know how to dance to your songs,” he said. “I don’t have the esteem of your friends. I don’t use seventeen pieces of silverware at dinner.” He let go of her hair, and it billowed out, catching in the wind once more. “I have no means of expanding your inheritance.”
He knew he was walking a fine line, reminding her of the reasons they made no sense. That this charade they were playing was a weak one. But if the goal was to be vulnerable, to entice her to be vulnerable, too, he needed to speak the truth.
“People like you are impossible,” she said. “I don’t care about those things.”
He almost rolled his eyes. “Of course you do.”
“Then why are we here? If I’m so shallow—all trappings and no substance—what are you doing with me? Why would someone like you want someone like me?”
Gideon opened his mouth to respond, only he didn’t know the answer.
He studied her, hair ablaze in the setting sun. Gray eyes like molten steel.
In his silence, Rune came to her own conclusions.
“Maybe you’re right.” She stepped around him, lantern in hand, and unlatched the white gate at the garden’s edge, stepping into the meadow beyond. “One of us thinks ourself too good for the other. But it’s not me.”
The gate swung closed behind her.
Gideon stared after her.
What?
From this side of the gate, he watched her follow the footpath through the tall grass, heading toward the woods in the distance. For some strange reason, his thoughts trickled to Cressida.
He’d learned very quickly not to challenge Cress. Arguments with her came with consequences. When he disagreed or disobeyed, she would punish him—and sometimes others. Until he stopped resisting her altogether.
Rune, on the other hand, seemed rattled by his insults, but unfazed by his defiance.
It was uncharted territory. And without a map to guide him, Gideon stood motionless, watching her get further away. Not even Harrow’s voice in his head was any help.
If you genuinely liked this girl, he told himself, you would go after her.
Hopping over the gate, Gideon jogged down the path after her, his pulse beating wildly. As a general rule, Gideon avoided situations that rendered him vulnerable. Yet here he was, running straight into one.
“If we’re going to do this,” he said when he caught up with her, “there are some things you need to know.”
She glanced at him.
“So you can decide if this is what you want. If I am what you want.”
The forest ahead obscured their view of the sea, but he could taste the brine on the breeze. They were getting close.
She studied him in the light shining from her lantern. “All right. Tell me.”
This is a game, he reminded himself, his chest tight. It means nothing.
But if that were true, why did he feel like he was walking straight off a cliff, hoping he wouldn’t fall?
THIRTY GIDEON
“THE LAST GIRL I fell in love with was a witch,” he said.
Rune stiffened beside him.
“I met her the day my parents became royal dressmakers.”
His mother’s designs had been catching the eye of the aristocracy for nearly a year. Several months before, the money from their growing business had allowed them to move out of the Outer Wards—the poorest district in the capital—and into a tenement building in Old Town.
In a day, the queens had elevated them much further, moving their family into the palace. Suddenly, they could afford Alex’s tuition. Suddenly, Gideon no longer needed to skip meals so his little sister, Tessa, could eat her fill.
“My parents could hardly keep up with the queens’ demands, so they brought me in to help. Alex had left to study at the Conservatory, and Tessa was too young to do anything except get in the way. Cressida asked that I be assigned to her exclusively, so I went to live at Thornwood Hall.”
His stomach churned as he tried to decide how much to unearth. He didn’t want Rune to know every sordid detail of his past. But there were some things she deserved to know, before she entangled herself with him further.
“Cress didn’t only want me for her tailor.” He darted a glance at Rune, who walked beside him, staring straight ahead. “And I was happy to fulfill her … other needs.”
“You two were intimate, you mean.”
“Yes.”
He wanted to block out the memories flooding in. Late nights in Cressida’s gardens that somehow always ended in her bed, his fingers tracing the silvery casting scars she proudly displayed on her skin like the most exquisite art.
Each casting scar had been etched by Cressida or her sisters, the collection like a wild garden growing up her body. Scar lines formed roses and lilies, buttercups and irises, all tangled with leaves and thorns and stems. The silver flowers climbed her calves and thighs, covering the left side of her torso and breast, and flowed down her arms.