“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.”