Rune expected it to burn her when she took it. But as Laila placed it in her hands, both the hilt and the steel were cold to the touch. Rune hoped her trembling didn’t give her away.

What am I going to do?

If she refused to kill the witch before her, she’d reveal the truth to every single one of her enemies. Rune was surrounded. There weren’t only Laila and the other Blood Guard soldiers to contend with. There was the Good Commander himself, not to mention the hundreds of patriots seated at tables, and the thousands of guards beyond, patrolling the halls of the palace.

Cold panic hummed in Rune’s blood.

She was trapped.

The Commander signaled to the musicians to begin. This was the sickest part of private purgings: the music. As if slitting the throat of a girl and watching her bleed out over the floor weren’t butchery or murder, but refined art.

Rune’s fingers tightened around the knife hilt.

Laila retreated, moving toward the levers. In a moment, she’d pull them, and the chains would snap, yanking Seraphine’s feet out from under her and drawing her toward the sky, to hang upside down. Like a cow to be slaughtered.

Rune and Seraphine were momentarily alone on the platform.

She could cast a spell. But to do that, she’d have to pull the blood vial from her pocket, uncork it, and draw the spellmarks. Someone would realize what she was doing and stop her before she could finish.

I could nick my finger with this knife, she thought. Just the fingertip. And use the blood to draw a spellmark on my palm.

But what spell would be quick enough? What wouldn’t require much blood or draw much attention?

And the silvery scar she’d be left with would damn her.

Maybe that was the price she needed to pay, to save Seraphine. To fulfill her grandmother’s last request.

The music still played as Laila grabbed hold of the levers.

“You disgust me.” Seraphine spat. The spittle hit Rune’s cheek, startling her and drawing her attention back to the witch. “Kestrel would be ashamed of you.”

Beneath the grime of too many nights spent in a disgusting cell, Seraphine was fine-boned and pretty. She reminded Rune of a sparrow.

“You don’t deserve the Winters name.” The witch’s eyes burned like black fire. As if, were their positions reversed, Seraphine would have already cut Rune’s throat.

I went to find you, Rune wanted to say. I’ve been trying to save you.

With so many people listening, she didn’t dare.

“Do you have nothing to say to me?” Seraphine’s voice shook—out of hatred for Rune, or grief over Kestrel, or possibly the knowledge that she was about to die.

What they needed was a distraction. Something to put the room into a panic.

A fire would be good. Rune could cause utter chaos with a fire. But summoning actual fire was a complex spell that required a lot of fresh blood, and not only did Rune not know the marks, she didn’t have the blood.

But the illusion of a fire … that she might manage.

Laila pulled the lever. There was an awful clinking sound of metal straining against metal. Rune knew what came next. So did everyone else.

The chains yanked Seraphine’s feet out from under her. She flipped in the air, and her body swung helplessly as she was hauled skyward.

With no other choice, Rune decided to risk the casting scar.

She was about to touch the knife’s sharp steel to the tip of her finger and press down hard, when the acrid tang of smoke burned in the air.

“Fire!” someone yelled.

What? Rune hadn’t even drawn blood yet.

“FIRE!” More people took up the call.

Rune lowered the knife and glanced up. Black smoke thickened the air, drawing her gaze to the column of fire rising on the far side of the courtyard. Instead of red flames, these were black. Just like Seraphine’s eyes.

Spellfire.

This isn’t my spell, she realized.

She remembered the murderous look in Seraphine’s eyes.

Is it hers?

Suddenly, the column moved. Fast. Snaking toward the purging platform. Heading straight for Rune. Realizing it, she inhaled sharply, and the sting of smoke burned down her throat.

Rune erupted in a fit of coughing and her eyes burned with tears, making it hard to see.

Help Seraphine.

As she stumbled through the smoke, someone called Rune’s name—Verity?—but she didn’t glance toward the sound. She needed to get Seraphine down before the spellfire devoured them both.

Black fire crackled around them. Its fiery heat curled up Rune’s back and singed her hair. The knife hilt grew hot in her hands, burning her skin. She dropped it.

Before she could lunge for Seraphine, the dark flames snaked between them. The witch vanished, leaving Rune alone, trapped in the spellfire.

On some invisible command, the fiery circle constricted, closing in on her.

As if it intended to burn her alive.

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THIRTY-NINE GIDEON

AFTER LEAVING THE GROTESQUE scene on Freshwater Street, Gideon rode for the palace, hoping he hadn’t missed the Luminaries Dinner entirely. After stabling his horse and eyeing the carriages being pulled up in the rotunda, signaling that dinner was nearly at an end, Gideon trod up the steps and headed for the courtyard.

He was striding down the grand hallway, trying to push the image of James Tasker’s corpse out of his mind, when several screams of “Fire!” made him nearly jump out of his skin.

They were all coming from the same direction.

As more voices echoed the frantic call, Gideon started to run. After living in this palace, he knew the quickest routes, and when he reached the courtyard, he found Luminaries guests pushing through the doors, tripping over each other to escape.

The smell of smoke rushed out with them. Gideon looked over the heads of the escapees in time to see Rune standing alone on a purging platform, with a pillar of black flames spinning toward her.

“No … ”

Gideon surged straight into the crowd of panicked guests, pushing them back, not caring about their protests. He ignored their frantic elbows and fists as he forced himself through the doors, trying to get to Rune.

Stumbling into the courtyard, he glanced up and saw her disappear into the flames.

“Rune!”

Gideon tugged off his jacket—the expensive one she’d sent him earlier today—and pulled it over his head before diving into the thick smoke.

He tried not to breathe as he barreled forward, bumping into tables and tripping over chairs. He picked himself up and kept going, even as the smoke stung his eyes and the heat burned his skin. When he tripped again, it was on the steps of the platform. Gideon stumbled up them, pulled his jacket tighter over his head, and ran straight into the dark flames spinning around the spot where Rune had disappeared.

It smelled like a pyre. All burning wood and singed hair.

When he burst through the other side, into the eye of the spinning flames, Rune turned towards him. His chest tightened at the sight of her ashen face.

Gideon closed the space between them in a single stride and threw the jacket over her, tucking her into it. Her whole body trembled with shock.

“You came,” she whispered.

He pulled Rune against him, trying to shield her from the heat. What would have happened if he’d arrived five minutes later? If he hadn’t made it here at all?

Don’t think about that. Just get her out of here.

“Ready to run?”

She nodded.

Scooping her into his arms, Gideon plunged through the flames. He didn’t feel the searing heat on his skin. Only Rune’s forehead pressed against his throat, and the lock of her arms around his neck. Bursting out the other side, Gideon choked on the thick smoke, lost sight of the stairs, and half stumbled down them, nearly dropping Rune.