He stopped to look down at her. Quietly, and a little sadly, he said, “I do sympathize with witches.”

The words softened her. This was Alex, after all. The boy who, upon learning she was a witch, had drawn Rune a warm bath to ease her cramps instead of handing her over to be killed. Who else would have done that?

No one.

“If you tell the truth, they’ll kill you.” Rune reached for his arm, keeping him with her. “You can’t speak a word of this to anyone. Especially not Gideon.”

Gideon would be the first to hand him over.

Alex wouldn’t look at her, ashamed of the lie. Ashamed of himself and the mercy he’d shown.

Rune wanted to stay angry at him, and yet she knew the qualities that made him spare Cressida were the same ones that made him spare her. His gentleness and compassion; his firm refusal to take part in cruelty; his willingness to risk his life in order to do what was right … These things allowed him to see who Rune was, not what she was, and love her despite the danger.

“Sparing the life of someone you hate doesn’t make you weak,” she said, perhaps more to herself than to Alex. “It makes you better than the rest of us.”

It was the lie that was wrong.

She cupped his jaw in her hands and tilted his face to hers, holding his gaze. “If anything happened to you …” She shut her eyes against the thought of it. “Please, Alex. Promise me you won’t tell a soul.”

His breath trembled out of him. Finally, he said: “I promise.”

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FORTY-FIVE GIDEON

GIDEON PRESSED HIS BACK to the wall, breathing in the smell of oiled metal and ink. He drew his pistol and glanced at Laila, who mirrored him on the other side of this door, her scarlet uniform a pop of color in the darkness.

At Gideon’s request, the Ministry of Public Safety had instituted a curfew, decreeing a temporary postponement of citizens’ rights and allowing the Blood Guard to conduct raids wherever a casting signature had been found—or was suspected to be found.

It was Harrow who’d tipped Gideon off to this print shop. Three casting signatures were seen in one of its storerooms last week. The tip had come from one of the shopworkers, and as a result, Harrow had several spies watching the shop. She’d notified him less than an hour ago that seven people had entered after hours, when no one should have been there, and they hadn’t come out yet.

On my count, Laila mouthed, holding up three fingers. A printing press loomed at the bottom of the stairs behind her, where the darkness hid the rest of their raiding squad.

Three.

Two.

One.

They pushed off the wall. While Laila covered for him, Gideon kicked the door with all of his might.

It burst open.

They entered the shop’s uppermost room, their guns held high, while the rest of their raiding squad rushed in behind them. From the center, back-to-back, Gideon and Laila scanned the room, turning in a circle, their pistols pointed at empty space.

“There’s no one here.”

Dozens of freshly lit candles ringed the perimeter. Inside the circle of flames, where Gideon and Laila stood, someone had drawn symbols in blood on the floor.

Gideon looked from the bloody marks to the rafters, which were also empty. The door he’d just kicked in was the only way out. So where were they?

He lowered his pistol, eyeing the shadows cast by the flickering flames. “Where the fuck did they go?”

“Maybe they’re not gone,” said Laila, glancing at him.

Her words cast a chill over the room.

Stepping into the circle of flames, he walked toward the center, where a white casting signature glimmered in the air. Strange, how much could change in so little time. Because as Gideon approached, he was hoping for a different one.

This signature was neither crimson, nor moth shaped. Its thorns and petals made Gideon’s blood run cold.

“Gideon?”

He glanced at the three guards still standing beyond the flames, as if afraid to step inside the circle. Behind them, Laila was staring at something over Gideon’s head.

“I know where they went.”

Turning away from Cressida’s signature, he looked to where Laila’s attention was focused: the long horizontal windows roughly ten feet up the wall. One of them was open.

“You three.” He nodded to the soldiers outside the circle. “Check the alleys.” Moving for the window, he called to Laila: “Give me a leg up?”

She strode over and cupped her hands. As he stepped into them, Laila pushed him upward. Gideon grabbed the frame of the open window and pulled himself into it. Reaching down, he grabbed Laila’s outstretched hand and hauled her up beside him.

Gideon climbed onto the slanted roof first. But the fog was so thick, he could only see a few feet in front of him.

The print shop was part of several blocks of continuous row houses. This, combined with the fog cover, gave Cressida and any witches with her ease of movement tonight. They could be halfway across the city by now.

“We’ll cover more ground if we split up,” said Laila, half crouching beside him. Her eyes narrowed, scanning the fog. “Wait … there’s something there!”

“Where?”

Laila took off, scrambling up the sloped roof and disappearing into the gray, her gun drawn.

“Laila, wait …” Gideon followed her to the roofline. One misstep would send him sliding down the sloped shingles on either side.

Three quick pistol shots rang out from several yards ahead.

Fuck fuck fuck …

He picked up speed, running across the roofline, listening for the next shot. None came. When a silhouetted form appeared at the end of the row house roof, he drew his gun.

“Don’t move!”

The silhouette jumped, disappearing into the gray.

Gideon reached the edge of the roof but saw no sign of Laila. It was too far to jump from one length of row houses to the next, so Gideon dropped to the fire escape instead and vaulted down the steps.

Back on the ground, the fog thickened, obscuring the alley.

Another shot rang out, closer this time.

He headed toward it. “Laila!”

“I’m here,” she said, jogging into view. “I don’t think I hit them … but I saw them.” She bent over, hands on her knees, catching her breath. “They ran west.”

“How many?”

“Three, I think.”

Gideon glanced in the direction Laila had come from, trying to see. But the fog cloaked everything. It gave him a bad feeling.

“I think we should head back.”

“What? No. I almost had her!”

He shook his head. Something felt wrong about this whole situation. “We’re going back.”

Laila looked like she was going to refuse, but Gideon outranked her. So she fell silently into step beside him and they headed for the main street, the glow of the streetlamps lighting their way.

“I almost had her,” she said again.

When a sound came from behind them—like the swish of a cloak, or a careful footstep—the back of Gideon’s neck prickled. Laila tensed, hearing it too.

He glanced at her, his hand hovering close to his holstered pistol. Catching his gaze, she nodded. They turned as one, their guns raised to the fog, gazes flicking from one side of the street to the other.

“Show yourself,” growled Laila.

Movement in the shadows made the blood drum in Gideon’s ears. At the sound of another footstep, he pressed the trigger as far as it would go before firing.

A dark form solidified against the gray, stepping out of the fog. The figure pushed back their hood, revealing a familiar face. “Jumpy much?”

“Harrow,” they said in unison.

Gideon loosed a breath and lowered his weapon.