At leastWitch’s Armorwas holding.
Rune fired back, but couldn’t tell if she hit them. She was too busy following Gideon toward the windows.
While cradling the child hidden inside his jacket with one hand, he used the other to flip a table on its side, sending a glass vase full of flowers shattering to the floor and shielding them from the guards on one side. He did the same with a second table, angling it toward the other set of guards.
Grabbing Rune’s arm, he pulled her down to the floor, protecting her from the gunfire. They were safe, temporarily. But trapped. With armed guards at both exits, they couldn’t run for the windows.
“Here,” he said calmly, untucking Meadow from his coat and giving her to Rune. “Give me your gun.”
Rune handed him her revolver and pulled the child into her lap, holding her close and softly shushing her the way Gideon had beneath the flying bullets.
When the gunfire stopped, Gideon got up from his knees to look, then raised his gun and fired in both directions, ducking down immediately after.
The return fire came fast and furious. Frightened, Meadow trembled. Rune hugged her tightly, humming a song—one of Alex’s—while Gideon used his body to shield them. Rune shut her eyes, listening to the sounds of bullets splintering wood and ricocheting off walls. Trying to think of a spell to get them out of this.
But her mind was a sheet of ice. Blank with fear.
With the arrival of reinforcements, the gunfire intensified. Gideon’s gloved hand cupped Rune’s head, pressing her faceinto his shoulder. He kept her head down and out of danger as they sheltered the child between their two bodies.
“You’ll be with your mother soon,” he told Meadow, whose little arms were locked around Rune’s neck. Gideon’s voice was warm and steady despite everything falling apart around them. As if he knew precisely how to soothe frightened children even if he was also frightened. As the eldest of three, he probably did. “I won’t let you get hurt. That’s a promise.”
But how could he promise such a thing? They were sitting ducks. If they got out of here at all, it would be in shackles.
But the warmth of his voice, thecertaintyof his words, thawed Rune’s fear.
Why does he have to be so damn heroic?
It made her wonder, just for a second, what he would be like with his own children.
At that thought, a strange thing happened. An image flared before her eyes, like a waking dream. She saw a much older Gideon, playing with children. She saw it so clearly, it stole her breath.
In her vision, Gideon was maybe ten years older and chasing three children. She knew the children were his, because two had his eyes, and the third his stern mouth. The children fled through a field full of wildflowers, shrieking and laughing, trying to evade him, while Gideon pretended to let them.
The way this future Gideon beamed made Rune’s heart ache. The infectious sound of his laugh made her throat prickle. She’d seen him this happy only once before, for the briefest of moments, on the night they spent together in his bed.
Whether the vision was her own imagining or she was seeing into the future the way some witches could, she didn’t know. It had never happened before.
Who was he married to? Who was the mother of those children?
If there was a wife, Rune didn’t see her.
The vision vanished like a sudden gale moving on to fill the sails of other ships, leaving Rune disoriented and stranded in the dining hall, thebang! bang! bang!of bullets hurting her ears, the acrid smell of gunpowder burning her nose as enemy shouts surrounded them on both sides.
“This is what it would be like,” she realized aloud, her fist clutching the lapel of Gideon’s jacket as her forehead pressed against his shoulder.
He tilted his head toward her. “What?”
“You and me. A witch and a witch hunter.” She pulled away to search his face, still holding Meadow tight. “If you and I were together, they’d hunt us to the ends of the earth.” She glanced down at the defenseless child in her lap. More quietly, she said, “Along with any children we might have.”
As the bullets whizzed overhead, Gideon fell silent, staring at her. His hand still cupped the back of her head.
“Do you want children?” His voice was strangely quiet, at odds with the ruckus.
Rune’s stomach tumbled over itself.
Why did I say that?
In truth, she’d never given much thought to her future. Never really believed she would have one. Rune had always expected to be caught and purged, if not today, then tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, at some point thereafter.
