She still expected it.
But his question clanged through her.
What kind of futuredidshe want? Would it involve children? A family?
It seemed preposterous to consider. She was too young. Notto mention hunted at every turn. The world was too deadly a place.
But if it wasn’t?
If she were older, and the world was different?
“I—”
Gideon reached for her chin suddenly, drawing her gaze to his. He frowned, searching her eyes. “Rune… did you See something?”
“What?”
“Your eyes—”
A bullet whizzed past and sank into the wooden table behind them. Gideon pulled away as if he’d been hit, hissing in pain.
Rune looked up to find blood seeping through his shirt near his shoulder.
“Gideon!”
He touched the blood with his glove, his jaw clenching. “It’s just a graze. I’ll be fine.”
Rune was about to say it didn’t look like a graze when movement made her glance over his shoulder. Edmund—the soldier she’d flirted with earlier—stood a few paces behind Gideon, his gun raised.
Rune lifted her pistol and fired first, sending a bullet into Edmund’s leg. He grunted and grabbed for the wound. She fired again, forcing him out of sight.
“There’s too many of them.”
Gideon nodded. “Can you use that invisibility spell to get Meadow out of here?”
“What about you?” Rune frowned at the blood spreading across his shirt, hoping he was telling the truth: that it wasn’t serious.
“I’ll hold them off while you escape. If we all disappear, they’ll know we’re still in the room and shoot widely. But if Idon’t let them get close enough to see I’m alone, they’ll think my gunfire is covering you. They’ll focus their aim on me while you escape out the windows.”
He was telling her to go without him.
“But how will you get out?”
He pulled a small leather satchel out of his pocket. “Don’t worry about that.” After digging his hand into it, his fist emerged full of bullets. They clinked and rolled as he dumped them on the floor, making them easier to grab and load. “Take Comrade and ride for Old Town. Wait for me there.”
“But—”
“The key to my tenement is in my breast pocket,” he said, loading his gun as enemy fire whizzed past overhead.
There was no way he’d be able to get past all those guards alone.
“I can’t just leave you here!”
“Rune.” Her name pulled her gaze to his. “For once in your damn life, don’t fight me.”
The steely look in his eyes brooked no argument. Rune glared back, knowing he was right—this was the only way to get Meadow out.
But…
