Rune threw her arms around his neck, hugging him hard. “Promise me you’ll stay alive.”
When she released him, Gideon blinked in surprise.
“I’ll be fine.”
It was the best she was going to get. So Rune retrieved the key from his pocket and dropped it into her own. She’d have to trust him. He was a Blood Guard captain. They wouldn’t kill him.
Right?
The sound of splintering wood burst in her ears. Soon the bullets would be coming through the tables shielding them.
Balancing Meadow against her chest, Rune grabbed her casting knife and made two small cuts near the back of her ankle. Using the blood beading on her skin, she drew the symbols forGhost Walker, first on the back of Meadow’s neck, then on her own wrist.
“Go,” said Gideon when the spell took effect.
He stood up and started shooting with both guns.
Rune hugged Meadow close as she moved for the windows, staying low to the ground. Arriving at the nearest one, she waited for Gideon to reload and start firing before unlatching and swinging it open.
With all attention in the room fixed on the Blood Guard captain, she lifted Meadow into the window frame, then followed her up.
After dropping down into the gardens below, Rune carried Meadow right through the front gates, slipping unseen past the house guards now on high alert as the sound of gunfire echoed in the house beyond them.
She headed for the water, where Gideon’s horse waited, glancing back only once at the yellow house.
You better know what you’re doing.
Untying Comrade from his post, she mounted, then kicked the horse into a canter, leaving her heart behind in that dining room, with the boy risking his life so she and a child could escape.
THIRTY-FIVEGIDEON
GIDEON FIRED, RELOADED, ANDfired again. Over and over. Trying to buy Rune as much time as she needed while he dodged enemy bullets.
The air was clouded with smoke from the gunfire, choking out the smell of Rune’s magic.
Before knowing she was a witch, Gideon hadn’t been able to detect the scent. Unlike Cressida’s magic—which smelled strongly of blood and roses—the scent of Rune’s blended into the island. It smelled like sea salt and woodsmoke and fresh-cut juniper.
For some reason, the thought of Rune’s magic made Gideon think of her mouth. The way it yielded to his in that library. The things it nearly admitted.
He was thinking about how, now that he wasn’t allowed to have her, she was all he wanted. Maybe he was destined to want things forever out of his reach.
And her eyes just now…
When she’d looked up at him a moment ago, her eyes had reminded him of Aurelia’s after she’d just had a vision. Clouded and pale.
But that can’t be right. Can it?
He was still thinking about Rune as he ran out of bullets. With no more ammunition, Gideon threw down the guns and raised his hands high, rising from the barricade he’d made.
“I surrender,” he called into the smoke-filled room.
The gunfire stopped. He heard someone give an order, and seconds later, several guards emerged from the gloom.
“Where’s your comrade?” one asked, keeping his gun trained on Gideon as he glanced behind the barricade. “And the child?”
Gideon shrugged. “No idea.”
He didn’t struggle as they arrested him.
