The sight of him undid every knot in her body. She let out a breath, glancing to the dried blood on his jacket.
Gideon’s gaze swept down her, pausing at the pistol lowered to her side. “Are you all right?”
“AmIall right?” Rune started for him, drawn like a magnet.Wanting to fling her arms around him and hug him tight. “Are you hurt? How—”
A woman stepped out from behind him.
Rune halted.
The woman’s clothes hung off her thin frame, as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks, and her hair hung in limp strings down her back and shoulders. Beneath the grime, Rune guessed her hair was a deep shade of coppery red. Her sunken eyes frantically scanned the room.
“Where’s Meadow?”
Oh.
This was Aurelia Kantor.
“She’s sleeping,” said Rune. “In the bedroom.”
She pointed to Gideon’s room. The sibyl swept past her, disappearing through the doorway beyond.
As Gideon shut the door, Rune went to him.
“How did you get out?”
“I surrendered to the guards.” He studied the long skirt and blouse she’d changed into—fit for riding long distances. In her anxious state, she’d forgotten to button the cuffs of her sleeves. Noticing, he tugged off his riding gloves, tucked them into his pocket, and buttoned them for her—first one wrist, then the other. “They brought me to Laila. After that, it was simply a matter of talking my way out.”
That’s it?But of course it was probably all part of his plan to betray her. Before she could press him, the floorboards creaked behind them.
Rune turned to find Aurelia cradling Meadow as she emerged from the bedroom.
“The captain says you wanted to see me,” said Aurelia.
Realizing how close she and Gideon stood, Rune quickly stepped back, turning away from him. But it was too late. Theexpression on the sibyl’s face said she’d noticed precisely what Rune hadn’t wanted her to.
Rune cleared her throat. “That’s right.” She set her pistol down on the table and paused. Hadn’t she loaded two? She scanned the room, looking for the second gun.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Rune Winters. Our enemies”—Rune glanced at Gideon—“call me the Crimson Moth.”
“The Crimson Moth?”Aurelia’s eyebrows arched. “Well, if we’re playing games, then I’m the witch queen herself.”
She didn’t believe Rune.
It wouldn’t have mattered, except Rune needed her trust. And her help. So she slid her casting knife from its sheath at her thigh beneath her skirt. Nicking her skin, Rune drew the symbol forTorchon her open palm. A flame ignited several inches above it, and a few seconds later, over Rune’s head, a casting mark appeared in the air, shaped like a blood-red moth.
“Proof enough for you?”
The skeptical look on Aurelia’s face vanished.
Rune fisted her hand, smudging the mark, and the flame extinguished.
“What do you want from me?” said Aurelia, glancing between her and Gideon.
“I need your help with a summoning spell.”
The spell was a Majora, which meant Rune needed the blood of someone else—given willingly—to cast it. Hers alone wouldn’t suffice.
