Rune picked up his gun. “That’s for handing me over to be purged.”
Gideon groaned, lying in a puddle of whiskey and broken glass and pain.
The door flew open.
The smell of blood and roses filled the room as someone stepped inside.
“Why, Gideon Sharpe,” came a voice that still haunted his nightmares, “what a pleasant surprise.”
Hershadow slid over him, turning his blood to ice. Gideon didn’t look up. He knew who he’d find there: a witch with birch-white hair and eyes as cold as a frozen sea.
Cressida Roseblood.
Gideon shut his eyes.
Fuck.
He’d always told himself it was better to be dead than in Cressida’s clutches. That if he ever fell prisoner to her again, he’d find a way to end it all.
He glanced at his pistol, still in Rune’s hands.
Utterly out of reach.
FOURGIDEON
GUARDS GRABBED GIDEON’S ARMSand hauled him to his feet, locking his wrists into manacles behind his back.
Cressida approached. Her hair was damp, as if she’d ridden through a storm to get here. And her gaze was a knife plunged into his chest. Gideon’s pain vanished, replaced by a numbing fear.
This was his worst nightmare come to life.
Cressida glanced from him to Rune, who held Gideon’s gun and was still aiming it at him. A question flared in the young witch queen’s eyes, but she didn’t voice it. Only held out her hand to the guards, demanding the key to his chains.
“Ava, I need you,” Cress told the young woman who’d come in with her. “Everyone else: get out.”
Gideon recognized the girl who stepped forward: Ava Saers. A witch and former scar artist to the Rosebloods. During the Sister Queens’ reign, wealthy witches employed scar artists—talented artisans adept at cutting casting scars to form beautiful patterns in a witch’s skin. The Roseblood sisters liked to carve each other’s scars, but would partake of Ava’s artistry on special occasions. He remembered watching Ava carve with almost delicate ease into their skin.
She was one of the first witches the Crimson Moth had stolen from his holding cells.
Ava’s auburn hair was knotted fashionably to one side of herhead, and her sapphire gown shimmered in the candlelight as she walked toward her queen. She must have been a guest at the recital tonight.
How many other witches is Soren giving sanctuary to?
After popping open her sequined clutch, Ava withdrew a small knife.
Cressida unclasped her cloak and let it fall to the floor, giving Gideon an unobstructed view of both arms. Silver scars covered every inch of her skin, each one painfully familiar to Gideon. Like a garden of flowers starting at her wrists and twining upward, growing toward her shoulders.
Ava pressed the knife to Cressida’s skin and started to cut, adding petals to a lily in the botanical pattern.
The smell of Cressida’s magic bloomed in the air: the coppery tang of blood mingled with the sickly sweet scent of roses.
When Ava finished, Cress dipped her fingers into the blood seeping up. Gideon blanched as the witch queen crouched, smearing bright red spellmarks across the floor before him. Magic thickened the air, making him nauseous as her spell took hold.
Thick, invisible ivy crawled up his legs, securing him to the floor. The magic didn’t stop there: it climbed up his arms and chest and shoulders. Immobilizing him.
Gideon strained against the spell. His muscles bunched and his teeth clenched. As if his will alone could break the bonds of her magic. But the more he struggled, the tighter it bound him.
Cressida’s spell held him fast.
