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Gideon’s hands fisted.

What if she was right? What if this game he’d been playing with Rune—and the feelings she evoked in him—had compromised his ability to think? He begrudgingly followed Harrow inside, stepping around the soldiers ransacking the print shop, searching boxes and cabinets and closets.

“It’s equally possible that we suspect the wrong girl,” said Gideon, keeping his voice down. “Rune might not be a witch.”

A mocking smile twisted her mouth. “If she’s not a witch, how did she melt your frozen heart?”

“Who has a frozen heart?” Laila asked, polishing her pistol as she rejoined them.

“No one,” said Gideon, moving up the stairs.

Harrow smirked harder.

Both Laila and Harrow followed him into the back room, where the ring of candles burned and Cressida’s signature still glimmered in the air.

“Who are we talking about?” he heard Laila ask.

“Focus,” snapped Gideon. “Cressida Roseblood is alive and hatching some plot. We need to know how many witches she’s gathering at these meetings and what, exactly, they’re about.”

He stepped into the circle, crouching down to study the spellmarks drawn in blood on the floorboards, wishing he could decipher them. It was times like this where he wondered if they’d been too hasty, burning all the spell books. It would be useful to have them as a reference.

Gideon could trace these marks and bring them to Seraphine Oakes, who was still in custody. She would know what they were, but was unlikely to be cooperative.

“If I were a vengeful witch planning retribution,” said Harrow, crouching down next to him, touching the marks with her fingers, “I would make my move on Liberty Day.”

“I second that,” said Laila, walking around the room, looking for anything they might have missed the first time. “We should at least—”

Beside Gideon, Harrow’s head snapped up. “Do you smell that?”

“Smell what?” asked Laila.

Gideon sniffed the air.Blood and roses.

“It smells like …”

“Magic,” said Gideon, rising to his feet. Fear snaked through his insides. “They’re still here.”

He looked to the rafters, but the beams were empty. Harrow rose to her feet beside him. The smell was growing stronger by the second, making Gideon queasy.

“We need to find the source,” said Harrow, moving for the door.

Gideon’s spine tingled. That bad feeling was back. Something was wrong. The fog. The empty room. The freshly lit candles, as if the meeting hadn’t even started yet when they’d burst through the door.

As if they’d been set up.

We were expected.

“Harrow, wait.”

She’d reached the door. Gideon stepped out of the circle, intending to stop her. But before he could grab her arm and pull her back into the room, a loud BOOM! shook the walls and floors. The red-hot force of an explosion threw him backward, slamming his body into solid brick.

Fire flared across his vision seconds before the world went black.

FORTY-SIXRUNE

FOR THE PAST TWOyears, ever since Nan’s death, Rune spent most nights tossing and turning in bed, her mind spinning with anxious thoughts as she went over plans, pieced together information, and mentally punished herself for the witches she hadn’t saved.

Tonight, she slept worse than ever. Nightmares about Nan kept her trapped, and when Rune finally woke from them, thrashing in her covers, a sheen of feverish sweat coated her skin.