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The brute whose meaty fingers dug into Rune’s arms shoved her forward. She tripped, stumbling to her knees before Gideon—who didn’t move to help her.

“I d-don’t understand.” The cement floor was cold beneath her palms. “H-how did you—”

“I came to Wintersea last night,” said Gideon. “Wanting to apologize in person and set the record straight.”

Of course. The flowers.It wasn’t Lizbeth who left them on her bed. It was Gideon.

“When I arrived, the house was dark, and no servant greeted me. I almost turned around and left, but the sound of voices stopped me. My first thought was that Cressida had come for you. Fearing the worst, I followed the voices.”

He heard us plotting to rescue Seraphine,she realized.

“You can imagine my surprise when your bedroom wall opened up before my eyes. I hid myself while you and your accomplices walked out of your casting room.”

That’show he found the vial of blood. While Rune was showing Alex and Verity out, he must have snuck inside the casting room. He would have seen everything: the spell books, the blood vials, the symbols on the floor.

“I’m not sure what disgusts me more,” said Gideon. “What youare, or that I fell for your act.”

Those words stung like a slap.

“Want us to strip her down, Captain?” said the brute behind her.

“He’s already looked,” said Rune, rising to her knees, her voice quaking with anger. “Haven’t you, Gideon? You searched every inch of me three nights ago.”

Gideon’s face darkened. “There’s no need to strip her. I have all the proof I need.”

“We should search her at least,” said Laila. “She might be armed.”

“Fine. Search her.” He nodded to a soldier in the foyer. “Her horse is outside. Check the saddlebags.”

Rune quailed. The stolen Blood Guard uniform was in her saddlebag.

This is the end,she realized. The evidence mounting against her was too damning.

Laila hauled Rune to her feet, then unclasped her cloak and handed it off. As the meaty one held Rune’s arms, Laila crouched down, feeling inside Rune’s riding boots with one hand while the other kept her pistol aimed at Rune’s face. “No sudden movements.”

As Laila’s hand moved up one leg, then the other, Rune staredat Gideon. Remembering all over again what he was. A formidable enemy. A boy who wanted girls like her strung up and killed.

He’d been gathering evidence against her from the beginning, waiting for the right moment to bring her down. The gifts. The kisses. The words whispered in the dark between his bedsheets …

None of it had meant a thing.

“You are everything I thought you were,” she told him.

Laila found the knife strapped to Rune’s thigh, pulled it out, and tossed it aside. Gideon watched it go skittering across the floor.

“And you,” said Gideon, voice quiet, “are nothing at all like I imagined you’d be.”

For someone who’d been hunting her so relentlessly for two years, he should be more triumphant, she thought. Gloating and preening. Instead, he looked …destroyed.

Laila continued patting Rune’s body, never once meeting her gaze. Like Rune was no better than a dog.

“There’s nothing else,” Rune told her, face burning. “Just the knife.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Laila.

The soldier who’d searched her saddlebags came back inside, approaching Gideon with the stolen Blood Guard uniform in hand. He set the clothes down on the table.

Rune swallowed, watching Gideon’s eyes narrow on the uniform, clearly wondering how she’d acquired it.