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He fell to his knees, hands fisting in the stones. He pressed his forehead to his fists, his whole body shaking at the loss of the last person he had left. A ragged cry ripped through him, tearing out of his throat.

Is this my lot? To fail everyone I love?

A sudden BOOM! resounded through the square. Gideon lifted his head to find the world gone dark. As if someone had swallowed the sun. He heard the cracking before he felt it: theearth quaking. Rising and falling beneath his feet. Like an unruly sea.

The metallic tang of blood magic spread through the air, mingling with another scent. Salt. Like the sea.

Gideon tried to rise, but kept losing his balance.

When the sunlight returned, he found a black chasm widening in front of him, separating him from his brother’s body, and into the void poured the ocean. Protecting the witches from those coming to kill them. Tearing the town square in half.

The ground continued to shake, forcing Gideon to step away from the edge, lest the shuddering earth thrust him over. As white waves churned, rushing to fill the gap, the dust from the earthquake rose into the air, turning it gray. His brother disappeared behind it.

Gideon turned to the surrounding chaos. Looking for Laila or Harrow—whose voice he now heard, barking orders. Hoping neither of them were near that widening chasm. If they were, they’d be swallowed.

When he glanced back, he found Cressida staring at him from the other side. Through the gray. Seraphine stood at her left. Rune, at her right.

Cressida’s pale eyes narrowed on Gideon, and he knew this was far from over.

The witch queen retreated. Her movement caused the dust to swirl, concealing her behind it. Seraphine followed, leaving only Rune, whose sorrowful gaze locked with Gideon’s until the dust cloud swallowed her, too.

His hands curled into fists.

“I will never stop hunting you, Rune Winters. No matter where you go, I will come for you.”

In her absence, Gideon saw something flutter in the air above the chasm. Small and red and delicate, its wings shimmering in the gloom.

A crimson moth.

Gideon’s heart hardened at the sight of it.

ENTR’ACTERUNE

RUNE STARED OUT OVERthe sparkling sea, watching the broken island in the distance grow smaller and smaller. She felt like a stranger in her own body. Everything that made herRune Winterswas on that island—or had been—and she was sailing away from it.

As the gulls cawed overhead and the sails snapped in the wind, she listed off all the things she’d lost:

Wintersea, her home.

Lady, her loyal horse.

Alex, her beloved friend.

Rune swallowed, remembering him in those last moments. Gazing up at her, full of love and trust.

He would never finish his studies now, nor write another song. His music would no longer fill any halls, luring Rune to him. She would never again step into his arms and know she was safe. Never sit beside him at the opera, or the symphony. Never stroll the streets of Caelis at his side.

He was gone.

Rune felt broken beneath the weight of his absence. Their dreams of a new life were scattered to the corners of the earth, never to be put back together.

A sound from behind made her glance away from the porthole.

Across the cabin of Rune’s cargo ship, Cressida sat at a table with several other witches, planning their next move. Rune watched Cressida stand up and lean over the map spread across the table, pressing her fingertip to some point Rune couldn’t see. As she moved, the botanical scars snaking down her arms shimmered silver in the candlelight.

It was painful to look at her.

For two years, Rune had trusted the girl across the cabin with her life, believing she was Verity de Wilde. It made her dizzy to think that the entire time, her best friend hadn’t been a scholarship student, but a murderess.