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And if he has a lamp?

Ghost Walkerkept Rune shielded so long as someone didn’t know she was there, by nudging their attention away from her. The spell could try its hardest to force Gideon’s gaze away, but he was sitting on top of Rune. He knewexactlywhere she was. Her spell could no longer deceive him.

And if Gideon had a lamp, the moment he lit it, all he’d have to do was yank her cowl down and pull back her …

There was the soft hiss of a flare. Then a red glow, like an ember, behind her.

No.

Panic zipped through her.

As the flare sizzled and the glow brightened, he reached for her hood. The moment he pulled it back and set free her hair—a red-gold shade he would instantly recognize—it would mean the end for Rune.

In order to hold the flareandpull back her hood, though, Gideon had to remove his hands from her. With the weight of him gone, Rune was free to reach for the knife strapped to her thigh. So she did.

Her fingers wrapped around the hilt.

He tugged at her hood, sliding it back from her forehead.

Rune drew the knife from its sheath and stabbedhard, not caring where the blade went in, so long as it went in deep.

Gideon howled and rolled off her.

Free, Rune stumbled to her feet and ran.

She’d never been inside a mine. She knew nothing about them. One thing Rune was pretty sure of, though: there was only one way in and out. And she was running in the opposite direction of it.

Rune quickly found the source of the light she’d seen from above: a lamp hanging midway down a narrow tunnel. The ceiling was so low, Rune had to duck to keep from hitting her head on it.

She thought of Verity and Alex. She should have taken their advice. Avoided the Blood Guard captain at all costs.

He hasn’t won yet.

She heard Gideon stumbling behind her, cursing as he closed in. So long as he didn’t catch her, she could still make it out of this.

But if he caught her, she’d go straight to the purge.

That thought made her run faster.

At the end of the illuminated tunnel was another ladder, this one leading to the level below. She didn’t want to go further down, wading deeper into his trap, but as she glanced over her shoulder and sighted a limping Gideon in the distance, neither could she go back.

So down she went.

It was even colder on the level below, and the floor was slick with water. Rune slipped multiple times and had to grope the wall to keep from falling. Without the lamp on the first level, she couldn’t see a thing. Several times she found the way blocked by cave-ins and had to double back.

The water deepened, too, the further in she went.

When Gideon’s boots thudded on the ladder behind her, adrenaline zipped through Rune. Stumbling through the water, she lurched down another tunnel, feeling along the walls, trying to put as much space as possible between herself and the witch hunter.

She stepped into a pool of water and nearly fell straight in. At the last second, she scrambled, throwing her weight back and slamming into the rock wall behind her.

This mine isn’t just caving in on itself,she thought, breathing hard as the damp seeped through her clothes.It’s being swallowed by the sea.

Water flooded this whole level.

In the dark, Rune tried to follow the walls around the flooded hole …and nearly fell in again. There was no lip or ledge. Just a watery, seemingly bottomless, pit. Behind her lay the tunnel she’d come down.

A dead end.