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For now.As if he were being patient with her. As if he’d wait for as long as it took Rune to come to her senses.

“In Caelis, we’ll go to the opera house every day of the week. Where they show real operas, not that propaganda you despise.”

She looked away from him, afraid he’d see how much shewanted that—to watch a real opera again. To talk about the intricacies of the characters and themes on the carriage ride home. It would never be Nan sitting next to her. But that would be okay, if Alex was beside her instead.

“We’ll go to the ballet and the symphony. We’ll spend weekends in the Umbrian mountains.”

His words tempted her.Caelis, where people didn’t care if you were a witch, and certainly didn’t report you to the police. AndAlex, the boy she trusted most in the world.

She closed her eyes. This fragile feeling in her chest felt like hope.

No.

She shut the feeling down. She pulled her hand free.

“What you’re describing is a happy ending. Afantasy.” She used his shoulders to steady herself as she hopped down from the chair. “And that’s great—for you. Not everyone gets to have that.”

Countless witches had their happy endings stolen from them. Witches like Nan. And Verity’s sisters. Seraphine’s would be stolen, too, if Rune couldn’t save her in time.

Tucking the tracings under her arm and the fountain pen between her teeth, she dragged the chair back to the desk.

“You’re right. Some people are determined to live out their own personal tragedies.”

She stopped, her hands still gripping the back of the chair. Her whole body prickled with anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How many of the witches you save turn around and try to save you, Rune?”

“I’ve told you before, I don’t need saving.”

“And you’ll be telling me that the day they string you up to die while the city cheers. You’ll be saying it while they cut your throat and bleed you dry.”

Why was he doing this? Alex was the one steady rock in her life. Always there to lean on.

They didn’t fight. Not ever.

“Maybe that’s what I deserve,” she said, setting the small stack of tracing paper on the desk, each piece containing one quarter of the prison’s map.

“What?”The word tore out of Alex like thunder from the sky.

Putting the pen down, Rune rolled the pieces tightly around it and slid them all back down her bodice.

“Look at me, Rune.”

He stood behind her now. But instead of turning, she stared down at a dark knot in the desk’s wood.

“I betrayed my grandmother. I led the Blood Guard straight to our house.” She fisted her hands as a wave of self-loathing crashed through her. “The day they killed her, I stood there and watched it happen. I let them all believe I hated her.” She was glad for the mask over the upper part of her face, which would help hide the tears forming in her eyes as she turned around to face him. “Innocent people don’t do things like that.”

She should have stormed that platform and denounced them all. She should have yelled the truth to the sky: that she loved Kestrel Winters, and they were demons for wanting her dead.

“You did what you had to do to survive.” He pushed back his mask. “Kestrel wanted you to live, Rune. Don’t throw away the gift she gave you.”

She glanced sharply away from him.You’re wrong.

It was no gift, being allowed to live while the one you loved most was dead—because of you.

Rune remembered the day they killed her. Kestrel Winters didn’t cower and beg like a criminal. She stood before her killers with the dignity and poise of a queen. When Rune went to thepurge, she wanted to go exactly like that. Knowing she’d done everything she could to deliver other witches from Nan’s fate.

“Sometimes it feels like you’re afraid to look at me,” said Alex. Placing his warm hands on her cheeks, below her mask, he tilted her face back to his. “Is it because I don’t want to hurt you? Or hunt you? Or watch you die?”