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He spared Rune all of this.

“It didn’t take long before things went wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Rune’s voice pulled him out of the memory. They were in the woods now, and like in the meadow behind them, someone had cleared a path. The leaves glowed gold in the haze of the setting sun.

“My mother became …unwell.” He remembered her bruised and bleeding fingers, her red-rimmed eyes, the way her bones poked out of her skin. “She started seeing things that weren’t there and accused my father and me—even Tessa—of things we hadn’t done. Stealing her notebooks. Ruining her fabrics. Sabotaging her in every way.”

His muscles bunched at the memories. His mother accused them of worse things, too: her husband, of being unfaithful toher; Tessa, of poisoning her; Gideon, of abusing Tessa. Nightmarish things. Things that still kept him awake at night. And always, he could smell it on her: the coppery scent of a witch’s spells.

“The Sister Queens were slowly torturing her.”

“That makes no sense,” said Rune. “If they wanted your mother as their dressmaker, why torment her?”

He threw Rune a look. “You obviously didn’t know the Rosebloods. Witches are cruel by nature, but the Roseblood sisters were evil. They tortured and killed those who crossed them, then used the blood of their victims for their spells.”

Rune shook her head in disbelief. “That’s impossible.”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

“No, I mean …What you’re describing are Arcana spells, which are forbidden. Queen Raine outlawed them centuries ago.”

He glanced at her, surprised that she knew this. But her grandmother had been a witch. Of course she would know things about witchcraft.

“An Arcana is the highest level of spell a witch can cast,” she explained. “They require blood taken against someone’s will. The magic that results is powerful and deadly, but it corrodes the witches who use it. If the Roseblood sisters were casting Arcanas, they would have knowingly corrupted themselves.”

It reminded Gideon of something Cressida had said, years ago, when he walked in on her and her sisters standing over a body in a pool of blood. The sight of it, combined with the strong stench of magic, had almost made him vomit.

The more power we wield, Gideon, the more they want to see us fall. What are we to do? Let those who hate us plot our demise? To play by the rules when everyone else disregards them—that is foolishness. Once you’ve seized power for yourself and those you love,you must do everything to keep it. Even sacrifice your soul. If you don’t, you’ll watch your loved ones harmed by those wanting what you have.

Rune fell silent beside him. For several minutes, the only sounds in the woods were their footsteps crunching the pine needle path and the wind rustling the forest’s canopy.

This next part would be the hardest to get through. Gideon glanced at Rune, trying to justify skipping it, but if this were a real courtship, he would want her to know.

One of us thinks ourself too good for the other. But it’s not me.

He was about to put her words to the test. If they didn’t hold true, he certainly wouldn’t blame her.

“When I told Cressida we were done, that I wanted nothing more to do with her, she warned that if I refused her advances my little sister would suffer my mother’s fate. I was terrified of her by then, and I desperately wanted to spare Tessa. So I did whatever she asked.” He ran a hand roughly through his hair. “She killed Tessa anyway.”

“I thought your sister died of the sweating sickness,” said Rune.

It’s what Alex must have told her.

“Remember the party where I poured you tea? Cress convinced herself that I was cheating on her with a handmaid and wanted to punish me. When she realized that serving tea wasn’t humiliating for me, she changed tactics, telling me I had to prove my devotion by making her three dozen silk roses by sunrise—the kind my father used to make for my mother—and if I failed, something terrible would happen to my little sister.”

He looked down at Rune, who drew her lips in a tight line. “The silk flower I made you took me two hours to sew.”

Rune’s eyes went dark, doing the math.

By the time the sun rose, Gideon had somehow sewn adozen roses. To Cress, this was further proof that he wasn’t sorry enough. That same day, she used a spell to strike his little sister with the sweating sickness. Cress locked Tessa in her room and refused to let anyone tend to her.

Gideon threw himself at the door—which Cressida had enchanted to hold against all force—beating it with his fists, while Tessa wept and begged from the other side, delirious with fever, calling for their mother. He screamed at Cressida, who only smirked. So he lunged and pinned her down. He had his hands around her throat, prepared to stop squeezing only when she went limp beneath him, but the guards dragged him off and chained him to the floor of a cell.

By the time they let him out, Tessa was dead.

“My mother drowned herself a day later. My father hung himself a few days after that. Andstill, she wasn’t satisfied.” His hands fisted. “I knew there was one last person she could hurt, if I didn’t do as she asked.”

“Your brother,” murmured Rune.