“The girl I love would never respect a man who’d willingly abandon innocents to be slaughtered.”
“Perhaps she’s no longer that girl.”
She is.
Beneath the hurt and fear and anger, she was the same Rune he’d fallen in love with. He believed that. She’d simply forgotten herself—the way he had once forgotten himself.
“If I went with her, she would come to despise me for mycowardice,” he said. And even if she didn’t, he would despise himself. Gideon shook his head. “That’s not the life I want with her. Nor is it the lifeshewants, deep down.” He looked to the window. “She’s just too scared to remember that right now.”
Harrow stepped up beside him, staring out the same window.
“You should follow her at least, to make sure she’s okay.”
He glanced at his friend, eyebrow cocked. “Since when are you worried about Rune’s safety?”
Harrow ignored him. “Westport Station is swarming with Cressida’s soldiers and spies. There are witch-hunting hounds with them, for sniffing out the Crimson Moth.”
His stomach dropped. “What?”
“Bess was there early this morning, buying Rune’s ticket.”
How did Harrow learn that? She’d been here all of two hours.
“At the very least, you should make sure your girl gets safely on her train.” Harrow turned her golden eyes on his. “Don’t you think?”
“Does that witch of yours have something to do with this change of heart?”
“Juniper isnotmy witch,” she snapped, eyes narrowing with warning.
But it was too late. Gideon had glimpsed the crack in her armor. She might not have forgiven Juniper—or him, for that matter—but something was shifting in Harrow.
They considered each other.
“Does this mean you’re with me?” he asked her.
She scoffed, turning to walk away. “I’m with whoever pays the most for my services.”
“Funny how you never charged me before,” he called after her. Which was true. Any information Harrow had given to Gideon, she’d given freely. No strings attached.
“There’s always more than one kind of payment,” she shot back, her hair swishing across her shoulders.
Gideon didn’t know how to answer. In the years she’d worked with him, digging up clues to help him catch and purge witches, had he paid Harrow in some other way?
Perhaps purging witches was the payment.
But if so, what kind of currency was Harrow trading in now?
WESTPORT STATION WAS INchaos when Gideon arrived.
He wore a brown traveling suit loaned to him by Bart, who’d argued it would help Gideon blend in.
No one would be looking for Captain Gideon Sharpe in a suit.
With Ash’s pistol tucked into his belt and an extra box of bullets in his pocket, Gideon took up position against the station’s brick wall, making sure the brim of Bart’s wool cap kept his face in shadow as he scanned the chaotic crowd pushing toward the only train on the tracks.
He’d quickly learned the source of the chaos: this station was shuttering at sundown, by order of the queen, who was hunting a rogue witch rumored to be the Crimson Moth. By closing down all nearby stations, Cressida hoped to prevent her prey from getting further afield.
The train sitting on the tracks was the last one leaving. Possibly forever, if this war tore their country apart. Which meant Rune needed to be on it if she wanted to get out tonight.
