“You didn’t tell Fell about it?”
“Of course not.”
“Think, Toran,” she insisted. “We know who we’re after. We know her name and where she’s from. Genna’s lived in Gadore her whole life. She can’t be the Witch.”
Toran nodded. “You’re right. I know that, and…” He frowned, gaze returning to the platform. “Fell knows that. He knows the extra training Genna went through to become a guard, to prove she isn’t the Witch. Why would Fell sentence his own sergeant to death?”
“Does it matter?” she snapped. “We have to save her. Get up there and put a stop to this.”
His fingers fell down her arm to entwine with hers. “I can’t stop it.”
She wrenched her hand away, glaring at him. “That’s Genna up there. And even if it weren’t, have you forgotten the day we met? The name Marnie Sorphel? Because I haven’t.”
Toran visibly flinched.
“Innocent women and girls shouldn’t have to die because of theslight chance they might be the Witch. YouknowGenna isn’t the Witch. You may not be the Crown Prince, but these are still your people to protect.”
“Nes.” He reached for her, but she hopped back.
“They shouldn’t have to die at all,” she snarled.
Atop the platform, a guard began to read the Condemnation of the Witch. If she was going to do something, she had to do it now.
She started picking her way through the crowd. Someone grabbed her by the shoulder, and she whirled, ready to start throwing punches, but the look on Toran’s face made her pause. His expression hardened, determination rising like smoke from a fire.
Relief pounded through her. “We need to save Genna.”
“I know what to do.” His eyes were focused wholly on the well. And then they were on her, and a question poked through the soil in his eyes. “Do you trust me?”
She’d asked him the very same question that night in the brawlhouse. And his answer had been no. She’d asked him again in the distillery. And he’d said yes. But when he’d asked her…she hadn’t been able to answer.
Trust. The word rang in her mind, the echo clanging against her heart.
Suri’s words rose from memory.I know you don’t trust easily. Suri had been right. She didn’t trust easily. After Phineas, she barely trusted at all. She’d seen the world’s fangs, watched them tear out throats and gnaw on nerves. The monsters were out there—large, small, ugly, and beautiful—and she never wanted to be fooled by one again.
But this was Toran. And if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that he wasn’t one of the world’s monsters. He was someone who, deep down, she wanted desperately to be. One of the ones who fought off the monsters. A good person.
“Yes.”
His hand came around hers, and then they were running. Away from the Drowning Square, away from the Witch’s Well, away from Genna.
They sprang from the Gash like ale from a barrel and crossed back into the Wharf, the canal running alongside them. He dropped her hand so they could run faster.
She wanted to know where in Nephele’s name they were going, wanted to ask how running away from Genna could save her.
But she didn’t ask. She only kept running. She’d told him she trusted him. She would trust him until her lungs gave out. And then, if he hadn’t shown her how to save Genna, she’d choke the air from his.
Toran turned sharply, cutting between a street leading to the Southern Gate and one with an expanse of beach and curling ocean at its end. They were in an alley; two large, windowless buildings rose up on either side.
Toran threw aside several stacked boxes, muttering to himself. His movements were jerky and frantic—the only sign of his nerves. She tapped her fingers against her thumbs.
“What are you looking for?”
When he didn’t answer, she started shoving boxes and crates aside, too.
“Here,” he said just as she toppled a crate of empty bottles. The glass smashed on the cobblestones, and he winced. She glanced back, but no one appeared at the alley entrance. The city was preoccupied with the Witch drowning.
Toran pushed a wide length of board aside, revealing a set of steps leading into the dark. A darkness so full it could have been a staircase to hell.
