Book Review: Heartless Hunter

Title: Heartless Hunter
Author: Kristen Ciccarelli
Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Romantasy, Fiction

What It’s About:

When the rebellion swept the Sister Witch Queens from power, Rune Winters received a message from her dear friend, Alex Sharpe, that her grandmother’s plan to flee the country had been discovered and that Rune will have to give her grandmother up. She took the notes to her grandmother, Kestrel Winters, who had adopted Rune as a child, when her parents had died in an accident. Kestrel told her that Rune will need to report her, in order to survive, and asks her to promise her to find Seraphine Oakes who will tell Rune everything she needs to know. So Rune rode her horse to the nearest Blood Guard’s quarters and told them that Kestrel is planning to leave, and then raced back with them for them to arrest her. She later watched as Kestrel was killed on a platform in what is known as a Purge—hanging by the ankles and blood flowing freely from the cut in the throat that the guards make. Two months later, Rune discovered as a result of her first bleeding that she was a witch, but has been in hiding ever since.

Rune races on her grandmother’s horse, Lady, to the location of Seraphine Oakes, only for her to discover that she had arrived too late and Seraphine Oakes had been captured by the Blood Guard, so she returns to the city in time for the second half of the opera, where her intention is to mingle with the socialites as a gossiping socialite, in order to get some information on where Seraphine Oakes could have been taken so that she can save her and not fail her grandmother. In the last two years since the Rebellion, Rune has been working as a double agent. She had received all of her grandmother’s land, and business for being loyal to the New Republic and turning in her own grandmother, so she plays the gossiping socialite in high circles. But during the night, she works to try to save the witches that had been captured, as the Crimson Moth, and she had managed to stow away Twin girls in her ships heading to the Continent, in recent months. The twins had been found out by servant who found their bedsheets stained in black after they received their first bleed.

At the opera, Rune hangs out with her best friend, Verity, and Alex Sharpe—one of her oldest and most trusted friends, who had helped her moved the witches she saved to safety. She socializes with the group, and one of the ladies there, Laila Creed, is the daughter of the Commander, as well as part of the Blood Guard herself. Laila points out that Rune had been late to the Opera, and she wonders out loud if Rune is the Crimson Moth. Rune deflects the conversation by saying that she heard that the Crimson Moth got people out through the tunnels, and she shudders at the idea of walking through the sewers, which delays the suspicion of others as Laila’s brother, Noah shudders at it too. Unbeknownst to them, Rune had indeed done that to save the twins. She speaks with Alex and Verity about the fact that she was too late to save Seraphine, and she tells them that she will have to mingle harder in order to get information from some of these folks about where Seraphine might be. She does ask Alex about Gideon, his brother, but Alex tells her that he hasn’t spoken to him in a while. She has respected the fact that Alex kept his life with her separate from his life with Gideon, but in an alcove, she asks him if there is any chance that he could ask Gideon about where Seraphine is. Alex tells her that no.

Gideon had come back home to shower after securing Seraphine, with the help of two of his men, who are very vicious towards witches, to the point of brutalizing them. He had tried to get these two men dismissed, but they were not dismissed. He showers and watches the blood going down the drain, momentarily thinking that it is inky blood, and getting flashbacks. He doesn’t normally like going to the Opera or socializing anywhere, but today he has to go in order to meet up with his confidant, Harrow.

Rune steps out of the alcove after her discussion with Alex, and she runs straight into Gideon. She used to have a crush on Gideon as a child because of how much Alex talked about him, and how he looked up to Gideon. So when she first met Gideon, she was super excited and extended her hand only for him to be rude to her about her clothing. At that point she realized that she couldn’t believe Alex’s words about his own brother, because he was idolizing him. But as she looks at Gideon, she decides to play him in order to get more information on where Seraphine is. Alex steps out of the shadows and the two brothers barely talk, before Alex heads out in his own direction, and Gideon heads up to his own location. Rune decides to follow Gideon, and joins him in the seat. They talk a little bit about the opera, trading some barbs, but ultimately Rune decides to invite Gideon to the after party that she is hosting, in order to get the truth out of him about Seraphine. They are interrupted by Gideon’s contact, Harrow, and he walks away with her, leaving Rune behind. Rune sits there until she decides that she has enough and has to make another plan.

Gideon goes to the pub with Harrow, who has been abused by witches and had her ear cut off. He cannot stop thinking about Rune, as she’s a beautiful girl with stormy eyes and strawberry blonde hair, as beautiful as she had been when he first met her, but in his opinion, she has no depth whatsoever to her. Harrow tells him that her contacts had told her that two witches had been disguised as cargo on one of Rune Winters’s ships going to the continent—they had found the signatures left behind by the witches in the cargo there. She tells him that he needs to find a way to get close to Rune, and the best way to do that would be to court Rune. At first, Gideon is skeptical of this, but Harrow tells him that he has a pretty face. He agrees, but tells her that he doesn’t know what to do to get back in Rune’s good graces after what he had said to her, as it would be strange to show up at the after party now. Harrow tells him that he can figure something out.

Rune is in her hidden room with Verity, working on putting the marks on one of the goblets in order to get the truth out of whoever drinks the wine. It’s something that they had done several times already and Rune’s servant is always in on it; she had stayed behind after all of the other servants left because of what Kestrel Winters had done. Verity and Rune talk, with Verity arguing that Rune needs to choose a suitable bachelor and get married so that she can get the information by being close to the source. There are two options—either Bart Wendholdt or Noah Creed—and Rune cannot help but feel that there is a name off the list. They finish up and head to make the party happen.

Rune dances with Bart but realizes that he is useless to her once he reveals that his mom had been discharged from service due to an injury. She is about to set her sights on Noah when none other than Gideon Sharpe shows up in her field of view and talks to her, offering her a flower that he made by hand in apology to her. She offers her last dancing ribbon to him—something that she always saved for Alex—as she really wants to talk to him. She also realizes that he was wearing a vintage suit, and wonders if it is one that his parents had made—they had been favorited by the Sister Witches after all before their deaths. She quickly realizes that he doesn’t know how to dance, so instead she offers to give him a tour of her home. As the two of them head up the stairs, Alex interrupts them and tells Rune that he wants his dance, but she tells him that it’s already over. Then she continues heading up to the library, where she shows Gideon around. He does look around asking about spell books, but Rune knows they’re not there because she had hidden them in her spell room, so she lets him look and is annoyed when he picks up one of her favorite books from the shelves. She then offers to show him the witches’ bedroom, which she had now turned into her own. He agrees to see it, and is surprised that it’s her own, but she explains to him that Kestrel used to sleep here before she was given up by Rune. There is a painting on the wall of Kestrel holding onto a younger Rune, and when Gideon focuses on it, she tells him that it’s to remind her of the fact that evil lurks everywhere, even in your own home.

Rune’s servant brings her the wine and the mugs, and so Rune pours the wine into the Truth Teller mug for Gideon, but when she offers it to him, he declines saying that he no longer drinks or does anything else. As a result, she is forced to drink from that cup when he asks her why she won’t and whether it’s poisoned, so she is forced to work around the Truth Teller spell when he asks her questions. One of the things that arrives with the drinks is a telegram showing that she’s to be the honored guests at the Luminaries Dinner. When she tells Gideon that she doesn’t want to go, he asks her why and she has to make up a reason—she chooses to tell him that she does not have a dress, that her dressmaker is out for a while, and there won’t be time for her to make it for the Luminaries dinner. Gideon and Rune get close and she realizes that Gideon will kiss her, so she spills her wine on his jacket, making him shoot up.

Verity shows up at this moment, looking for her, and Gideon takes his leave. Rune shows to Verity the flower that he made for her, and then Alex shows up shortly after to demand to know what is going on. Instead, Rune lays down, and Alex lays down next to her, as she dozes off to sleep. Rune remembers the time that she had first bled—it was at a party she put together for Alex, and she had tried to clean up after herself at Thornwood Hall. Alex had come to find her in the bathroom, and when she let him in, she knew it would be the end of her. Alex left the bathroom and showed up with clothes, drew her a bath, and showed her that her being a witch didn’t change anything for him. She knew then that he was a safe space for her.

Gideon made his way back to the tenement where he lives—above his parent’s old workspace. He swears that he smells the same fragrance of Cressida, the witch for whom he had worked and who had abused him, but reminds himself that she is dead so it’s not possible. Instead of going to sleep, he finds himself in his parent’s workspace working on a dress for Rune. When he is satisfied with it, it’s dawn.

The next morning, Rune shows up in Verity’s residence hall as Verity is a student on a Scholarship and she lives in a dormitory. Verity realizes that she had forgotten about their plan, and Rune settles down with a book—she always comes to Verity when she needs help with a spell because Verity grew up with two older sisters who were witches, though Verity herself is not a witch. She had fallen out with her parents over their murder of her sisters as her mom had handed them in to the rebellion. They talk about blood, because it is necessary in order to make any type of spell, but Rune doesn’t want to cut herself at all because she doesn’t want the casting scars—every time a witch would cut themselves in order to use their blood for magic, it would create a scar that would turn silver. These casting scars are the visual cues that they are witches, and witches with obvious casting scars were the first ones to go get killed in the Purge. So Rune had done what she could to not get them—using her period blood instead for the casting as well as Verity’s blood—but Verity tells her that sometimes that it is all about the freshness of the blood. Rune tries to use the spell to open doors with the blood, but her magic swells around her and pulls her under. As a result, Verity is forced to get Alex to help move Rune into the room, and then she cleans up the blood, which had spilled, in order to hide what they had been doing inside the room.

Verity and Alex tell Rune that she needs to stay away from Gideon, and she agrees to do so. But then she receives a message from Gideon, telling her that he has figured out a solution to her problem of not having a dress for the Luminaries dinner. He invites her over the next day at 10 am to his place, and Rune agrees to it, regardless of her promise to Verity and Alex. It will be enough time for her to go to him and then go to her luncheon to celebrate Charlotte Goode’s engagement. Rune goes to the tenements, and finds out that Gideon had invited her to his parent’s space where he asks her to undress so he can measure her. Rune realizes very quickly what he’s trying to do—he suspects her, and is trying to get her to undress so that he can see if she has casting scars. She knows that she does not, so she agrees to it without problem. But as she gets undressed, Gideon finds that he cannot help himself, so he tries very hard to not look at her. At some point, Rune wants to see his mother’s work, so she looks through the notebook that Gideon’s mom had with his permission, and finds that her work is beautiful. Gideon sits across her and realizes that he’s made a mistake—he is able to see down her bralette. After Rune returns the journal to him, and he asks her for one last measurement, they talk and he tells her that he has to work tonight because he’s moving a witch from a holding cell near the mines to the prison. Rune plays it off as a gossip interested in the happenings, and then leaves for the luncheon.

Gideon speaks to Harrow and tells her that he had fed Rune incorrect information. He had moved Seraphine already earlier that day, and if someone shows up to the location, he will know it’s her. The intention of this is a trap. But he also tells Harrow that he doesn’t believe that Rune is a witch as there are no casting marks on her. Harrow tells him that he needs to look closer as Rune wouldn’t keep the casting scars visible and questions how much he could see if she wasn’t fully naked.

Rune rides on Lady to the location, after making a split second decision that she doesn’t have the time to reach out to Verity or Alex. She quickly realizes that it’s a trap, when Laila is the only soldier there, and she manages to fool her in order to get down into the mines. But in the pitch dark of the mine she gets captured by Gideon, who tries to take off her mask. She fights him off by stabbing him in the leg. and uses her magic that usually makes people look away from her to escape him down into the water as the mine is flooded. She stays there until she has to go up for air, and it’s dark, but Gideon catches her. Rune then uses his weight against him, dropping them into the water—he is shocked at the coldness of it, so he let her go and she gets out, running all the way upwards towards the entrance. There she finds she is blocked by Laila, but as luck would have it, Laila enters the mine, and Rune slips out, locking them behind her with her magic. She then whistles to Lady and rides off into the darkness. Laila shoots at her, lightly grazing her skin in her arm, as she rides away. Rune realizes that she needs to be anywhere but where she was and make it seem like people had seen her all night long.

Gideon is uncertain if the Crimson Moth is Rune as he hasn’t spent enough time around her to know her form. He tells Laila to go to the docks to make sure no ships leave, while he himself decides to make his way to the event that Rune had invited him to that evening—the Creed’s home.

Rune arrives at the Creed’s home, changes and then sends her horse away. She does bandage her bleeding arm, and then wanders into the fire where she hears Alex speak to a couple of other boys. Alex quickly gets up and puts his jacket around her, before walking her away into the Creed’s office room, where Rune traces the prison’s layout. They talk as Alex is trying to convince Rune to agree to come with him to the Continent. He is intending to sell Thornwood Hall to buy a house in Caelis, where he intends to continue his studies as a musician, and he wants her to come with him for a month. Rune decides to consider it as he said that he would tell everyone that she arrived with him and Verity if she agreed to it, but Rune doesn’t want to leave her work behind, helping these witches. Verity shows up and asks her about the bloody, bandaged arm.

Gideon shows up to the party and sees Charlotte first, who asks him about his mission. He finds it an odd question, but then he runs into Rune wearing someone’s jacket and it bothers him. She reveals to him that she had told everyone at the luncheon today about the information he shared and she wants to know how it goes so that she can give them the update. He realizes that she had opened up his pool of potential suspects to a lot, and that maybe she has nothing to do with it. Alex and Verity show up behind her, and Alex reveals that she had arrived with them, so Gideon knows that she was at the mines if she had been there the whole time.

Eventually, Gideon makes his way over to see Rune on his own time, and asks her to go for a walk with him, so they make their way down to the beach. He wonders what if he was courting her for real, and tells her some of the truths of his own life—he had met Cressida on a visit with his mom to the queens, and when his mom signed the contract, they were able to send Alex to the continent to do piano studies. But he had to join in to help. He reveals that his mom suddenly began acting out of character—blaming him, his father, and their baby sister, Tessa, for things that she normally wouldn’t have blamed. He then walked in on Cressida and her sisters killing someone for their blood, and Cressida threatened to hurt his family if he didn’t do her bidding. To punish him, she had his sister die of the wasting illness, locking her in a room that he couldn’t get to. Then his mother died, followed by his father’s suicide. He did what he could to keep Alex safe, keeping him away from it all to the extent possible, and a such drugged himself with laudanum and alcohol. Unbeknownst to Rune, Gideon was helped by Nicholas to find a way to fight and ultimately agreed to help Nicholas bring the sisters down. He tells her that he went and helped kill the two sisters, while Alex killed Cressida.

Rune also wonders if this were real, who she would be—she doesn’t have any real truths that she can reveal to him that are that deep without revealing who she is. But she does tell him that she misses Kestrel, and he tells her that it is not a crime to love a witch. He dares her to go skinny dipping with him in the ocean, and she obliges. Afterwards, they kiss in the water, and suddenly Gideon pulls away thinking about Alex—Alex has loved her for so long and it’s not fair to him. Rune takes this as a rejection and runs away from him. Gideon follows her and he reveals to her that it’s not that—Alex cares a lot about her too, but she doesn’t believe him because she only sees Alex as a friend or a brother. They also hash out their past, where Gideon reveals that he didn’t know what it meant to give a handshake—something that she extended her hand for—because that was not done in their lower wards. It bothers him that she had said to him that he’s the one who thinks they’re not good enough to be together, because he always thought it was her, but she tells him that she never cared. And as they get close to her house, he realizes that there are Penitents—children of witches or witch sympathizers who have been marked with a sign to show that and who are living as beggars—on the grounds. She tells him that she lets them use her grounds to fish for food and that she cannot be blamed for her status—it’s the regime that had promised them equality and care, that did not deliver on it. Gideon agrees with her on that front because Nicholas Creed had promised something he didn’t follow through on.

Rune doesn’t hear from Gideon for three days, but she does send him a jacket in exchange for the one that she had ruined, but it has a truth teller spell on it so that she can speak with him and find out things. Alex of course thinks it’s a bad idea because Gideon was around witches and would know the spells, but she does it anyway. She had invited Gideon to the Luminaries Dinner with her, after he sent her the beautiful dress that he had made for her. The day had arrived and Rune gets ready with Verity, who looks very tired. But she helps Verity get dressed and together they attend. Gideon, in the meantime, had been talking to Harrow in his office who again questioned whether or not he had really seen all parts of Rune to make sure she doesn’t have casting scars, and if he did see it at sunset, was it enough light to check correctly. Harrow tells him that he should get into Rune’s bed, and Gideon doesn’t like that idea because it would hurt Alex, but he needs to protect Alex too—he couldn’t do it for his parents or Tessa, but at least he would protect Alex from evil witches. Something else bothers Gideon is that he hadn’t heard from those two vicious brothers that worked with him, so he goes searching for them with Harrow, and finds their bodies torn apart—one of the men’s head is only attached by virtue of him having a spine—in an alley behind a bar they frequented. He had sent message ahead to Rune that he would be running late.

Rune’s speech went well, though it was hard for her because she had to share things that weren’t true about Kestrel. She mingles some of the other individuals at the dinner, but doesn’t see Gideon. Verity calls to her and they talk—she reveals to Rune that she found out that in order to get to the prison, there are 8 doors, and only those with the right coins can actually get through the right doors. Seraphine would be behind the 8th door and they would need the coin for fortitude to be able to get into that location of the cell. Suddenly, Laila Creed shows up dragging Seraphine Oakes into the platform, and Rune realizes that it is a Purge—they want to make a show of Seraphine, and what better way to do it than this. Then she is called up and asked to kill Seraphine, which is something that Rune is not able to do. Seraphine tells her that Kestrel would be ashamed of her and that Rune doesn’t deserve the Winters name, but Rune tries to figure out a way to save this woman as she needs her. She settles on nicking herself with the blade to make a fire and get blood, but before she can even do that, a fire actually erupts. She thinks that Seraphine did it somehow, even though both of her hands are covered by iron in nubs so that she wouldn’t be able to use magic. Seraphine disappears, pulled away by the Blood Guard, and Rune realizes that the fire is really spellfire—black fire—that is heading for her. She watches it come towards her and engulf her.

Gideon arrives at the Dinner, hearing someone yell fire, and he sees Rune being swallowed up by the column of fire, so he rushes towards her to save her, jumping through the fire, putting his jacket around her and getting her out of the fire. Having been raised in the building, he takes her out through the servants door to safety. A little bit later, a servant child comes out with a glass of water and tells them that the spellfire is gone. Rune doesn’t understand why he saved her, but they don’t have much more to explore of it, when Verity shows up and drags Rune away. Gideon wants to send her with soldiers or go himself, but Rune point out that he will not be able to do anything against a witch anyway. She leaves with Verity to Alex’s house. Gideon, on the other hand, gets pulled away by Laila who tells him that she has something to show him, and leads him to a section in the floor where Gideon recognizes Cressida’s magic signature.

Rune and Verity make it to Alex and talk, with Rune being shaken up. Verity leaves due to an exam, and as it is raining, Rune tells her to take her own carriage. Rune spends the night at Alex’s but is not able to go through with sleep because of Gideon’s stories about Cressida, so she joins Alex in his bed and asks him about it. He tells her that he knew something was wrong with Gideon when Gideon wanted nothing to do with Alex when he came for their family’s burial. That he was pushing him away for some reason, and so he had some friends look into Gideon and what he has been up to. So when Alex got the news that Gideon is was in the fighting ring, he came back and barely recognized his brother in the fighting ring. He got Nicholas Creed to help and then spent time with his brother while he recovered. He doesn’t know what Gideon went through, but he only guesses at it, and it is one of the reasons why he wants to sell Thornwood Hall—his brother gave it to him after the Rebellion.

Verity, Rune and Alex continue planning on how to get a hold of the coin, and Verity lets it slip that Rune has a list of potential husbands. Alex tells them no; that he will get the coin from his brother, and that he’s already having a card game with some of the other higher up men at his house. He has sent Gideon a telegram that he will be selling Thornwood hall—something that makes Gideon think it’s a good thing—and invites Gideon for a card game as a goodbye. Gideon does show up at the game and they all talk about things, with Gideon revealing what had happened at the Luminaries Dinner to some extent. At some point, Noah says something about Rune that has Alex slamming the table and telling Noah that he will not speak about Rune that way, which doesn’t escape Gideon’s notice, though he himself wasn’t happy with what was said. Gideon is about to leave because he is out of money, when Alex tells him to turn out his pockets, and he pulls out his fortitude coin—the one that will get him access into prison—which Alex tells him he can use. Gideon says that he needs it, but Alex points out that he would be able to melt it, so it has some value and Gideon can always get another one. So Gideon uses it to gamble and loses to Alex. Alex walks him out, and Gideon tells him that it was Cressida behind the attack at the Luminaries Dinner, asking Alex if he’s sure that he had killed her—Alex confirms that he shot her three times. The thing is that the bodies of the sisters had disappeared after their deaths so it is hard to say what is going on.

Alex visits Rune and reveals to her that Cressida is alive—he hadn’t ever killed her, but he had hoped that by making her disappear and making his brother think that she was dead, he would move on. Rune tells him that he needs to keep this a secret and not tell anyone—she makes him promise it to her and he does.

Gideon received notice from Harrow that there was a gathering of witches in a printmaker’s shop, after curfew has been instated. So Gideon, Laila, Harrow and a few of his men surround the shop and enter it to try to find the witches. They find nothing, and Laila chases them across the roofs, with Gideon behind her, but they are not able to see anything in the shadows. Eventually Harrow comes out of the fog and he questions whether Harrow might be one but he shakes it off. They go back to the printmaker’s shop and enter the attic where the candles are lit and a circle is found. Gideon once again smells Cressida’s scent and sees her signature, but too late, he realizes that it’s a trap, and the whole room explodes.

Rune could not sleep so she went out on a ride in the morning, and when she returned to her home, her servant came out with a newspaper that shows that 27 were dead between the explosion at the printmaker’s house and the main offices of the Blood Guard. She races to the Old Town to look for Gideon and when he doesn’t open the door, she sits there crying her eyes out about him, realizing that she cares more about him than she lets on. Gideon shows up and she throws herself at him, so they make out, make their way to his apartment and they end up having sex. Afterwards, Rune tries to clean up to head out of the house, but Gideon tells her that maybe they would work and give them a try, so she agrees to it, and falls back asleep in his bed.

Gideon wakes up and goes down to his parents shop where he opens up a book on flowers—ones that Rune told him she loved—when he is interrupted by a knock. He opens the door, finding Laila and Harrow there, and lets them into the tailoring space. They talk, where Laila reveals that the description that the printmaker provided matches Verity exactly. Harrow questions him about Rune, who is sleeping upstairs, and he decides that the best way to play this off is to pretend that Rune doesn’t mean anything to him—otherwise he fears that Laila would report him as compromised. Unfortunately, Rune overhears this and when Gideon finds her behind the door, she runs away from him crying. He chases after her but she wants nothing to do with him. So instead, she rides all the way to Alex, where she cries to him and tells him that he was right about his brother. Alex asks her to marry him and finally feeling worn down, Rune agrees to his marriage. They will leave as soon as they have Seraphine secured for Caelis, where that future that Alex spoke to her about gives her hope.

Rune is packing with Verity shows up and asks her what is going on. So Rune tells her, and Verity despite it all is happy for her, telling her that she has been selfish because Rune is like a sister to her after having lost her own sisters to the Purge. She had been adamant that Cressida’s sisters were not using Arcana spells—spells of dark magic that would make Cressida and her sisters lose their soul and keep power, when Rune had asked about her sister’s relationship with the Sister Queens. Alex shows up and they go into her spell room, plotting and planning their rescue efforts. When they’re done, they all head out to do their roles, and Rune finds a box of her favorite flowers hand made by Gideon, who had written her an apology letter and left it in the box. She finds that they are beautiful and they make her feel, but she knows that she cannot keep them and will have to return them. She sends a telegram about seeing Gideon and he tells her to come the next day at 10 am, which leaves her plenty of time to make it to meet with Verity at the school so they can do their plan.

The next morning, Rune wakes up but feels very groggy. She cannot find the vial of blood or the coin she needs, so she makes her way to see Verity, but the room is now a broom closet, and that leaves her confused. Rune questions it but she figures that she will ask Verity when they meet later about it, so she makes her way to the Old Town to return the flowers. When Gideon lets her into his tailoring store, he is depressed, but she returns the flowers and is about to tell him that she’s engaged to Alex when he confronts her with the vial and the coin. She realizes that Gideon had dropped off the flowers last night, and he confirms that he had heard them talking so he hid when they left the room and snuck in to find the coin and the vial. She tries to run, but is stopped by Laila and Harrow, who arrest her. They try to get confirmation that she is a witch but Gideon tells them that they do not need it as he has all the confirmation that they need. They put Rune on a horse and make their way to the platform where Rune will be Purged. They are interrupted by Alex who demands to know what Gideon is doing and to let Rune go, as she is the woman he loves. Rune tells him to save himself and Gideon tries to push Alex away, so he reveals that he has been working with the Crimson Moth from the beginning, knowing all about Rune’s work. Gideon realizes that he has no choice but to arrest him, especially when Laila steps up and tells him that she will if he doesn’t.

Rune makes it up on the platform and realizes that she forgives Gideon—he had been so deeply hurt by the witches that he cannot see anything but fear. And in forgiving him, she finds forgiveness for herself for what she had done to Kestrel. Seraphine gets brought up on the platform, and the woman asks her why she did what she did, so Rune tells her that Kestrel had asked her to do it to give Rune a better life. It seems that Seraphine accepts it and as the two women start being pulled up by their ankles in front of a crowd on Liberation Day (the day that the Rebellion took down the Sister Witch Queens), an army of witches shows up with Verity in the front. Seraphine tells Rune that this is not Verity and Rune realizes that it was Cressida all along. She asks the queen for help and when the queen does unlock their chains, they join the fray. Rune and Alex make their way towards the queen, as does Gideon and Laila, but they are running out of soldiers and there are too many witches—all of the witches that Rune had saved over the years had come back to join Cressida’s army. Suddenly, with a bit of space between them, Cressida brings out Nicholas Creed and has him kneeling in front of her with a gun pointed at his head. She asks Gideon to tell everyone to stand down and hand over their guns, and he does tell everyone to stand down, but Laila makes a move so he grabs her by the waist and tells her to stop, throwing her gun towards Cressida. Alex comes by with a basket, taking everyone’s gun, but Laila’s movement again towards her father has Cressida shooting him.

Then Cressida points the gun at Gideon, and suddenly shoots him, but the gunshot never comes. Alex had stepped in between his brother and Cressida, taking the bullet meant for Gideon. Rune realizes too late that it is what Alex had done, and she is the one to catch him as he falls. Alex tells her to tell Gideon that he loves him, and Rune tells him to tell Gideon himself, but Gideon hadn’t come up to Alex because he saw Rune catch him and thinks to himself that Alex wants Rune, not him. Alex also tells Rune to get to safety and to use his blood to do her magic, telling her that he will not need it. She cries as he dies in her arms, the spark of light that she got from kissing him for a second time never having a chance to mature into something more, and then she uses Alex’s blood to make sign—remembering the spell signs for Earthrender, a spell that had been left open in an old book on her spell table, one that potentially Cressida had opened. She remembers them so clearly, and is able to make the spell happen, just as more Blood Guard soldiers spill into the square. The spell creates a fault line between the two groups, and Gideon has to move back to make sure he doesn’t fall into the abyss. He looks at Rune holding Alex, sees the Crimson Moth, and tells her that he will never stop looking for her. Rune nods.

Later on, she is on one of her ships with Cressida, the witches and Seraphine. She looks back on the island where she is leaving behind who she is—Alex, Lady the horse, and the house of the socialite. That life is over. Seraphine comes up to her and Rune tells her that Kestrel wanted her to find Seraphine for her to teach her magic, as Kestrel may have known somehow that she is a witch. Seraphine looks at her and tells her that she has a long way to go, but if she is powerful enough to make a spell that cuts the earth, Cressida is going to wonder what else she can make.

My Thoughts:

The world building here is amazing—I love the uniqueness of the fact that in order to wield magic, a witch needs to use blood and those end up being these casting scars, which are these silver scars made by blades the witches use when they want to cast spells. These casting scars were used to make intricate designs on the witches skins, almost like tattoos, that the witches were proud to show off to symbolize who they are. Rune, however, breaks all of those rules, refusing to follow in those footsteps because they are the one sign to the regular humans that they are witches and would lead to her death if discovered. So she’s creative, and calculating. She uses a persona of a socialite girl to get what she wants, which is to save the witches, who unbeknownst to her are going to become a part of Cressida’s army. I do feel like Alex had slightly darker reasons for wanting Rune, just based off of the vibe that he was giving—like maybe he knew that Verity was Cressida, and that there is something that Verity told him about Rune that made her valuable to Cressida. But I don’t know if we will ever discover that side in the next book. Gideon, on the other hand, is a somewhat seemingly surface-level character—one that almost has no reactions or feelings—but he is actually multi-layered. He is just too deeply scarred by whatever it is that Cressida did to him and his family that his emotions have been kind of behind a wall that he keeps so that he doesn’t have to face them or deal with them. I really enjoyed how Rune and Gideon’s love story grew from the beginning, from dislike to inspiration to somewhat genuine feelings though there are secrets. I’m heartbroken that they both lost Alex, but I wonder if there is a chance for them to realize that if they work together and realize that they’re both not what would be considered evil, they could make the world a better place. I guess we’ll find out in the next book.

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