Right as Patrick lifted the gun once more.
Right as the first horses respired down the thoroughfare.
I felt a body slide behind mine, the tip of the blade rest between ribs. “I can’t let you leave,” said Edith, her breath in my ear. “And I won’t be lettin’ ’em burn us down, neither.”
“Whoa, now,” John said from behind me. I heard the click of his hammer, another gun leveled Edith’s way. “Let’s be smart.”
“You’re the reason they’ve come back!” Edith said, shaking now, her voice too loud. “So you’ll be the reason they turn round and leave. You’ll walk yourselves out there and give yourselves up to ’em.”
Patrick shook his head, dread forming in his eyes. “They’ll kill you all anyway,” he growled. “They’ll smoke you out for sport.”
“Then we’re dead either way,” Edith said, a strange laugh bubbling up from her throat.
I held my breath in terror, knowing the blade would sink in at any moment. “Patrick,” I pleaded, though for what I couldn’t say.
His eyes met mine. A beat of silence, then his expression shuttered. “We’ll go,” he said.
“Pat,” John started warily. “She’s got two guns pointed at her. She ain’t in a position to make any demands.”
“If we walk out there, they’ll take us captive,” Theo said, his voice strained.
“They ain’t takin’ us captive, Teddy,” Patrick said, his eyes pinned to Edith. “We’re fightin’.”
I felt the knife at my side shift, slide over a rung of bone.
“Let her go,” Patrick said to Edith. “And we’ll walk out those doors now.”
“And dowhat?” Theo blustered. “You plan on shooting every last one of them?”
“Me?” Patrick said. His gun lowered. Outside, the wind battered against the walls. Loading rifles clacked and it was impossible to discern whether it was in my mind or in the street. “No, Teddy,” Patrick said. “I plan on havin’ you drown ’em.”
Edith’s blade lifted away. “Go,” she said.“Please.”
Patrick looked at Edith one last time, his thoughts inscrutable, the tangled remnants of duty still warring along his jaw, down his throat. “Thankyou for your hospitality,” he said, pulling me behind him, leading me out the door. “Make sure I don’t see you again, miss. Or that’ll be your last moment on this earth.”
“And don’t call on Kenton,” John added. “There’ll be no help comin’ down the tunnels.”
We left Edith standing alone, the knife sliding from her limp fingers, her face buckling.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURPATRICK
This is mad,” Theo said, his voice trembling. But he helped push the barricade away from the door, his breaths coming in large gusts.
Patrick couldn’t contest it. Beyond those doors were several ranks of approaching soldiers.
“How many bullets you got left, Patty?” John asked, his face pressed to a gap between the wooden boards on a high window.
“Just the one.”
“I’ve three,” John counted, rolling the barrel. “Here they come. Five on horses. Thirty all up, I reckon. Forty at most. They’re goin’ door to door.”
“They don’t know it’s us,” Patrick said in response. “If they did, there’d be more.”
“Then why have they come?” Theo asked.
“Because they think a few angry Trent Crafters killed their coppers and a Scribbler, Teddy.” How oblivious he was to the ministrations of his own House.
“Holy god. I can’t kill them all,” Theo said, his head shaking back and forth. “They’ve been ordered here. Most will have families. It isn’t right.” He was beginning to shake, to lose his grip.
