“I hope not,” he said in earnest. “Then it was all for nothing.” Theo had been too long with that ache in his throat, grown used to it.
She looked at him sadly, as though she couldn’t imagine a worse fate.
“I think I’d be more content to, though, if I knew there was some part of her that was…changedby me,” Theo allowed. “To know that I’d altered her half as much as she altered me.”
“She loved you once,” Polly said simply. “You carved your way into her heart back then. It stands to reason the marks would still be there.”
Theo took a tremulous breath. His stomach seemed to seize. After a moment, his muscles relaxed back against the wall of the tunnel, his head tilted to the ceiling. From the void of his chest, words rose unbidden. “I do worry, you know, that we aren’t the ones who find their happy ending.”
“No,” Polly murmured. “No, I don’t think we do.”
When the others rose from their rest, Polly helped Theo to stand. They traveled on, Theo clawing dying embers of memory and Polly rubbing her right arm with her left hand, as though warming that one small part of herself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIXPATRICK
Patrick felt a wave of homesickness so acute he had to clamp his eyes shut.
In truth, it might also have been the air in the tunnels.
They were fleeing in the exact opposite direction of Kenton Hill. And the farther south they traveled, the more detached he felt from home, from his brothers and mother. He’d never been gone this long. Worry wheedled in. Voices in his head told him he couldn’t be sure they were even alive.
It would have been enough to send him back if it weren’t for the fear of it. Fear of seeing it half reduced. Anytime the urge to steal home swarmed him, he would try to imagine the view from the surrounding hills and how different it would look now, and the feeling was swallowed by the urgency to find the fucking Seam.
He would be returning with nothing if he couldn’t return with a plan, with a fix. When he did return, he would be filled to the brim with idium, with enough in surplus to give to every man and woman in Kenton. Let the House come then. Let them breathe fire and spray bullets. Let them shake as Kenton returned in kind.
The next time he stepped foot in Kenton Hill, he’d make it the most formidable parish in the world.
He was filthy, covered in mud and Theo’s blood. One endless night and day in the tunnels. They walked as far as Theo could be carried beforesurrendering to the ground, resting, then rising to do the same again. Nina and Polly weren’t accustomed to walking the tunnels in the dark, and between John and Patrick, Theo’s deadweight had quickly become encumbering. When they set him down for the night, the relief was immense.
Nina slept opposite Patrick, sitting upright. He held his sickness at bay by listening to her breaths. Farther away, Polly curled in on herself. Theo was slumped against his own part of the wall, his side as well bandaged as they could manage with the sleeves of Patrick’s shirt.
John rested beside him, though Patrick knew he was awake. He heard the quiet pop of his lips as he spoke to himself, the same way he had when Patrick was a boy. Always scheming, strategizing.
Odd to have him so close again. To be able to ask one of the many questions that had banked up in his mind over the last two years. Now, he found little to say.
Patrick had imagined their reunion would feel like surrender. Like mercy. Instead, he felt heavier now than he ever had.
“You haven’t asked Polly to send a scribble to Ma,” Patrick murmured, only just loud enough for John to hear it. Not loud enough to stir Nina from her dreams. She slept so seldom it worried him.
He felt John shift, turn to peer at him through the dark. “You say somethin’, son?”
“You haven’t asked the Scribbler to send a message to Ma,” Patrick repeated.
There was a moment’s hesitation. “There a question in that?” John uttered eventually. “Ain’t much business of yours, Patty. For all you know, I’ve sent her a bloody sonnet.”
“Have you?”
His hands rose and fell, slapping the dirt. “We’ve been a bit preoccupied, son. I ain’t thought much about love notes.”
But that wasn’t his way, Patrick knew. Always there had been notes. He’d left them under her water glass beside their bed. On the stovetop, in the heel of her boot.One day, you’ll have a castle, love, they’d say.Soon, we’ll have it all.A lifetime ago, his mother had seen those notes and smiled shyly. Later, she’d squeezed her eyes shut, like she was praying for patience, and the note was tucked in her housecoat. By the time Patrick was an adult, she’d walk right by, refusing to read them at all.
“It’s been more than two years,” Patrick rumbled. “Two years she’s gone without a word from you. Now we’ve got a Scribbler at our disposal. You’d think a man in your shoes would have sent a message.”
John shuffled. “Watch your tone, son.”
“She’s yourwife,” Patrick growled, his volume climbing. His eyes slid in the dark to Nina, but she didn’t stir. In whispers, he said, “What man worth a damn neglects to send word to his wife and sons?”
John groaned, scrubbed at his face wearily. “You’re young, Pat,” he said slowly. There was a warning in it. “You don’t know yet how marriage works. But your ma does. She knows there’s things more important than love notes and fuckin’ poems.”
