Patrick clicked his tongue. “Oh, there was a reason, darlin’.”
Nina glared at him. “We weretwelve, Patrick. I don’t think romance was a factor.”
“I was twelve when I saw you for the first time,” Patrick mused, “and romance wasdefinitelya factor.”
Nina rolled her eyes again, and this time he did take hold of her jaw, turning her face to his. His fingers were neither harsh nor gentle. “Do you want me to tell you what men see when they look at you?” he said, voicedeepening. Here was the madness taking over again, flooding him, muting all sensible thought.
He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, and she released a small gasp for him. He felt it resonate low in his abdomen, in his groin. “They see every sinful imaginin’ they’ve ever had, all at once,” he murmured. “Every beauty that existed before vanishes from memory, until their whole head is crowded with you. You in their hands, their beds, in every improper way that can be imagined. They see a woman they’d commit terrible crimes for. Just for a chance.” He was close enough now that the words were skating over her mouth, down her throat. “They’d kill for it if they had to.”
She shivered, her hand rising up to flatten against his chest.
“They might pretend to be gentlemanly for you, Nina,” Patrick said, coming close to the edge of his restraint, “but inside every man, Artisan or not, lives a beast. Some only hide it better than others.” Fire erupted in her eyes, on his chest where she touched him. “Some of us don’t bother to hide it at all.”
He released her chin and drew away, removed his gaze from her mouth. Tried to redraw the line.
He felt her gaze on him. “Play me a song,” he said.
She sighed and repositioned herself on the seat, shoulders slumping. “What do you want to hear?”
“Only songs I know came from a church or a tunnel,” he said. “Play me somethin’ I don’t know.”
After a moment of hesitation, her fingers hovering over the keys and their carvings, she did.
And Patrick was sure, then, that whoever that Artisan professor was, he had gas in his head.
The song expounded in his chest and his blood like idium, expanding his mind tenfold. Made him forget all the wrong she’d done, all the sin in his head.
How could something so beautiful be so wrong?
THE STEWARDS’ TESTAMENTDIONE
The second daughter, Dione, traveled with the Stewards to the southern cliffs along the shore. They sought shelter there, but were met with solemn welcome, for the people had already heard it told of witches in the Trench.
But Dione hosted a magic the likes of which had never been seen. She kept the escarpment from crumbling into the ocean, and with it, many of its houses. She tamed demonic waves before they could sink their boats. She built them a church to prove her faithfulness to God, and for this, the townspeople gave her refuge.
Dione married in the church she herself in weeks prior had erected, to Mister Rackley Duponte, the founder’s son. She was, on the day of her marriage, ten and four, and no family passed her hand to her betrothed.
She became round with a child quickly, and when the beast invaded the moors, the infant was born into the night. Her husband was not to be found by her bedside, nor her father by law, for they had fled the land and taken to sea. Only the Stewards remained.
Dione was discovered quickly, for the village was promised its safe return to its custodians if Dione was surrendered. The enemy was led to her birthing bed, and her child taken from her arms. In doing so, it awakened in her a terrible monster.
She held her captors at bay for three days and three nights, drowning the men with giant waves until she tired. She was tied to the sea boulders and bled dry. She wilted there to the audience of her captors, until the ocean, as though sent by God, came mercifully to cradle her remnants down to the depths of the sea.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINENINA
In Mrs. Trunk’s living room, my eyes rose from the parchment.
“Well,” John said gruffly, glaring at Polly. “Still don’t say nothin’ about the Seam though, does it?”
We were gathered around Polly’s latest translation—all but Mrs. Trunk, who was tending her shop, and Theodore, who was still resting on the settee.
Patrick closed his eyes in frustration. “What else is there, Polly?”
She was weary, drooping further with every hour. She shook her head. “That’s all I’ve managed.”
“It ain’t enough, Scribbler,” John said, clicking his tongue. “Not enough for a fare out of Hoaklin.”
“I can’t remember it all, no matter how hard I work at it,” Polly said. A capillary had burst in her right eye. She stretched her shaking fingers as though they were calcifying. “I told you it would be difficult.”
