“I might as well come along,” John said, interlocking his fingers and flexing them. “Wouldn’t mind stretchin’ me legs.” He ambled off behind Patrick.
Polly’s eyes flitted to me once with something I thought was pleading. But then she gathered her skirt in one hand and went for the stairs.
With the translation in hand, I moved to the window. I listened to Patrick’s muted voice coming through thin walls, to John’s boots plodding over the floorboards, to Theodore’s steady breaths. I looked out over the sun-drenched ocean, ranks of whitewash barreling toward the cliffs, and I reread Dione’s story another time, then started again. I wondered if the town that had used and abandoned Dione was now the seaside parish of Lavnonshire. I didn’t see any reason why it couldn’t be. It was a sign, surely, that we were on the right track. Perhaps after everything, Idia was leading us.
Theodore cleared his throat.
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” he said, not without effort. “Quite a different account from the one we were taught.” Theo snatched his breath in, gripping his side.
I looked at his bandaged wound, swallowing hard. “You’re starting to sound like you believe.”
His nose wrinkled. “It’s a fascinating story,” he said. “But if there’s any truth to it, the Artisan historians would have written their own accounts.”
“And what if this was just another secret the House took pains to keep buried?”
Theo seemed to consider it seriously, then he shook his head. “What motive would they have? To protect the nations who invaded Belavere?” he scoffed. “Doesn’t sound like them.”
No, it didn’t. If anything, the House promoted hatred of the enemy nations who’d once come to these shores to take their terranium, just as they promoted hatred of the Miners Union now.
I bit my lip, looked back to the cerulean sea. I didn’t want to admit that Theo had a point, that maybe this book was a work of fiction, and we were barreling toward a dead end. “I need to believe it’s real,” I said aloud. “Or what do I have left?”
When I looked at Theo again, he stared down at where the bullet had entered. “In case it wasn’t obvious, Clarke, you’ll always have me.”
I was transported, for a moment, to a time when this sentiment might have moved me. How different I was now.
But I nodded. It seemed the least I could do for someone who’d stood in the way of death for me.
I gripped the parchment between my fingers. “Do you remember what Dumley told us about Lavnonshire? That the waves never breached the cliffs. Never crumbled them. He said it was likely the work of ancient stone Masons and earth Charmers.”
Theo nodded. “I remember.”
“What if it was Dione all along?” I said. “What if she died here in Lavnonshire, and they didn’t even have the decency to remember her name?”
“We can’t know that for certain,” Theo said simply, shrugging.
But already I was running away with the idea. “She saved their whole fucking town from sinking into the ocean,” I fumed. “And they served her up for slaughter anyway.” I felt that familiar rage in my core, seeping outward again, ravenous.
Theodore looked at me long and hard. “If there’s one thing you can trust in people, it’s their tendency to save themselves first.”
But that didn’t quite encapsulate it. Those townspeople hadn’t just forsaken Dione to save themselves. They’d wrung everything from her first.
I closed my eyes. Saw a young girl on the cliffside.
“It’s just a story, Nina,” Theo said.
But the waves were already rushing overhead, hammering down. And I was tossing in the depths, lungs burning, fingers reaching for the surface, curling into claws.
CHAPTER FORTYPATRICK
The Artisanal influence of Lavnonshire seemed to worm in, seeping into the black brick rendering of houses as though they were mid-transformation.
The wagons became horseless, the people weak-chinned. The building facades cleared themselves of soot. The briny air, though still tinged in the stench of industry, lightened.
The Artisan houses were made of stone and looked to Patrick like mausoleums. Wrought-iron garden gates rusted with salt and columns at the entrances. Polly walked ten paces ahead with her hands clasped in front of her stomach. She was now dressed, he supposed, in what Artisan women deemed proper. It entailed more skirt layers than he cared to understand. He wondered if the swanks had their Crafter maids peel the clothing away for them every evening.
She dragged her feet like she was walking to the gallows and ducked her head from the people she passed.
Some ways behind her, John and Patrick pulled their caps low over their brows and toted chimney sweeps over their shoulders, lit cigarettes between their lips. Eyes slid right by them. There were plenty of Crafters mixed among the swanks, selling fruit from shoulder bags, playing fiddles, begging on street corners, selling newsprint.
