I held Theo’s gaze, thought I saw contrition there. Shame. He seemed inches shorter. “Mylord,” I repeated softly, and then my eyes swept to the window, the city beyond it. “So, you’ve returned to their side. Just like that?”
He sighed as though hollowing himself. He stepped one pace closer, looked where I looked, out to those enveloping rooftops. I wondered if they’d lost their luster for him as well. What had once appeared to me as beautiful now seemed blandly uniform. Generic.
We might have been contemplating the view in companionable silence if not for all the injury weeping between us.
He said, “I was always on this side, Nina.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “You saved them.” I closed my eyes and saw the collapsing walls of water putting out Kenton’s fires. “You came back when you could have kept going. You came back for Kenton, for all those people.”
“I came back,” he said, “foryou.”
I swallowed.
“I—God… I left a note for Patrick after I spoke to you that day, in the alley. I told him you were looking to uncover the Alchemist.”
I turned to stare at him. A shiver of violence ran through me. “Youexposedme?”
He paled, then nodded. “I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I… I was trying to hurt him.”
I gasped, turning my body from him so that he couldn’t see me crumble. Hadn’t he known the danger of implicating me? Had he really been so angry with me that he wished me harm?
Was I anything but a possession lobbed back and forth and scrapped over?
“For all you knew, I could have been executed.”
“That’s why I had to return. In the tunnel I had time to think, to come to my senses, and I realized what I’d done, what Patrick might do—”
I slapped him. My body whirled as I did so, my good arm hitting him with all my might.
He stumbled back, more shocked than injured, eyes welling.
The guard rushed in through the door, but Theo held up a hand to ward him off. “Go,” he said, and after a moment of hesitation, the guard disappeared.
Theo had the good sense to look down at his feet. “I’m so sorry, Nina,” he said. “Truly. I had to say it, even if you’ll never forgive me. I just wanted you to know that I came back for you, and when I saw the flames… all those people dying. I kept thinking you might be stuck in the cross fire.”
“You saved them because it wasright,” I spat. I saw the way he tried to glaze his mind in excuses. But this wasn’t about me or him—there were things of greater significance. “You can try to deny it and say you’re still on their side, but what you did for those Crafters was only what was moral and decent, and you know it.” My hands shook. I twisted my fingers together and swallowed some emotion. Desperation, perhaps. “You were prepared to die for them. That can’t have changed so quickly.”
But here he stood in that blue three-piece suit and navy robe, and I felt, though I couldn’t explain it, that I was losing yet another critical piece of Theo, the one I knew to be good.
Theo’s tongue rolled around his mouth, as though testing the words to explain himself. “My grandfather was a Charmer of fire,” he offered. “Did I ever tell you that? And his father before him was a Mason. Quite a renowned one, actually.”
I said nothing. My eyes began to film over.
“But my father,” he said it with gravity, “is a mere Cutter of emerald.”
I looked up. Had I known that? Had I ever asked? It seemed impossible, a mistake. Lord Terrence Shop was one of the most formidable persons I’d ever met. I imagined someone of such persuasion to be of a higher rank. But a Cutter? Cutters were novelties. They sold pretty jewels to wealthy gentlemen and ladies. The made a nice living in useless remits.
“He was expected to do nothing great. The way he tells it, he was practically cast aside by his parents and professors. And yet, he graduated with high order, was ordained a few short years later as a minister for the House, the greatest honor any of our name had ever received, and all of it for aCutter.” Theo’s shoulders rose and fell as he spoke, as though he were barreling toward something. “And then it was my turn to siphon, and I was terrified. Terrified I’d be nothing, the dead end in a long succession of Artisanal distinction. You cannot imagine my relief when I was named a Charmer, of all things.”
“I was there,” I said then, seeing again a dark-haired boy in high attire, tipping water from a quivering glass.
Theo continued as though he hadn’t heard me speak. “I thought I might stop being scared then, that my Charmer status alone might be enough to satisfy my family name. But my father had been made a Lord of the Housewithoutthe advantage of a high-ranking medium, and if he could do that, then what might I, the Charmer, achieve?” Theo looked at me, and he was colorless. “I was always going to end up here, Nina,” he said, as certain as death. “My own wishes were never of any consequence.”
Tears fell freely now. Down my cheeks, over my lips. “Perhaps you didn’t hold much love for Kenton, or it for you—”
Theo scoffed. It was brittle.
“But for a moment, however brief, you wavered. Somewhere inside of you, you know the truth. This House, it’s a farce. Its lords serve themselves before all others and call it religion.”
