Patrick pulled me down the maze of aisles, stopping every so often to listen. To redirect. Eventually we could hear boots squeaking off the marble. The whimpers had turned to gasps. We stopped at a corner and looked around its edge.
There, down the end of the row. A study corner with desks and lamps built in among the shelves. Black-inked pages strewn across the floor. Two steel-eyed soldiers. Between them, Theo, their forearms encasing his.
Two fire Charmers stood with balls of light hovering above their palms. They stood before a woman with a flurry of unbound black curls and an expression so despondent, she might have had her neck on the edge of a sword. Polly.
A voice came. It was a voice I could have recognized in my sleep, or on the brink of death. I felt it like a long-fingered hand gripping my spine. LordTerrence Shop stepped out of the gloom, his cane glancing off the tiled floor, his expression somehow more severe now, the fire sharpening every angle of him. He bent to retrieve the pieces of parchment from the floor and perused them.
“You can come out, Miss Clarke and Mister Colson,” he said easily. “Unless you’d rather retreat. In which case, I wouldn’t fault you. There are far too many things in this building to set alight.”
Patrick groaned in my ear, then gave me one pleading look.
We stepped out into the open.
Polly’s chin trembled at the sight of us. Theo pulled against his restraints.
And I couldn’t understand it, how Lord Shop could know to come to this exact city, to this building on this very day. “You brought them here?” I asked Polly. For who else could alert the House so quickly? Why would she stand unshackled and peaceful while Theo fought his captors?
A tear ran the course of her cheek. She made to speak.
“Her father, actually,” said Lord Shop. “Mr. Prescott has an… understanding with the House.” I noticed that he stood behind his fire Charmers.
“Welcome,” he said genially, nodding like any good gentleman. “I assure you the Scribbler is not to blame.” Shop continued, his sights now sliding over Polly. “In fact, she is much less cooperative than her father suggested.”
It was only then that I noticed the shake of Polly’s hands, the way she swayed where she stood. The skin of them looked strange in the dim light. When the firelight glinted off them, I saw that the skin had been melted away. Something horrid dripped from her fingertips.
Lord Shop held up the ruined pages in his hand. Each piece was sodden with ink, as though someone had overturned well after well over them. Just like the Artisan children had done so in school. The ink dripped from the pages onto the marble, blacker than they were white.
“I can just imagine the very important information you must have been trying to hide,” the Lord said, grimacing at the parchment, and then discarding it. It slapped wetly off the marble. He went to the only desk with alit lamp and picked up the two books upon it. One wasThe Stewards’ Testament, still open to its last page. The other was a heavy tome—the cypher, I presumed.
“At the very least, all is not lost,” Lord Shop mused. “We persuaded her to stop drowning the texts eventually. I was concerned she might let us burn her to ash.” Indeed, it seemed as though the books themselves were unsullied. Polly hadn’t gotten to them in time.
A sob escaped her then, and her head dropped down as though it had grown too heavy for her neck, and I imagined her Scribbler hands being incinerated by fire, while she bled every last drop of ink from herself, until she couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Polly moaned, and the misery was too much to bear.
Patrick pointed his revolver straight at Lord Shop, over the gap between his men’s shoulders. I imagined his face splitting apart around a bullet we didn’t have.
“Ah now,” Shop tsked. “Fools rush in, Colson. And fool though you may be, even you can guess what happens next.”
Patrick’s eyes reflected fire. “If it involves a hole in your head, I’m all ears.”
“You’ll attack with poor results,” he said calmly. “Our side will retaliate. John will arrive from wherever he is hiding—an alley, perhaps? It will end in bloodshed on both sides, Mr. Colson, and the whereabouts of the Seam lost somewhere in the middle. Neither of us wins then, do we?” Shop tucked his hands behind his back, his chest an open target. “I’d sooner make you a deal.”
I spat on the floor like a miner, and Patrick gripped my wrist tighter. “I don’t make deals with monsters.”
“Then we’ll call it… an offering,” Shop reiterated. “Theodore and the Scribbler will come with me. And you’ll leave here peacefully.”
I scoffed, sounding deranged. “And how many of your army will we find waiting on those steps?”
“Not a single one,” he said. “I’ve come on rather short notice, so you’ve found me woefully ill-prepared. You may slither away.”
But there was something else in his expression. Some hidden strain beneath the surface.
Patrick clicked his tongue, considered Shop for a moment. “Nah,” he said. “I’m thinkin’ you’re terrified Nina will tear the ground up and pitch you into hell at any moment, eh?”
A flicker of something passed over Shop’s eyes.
“Yeah,” Patrick said. The gun did not lower. “You’ve lost some sleep to it, I’ll bet. Watchin’ Tanner spit dirt and go under. She scares you.” It made Patrick smile malevolently.
