“And the Miners Union kill and thieve and blow up buildings—”
“—to feed their parishes. To take back what’s owed to them.” I stood, my hands itching to shake him, scratch him, to find the boy I knew beneath. “You once had enough heart to admit that the scale was never even. Not all of us were born in this city.Youhad the advantage of waltzing through your childhood. Most of us crawled through it kicking and screaming.”
Theo looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. I wondered what he saw.
The silence extended.
“My father is expecting me,” he said. He looked to the door, then fervently at me. “I’ve come to convince you—no, tobeg you—to denounce the Miners Union. Pledge yourself to Tanner.” His lip trembled at this last, his fists balled behind his back as though to stop them from reaching for me. He looked out the window, Belavere spiraling out beneath us. “Please,” he said, a tear shaking free of his lashes. “Please, Nina. There isn’t another choice.”
My hand lifted of its own accord. It brushed the droplet from his cheek.
“Even if you must… if you must pretend.” It became a mere whisper. “Pretend to be repentant. Tannerneedsyou. He’ll forgive quickly. The terranium stores are near empty. He won’t have you killed, but that doesn’t mean you won’tsuffer, Nina. I’m pleading with you. Do what must now be done.” He took my wrist, leaned into the cradle of my hand, and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “More sorry than you could know.” And he pressed his lips to the soft flesh of my palm.
Beneath the cuff of his robe I could see the white bandages, so similar to my own. The skin around his eye had turned a sickly yellow from its battering. Was he only pretending?
“Who sent you?” I asked him. I did not deliver it harshly, but took back my hand and stepped out of his reach. “Was it Tanner himself?” I asked. “Or another minister?”
He sagged slightly, shoulders rounding.
“Was there a deal made?” I pressed. “Will Tanner pardon your lapse if you set me straight?”
“I don’t need a pardon. My father is the second in command. He invented some excuse for my… lapse.” I watched cords pulsate from jaw to collar as he turned away. “You think so little of me now,” he said, and it was quiet, sad. “I can barely stand it.”
I couldn’t deny it. Couldn’t suddenly strip myself of the damage wrought.
He turned back then, eyes downcast, and from his pocket he took a piece of parchment, folded imprecisely. He tucked it into my hand and held on an extra second, squeezing my knuckles. “From your mother” was all he said. And then he quickly made for the door.
“Theo,” I called before he could close me in again. “Please. Who sent you?”
He grimaced. “No one,” he said. “I came because I wanted to.” He glanced down at his wrist, where his brand still hid beneath the dressings. “You have to take care of yourself now, Nina. Remember that.”
And then he was gone. The locks snatched closed in his wake.
I looked down at the parchment and saw that it was torn on one side. I unfolded it slowly.
The ink bled outward from every letter like the legs of an insect. Not a scribble, but a handwrought message in trembling cursive:
Hide, hide the witches,
The Stewards, they hid three
CHAPTER FIVEPATRICK
His father hovered over him when he woke.
“Patrick?” John mouthed. Sound followed retrospectively, the cogs of Patrick’s mind whirring into place.
“Patty?” his father said to him, then shook his shoulders and smiled so widely his bottom lip cracked. He laughed as Patrick remembered him laughing, a desiccated bark, tempered by coal and tobacco. “It’s good to see you, son.” John Colson pulled his son up by fistfuls of his clothes, wrapped his arms around Patrick’s back, and pounded his shoulders.
“Dad,” Patrick said, blinking wildly. He gripped his father’s shoulders, closed his eyes, tried to believe that this was real and not just the sorry consolation of dreams. “You’re alive.”
His father laughed again. Always laughing. “Course I am,” he said, though Patrick could smell the old blood matting his hair, staining his earlobes.
He wrenched Patrick back to look at him, pushed the hair out of his eyes. “My boy,” he said, eyes swimming. “How’s your ma? Your brothers?”
“Alive,” Patrick said. “S’far as I know.” Though Gunner had been wounded badly, Donny was no good in a fight where the sound came from all sides, and his mother… “But Kenton. It’s—”
“I know, son. I know.”
