“Because I know where your brother is headed,” Theo said now. “And he’s in danger.”
A second body crunched into the snow.
It took some time for either Theo or Polly to wake. They took them to the hotel, to their old rooms, and lit fires. Their clothes were damp and freezing, but when Donny suggested to Tess that they change their clothes, his mother spit on the hardwood and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
They were lucky she’d let them over the threshold at all.
It was Otto who cleaned and bandaged Polly’s hands. “I can’t look at her face,” he said to Donny, as though he needed to justify his actions. “I just can’t stand to look.”
Donny doubted she’d have much use of those hands once the flesh healed. Some burns, some cuts—they went too deep, muddled all the feeling. Gunner said they were “hunks of meat,” and they smelled to Donny like something fouled.
In number 14, Theo dragged his body upright as Donny and Gunner entered, sounding like he housed a reluctant skeleton that he dragged from place to place, like he was caved in by sleeplessness.
“Right,” Gunner said with no preamble. “Tell us all of it.”
And he did. He started with their escape from the National Artisan House, he, Patty, Nina, and somehow, their living father. He told them about Idia’s Seam and Polly’s translation ofThe Stewards’ Testament.
“That’s what Patty meant?” Donny said aloud. “When he said there was a lead on terranium?”
Theo described how they’d fled to Lavnonshire, and how Polly had been captured in the library by his father, the new presiding Head of House. How Polly had scribbled the translations to Patrick before she’d been bled of her ink.
“He played us,” Theo said like he was spitting rocks. “And now Nina and Patrick are likely crossing the countryside toward the Seam, and the House will be right behind them, ready to take possession of it once she uncovers it. They can’t reach the Seam without Nina.” He looked to them pleadingly.
“And Patrick and Nina don’t know it. They think this is a race. Them against the House to reach the Seam first, and there’s no way to warn them. Nina can’t uncover it. If she does, she becomes dispensable. You understand? She’ll be shot like any other rebel.” He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. “It might already be too late. I didn’t know where else to go, who else to call on.”
Donny felt his urgency. “Easy, Teddy. Tell us what the translation said. Where are they headed?”
“I don’t know,” Theodore said, panicked. “I don’t know!I wasn’t able to read it, and Polly has been unconscious. Whenever she wakes, she mumbles something about… about widow’s lace?”
“Widow’s lace, you say?” said Scottie, his tone curious. “You sure, lad?”
Theo inhaled. “Yes.”
“Only one place it grows,” Scottie said assuredly. “East central, right in the bloody middle. Scurry.”
Something pulsed between them.
“You sure?” Gunner asked him.
“Been all over the place,” Scottie said, and Donny pictured his great shoulders shrugging. “Every parish, whether by tunnel or boat. ’Bout the only remarkable thing about Scurry. Bloody red flowers everywhere in the spring. Fuckin’ pollen makes my eyes water.”
No sooner had he said it than Theo had demanded, “You should leave for Scurry now. Take all the fighters you have. Does Scurry have its own Union presence?”
Together, both Donny and Gunner deflated. Donny could practically hear his brother ripping hair from his own head. “There’s hardly a Union presence there at all,” Donny said in a voice that already screamed of defeat.
“What?” Theo said. The bedsprings groaned. “What do you mean? Scurry is a mining town.”
“A mining town we never reached,” Gunner said. “Never traded with. When we dug the tunnels, we couldn’t chance the gas pockets in Scurry. The ground there is wrought with ’em. Ain’t no better place for a gas explosion than a Scurry mine.”
“Our only contacts there are now dead,” Donny added. He didn’t mention how their deaths came about, or how it would likely get Patrick killed if he announced himself on Scurry soil.
“Then call on the other parishes!” Theo said, frustration taking hold. “Whoever you can reach!”
The silence that followed this plea was so thick, it coated the walls ofDonny’s throat, made it difficult to speak. “There ain’t no one to call on, lad,” Donny said. “No one but us.”
“And it’ll have to do,” Gunner said, turning on his heel so that it squeaked on the hardwood. “Get your rest, swank. We’re headed to Scurry before nightfall.”
“We’ll leave sooner,” said a voice by the door. Donny imagined Tess standing with her hip pressed against the frame. Her expression would be grim. Her voice was too weak to belong to his mother. “I’ll tell Otto that he and Briggs are to hold over until we return.”
