Lord Shop, discerning as he was, saw that, too. “You shall.”
With that, Partick siphoned a single dose of idium into one of the many vials. It dribbled like oil into the glass base, and he thought only of sweet crimson blood and stained navy. Two sightless gray eyes staring straight to the depths of hell. He pressed it into Theo’s palm and watched him stow it safely in his robe.
“Remember what he did to her,” Patrick said to Theodore. “And what he did to you.”
He nodded.
Lord Shop departed, but Theo lingered. His mouth opened and shut like he was drowning. He followed his father out the door without saying another word, chasing his robes.
Patrick did not sleep that night.
He closed his eyes, and for the first time since he was a boy, he prayed.
He prayed that his father, always surer than he was right, wasn’t one of Shop’s wolves.
He prayed that he wasn’t walking from one cage into another.
He prayed that Nina, whose face circled his mind every minute, would cease this relentless haunting.
CHAPTER EIGHTNINA
Tanner entered my room after dark, stepped right over the brink towns on the rug, and stopped somewhere near Gilmore. The Gyser River ran between his shoes.
His nose wrinkled at the ceiling. “My word, are those starlings?”
The birds in the rafters above tittered nervously. They had become accustomed to me, but they fretted now in Tanner’s presence. “I suppose you endured worse confines in Kenton Hill.”
I said nothing, though I wanted to spit at him.
“I’ve come to tell you that at this moment, Patrick Colson is agreeing to ally with the House. He will be our Alchemist.”
I damn near laughed. These were desperate words. I said, “When hellfire swallows the continent, perhaps.”
“The only barrier that remains,” Tanner continued doggedly, ignoring my jab, “is you.” He moved forward suddenly, and I found myself shifting back on the mattress, seeking distance. A girl once more, cowering in a drawing room.
“Your impudence puts me in a very difficult position,” Tanner continued. Mania swarmed his eyes, turned them brilliant. “Do you understand that, girl? Do you comprehend what is atstake?” He shook with unfettered rage. It bloodied his cheeks, brought his forehead to a high shine. I watched his hands carefully, my insides winding tighter and tighter.
“I could have thrown you back into the swill before you ever stepped foot in our halls, and instead I let you remain, I offered you aplaceamong us!” And now it seemed he spoke to himself, pacing frenetically over Trent, over Scurry. “I allowed you achance, opportunities of which your peers could never hope to see! And you discarded it.” He seethed, sucking air between his teeth. He stopped his pacing to look at me, and I wondered if he imagined pulverizing me to mince. “You’ve forced my hand, Clarke. I’ve come to give you your very last opportunity. You belong to the House now. You will do as you are bid for your nation. If you refuse, Rose Harrow will die for your futile rebellion.”
I wanted badly to be the kind of woman who bared her teeth in the face of threats. Instead, I was shrinking, attempting to become nothing.
That was what I really wanted—to be saved by obscurity. I wanted to mean nothing, to have nothing the men of this world could try to possess.
Tanner had caught the scent of my fear, and he bore down. “And I’ll have you watch that execution, Nina, if that is what you choose.”
I closed my eyes. I pictured my mother as I’d last seen her. Skeletal, tormented. My voice shook. “If she dies,” I said, “I’ll give you nothing.”
You have something the House needs. It gives you power.
I wouldn’t yield. Couldn’t.
Tanner’s eyes bulged. He raised his hand as though he might strike me. I flinched and felt ashamed for it.
But his hand never landed. He lowered it slowly, inch by inch with whatever willpower he retained. “We’ll put your words to the test, then,” he snarled. He stalked to the door and opened it.
On the other side, in the grasp of a guard, was my mother.
A waif. So insubstantial her clothes overwhelmed her. As with before, her eyes swiveled from place to place, and she seemed unable to set them on any particular thing.
