Patrick looked at him as though he found him unfathomable. But he didn’t know Theo’s father. He didn’t understand that the man lived up in his mind, and nothing breached his heart. But he was afairman. He was logical to the point of pain. He understood that the continent could not continue on as it had. “Despite any of our feelings, this is the only way forward. This is the cost of armistice, Colson. Of truce.”
“There won’t be a truce,” Patrick said now, looking dead into Theo’s eyes.
Theo frowned. “What?”
“Your father won’t hold up his end of the bargain, Teddy. Con men like him never do.”
Theo waited several moments. But Patrick didn’t expound, and his eyes continued digging into Theo’s. “He’s a man of his word.”
“Ask him,” Patrick said. “Ask him tonight, in person. Look in his eyes when he answers.” Theo never thought he’d see the man plead.
But surely he pleaded to Theo now.
“Look for the lie,” Patrick said. “If I’m right, then Nina goes under the whip tomorrow for nothing. You canstopthis.”
Theo was shaking. His hands betrayed him. “And if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not.”
Theo sighed, felt nausea swarm him. He turned to leave, but just before he reached the door, he turned back to Patrick Colson. “It’s not her forgiveness I want,” he said, his voice choking something back. “She was happy here once, in this city. Like she was born for it. I still want that for her.”
Patrick only looked on in pity, but perhaps also understanding. “Might’ve been true once, Teddy. I wouldn’t know.” He looked back to the stained glass, pulled that infernal coin from his pocket and weaved it through his fingers. “But I know this; she won’t kneel. Not now.”
“She knelt to Lord Tanner,” Theo said weakly.
“She knelt when her mother’s life hung in the balance,” Patrick said distantly. “Now you’ve no leverage, and she won’t be forced.”
Theodore’s chest concussed. “It’s not my wish, nor my father’s, to force her.”
“Ask him,” Patrick insisted. He tossed the coin, and it levitated before his eyes, spinning rapidly in the air. “Ask him how he intends to control a hostile earth Charmer. And you can be sure she’ll be hostile, Teddy.” Patrick looked over at him. The coin continued its pirouette. “Neither of us know her as well as we’d like to think, but I think we know enough between us to agree on that. There’s no forgiveness for this.”
Theo knew that already. Had known it the moment the lever was pulled.
“What about you?” he asked Patrick. “Canyouforgive her?”
The coin froze.
Theo left him like that, staring into nothing.
Eleven hours remained. The clock tower chimed low over the city. Midday would find Nina beneath it.
Theo walked through those hallways of the National House and past the soulless Crafters and portraits of dead lords. He found his feet on the stairs, and instead of descending to the cellar again, he climbed. He found himself floating to the quarters belonging to the Head of House as though detached from his own body. When he knocked on the doors, the sound was muted.
“Come in.”
His father hovered near the hearth, looking into the flames some Charmer had summoned. Purposeless, really. Why did they need Charmers to light their hearths and lamps when a match could do the same?
“Theodore,” his father greeted on exhale, irritation apparent.
Theodore inclined his head mechanically. His neck fought the act.
“The hour is late.”
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
“I’d urge you not to want for anything,” he replied. “And not for a good while. You still have much to atone for.”
Theo collided with his body again, smacked with ire. It was always this when it came to his father. Always what he’d done wrong.
