The coach swayed from side to side. The horses out front whinnied and shook their great heads in protest. Somewhere beyond, the city grew limescale and lost its glimmer by degrees. The Artisans scratched at their useless brands and paced their drawing rooms, purposeless, just like me.
For what was left for me here? Certainly no friends or family. All were dead or believed me a traitor. Patrick screamed to mind, and I shut my eyes to stem the onslaught of him. There was no me and Patrick. No Kenton Hill. Nothing to fight for but remnants of my dignity, to be promptly lost on those citadel steps.
Clanging in the hollows of my mind, the shell of my mother said,God only wants my sufferin’. Tears ran past my self-restraint.
The coach jostled violently then, alarmingly so. The horses wrenched sideways. Lord Shop gripped his cane and turned to look through the window. “What in God’s name—”
But the sound of his voice was cut off by a sudden buckling of wood, an almighty crunch, and we were both thrown sideways as the coach toppled, as though an axle had been snapped in two.
My head hit the wall of the coach, and I groaned, the world now on its side. Lord Shop’s body had half collapsed over mine, and he roared indignantly, cursing as he tried to right himself.
Voices beyond the coach called out. The driver barked orders to the runaway horses. The sky spilled in as the door was finally wrenched open from above, and the driver’s blotched face appeared, distress making his eyes wide. “Everyone all right, my lord?”
Lord Shop seethed. “Get usout!”
“Bloody wheel snapped in two,” the Craftsman said, reaching one arm down to pull the lord free. “Like someone took an axe to it.”
I watched then as a knife appeared at the driver’s throat and pressed against his airway.
Another face blocked out light. This one was bearded, sported a bowler, and gave a long, low whistle. “Scuse the interruption, my lord.” His voice was thick, heavily accented. He smiled, stained teeth glinting. “They don’t make these swank carriages the way they used to.”
Lord Shop’s eyes blackened. His lip peeled back in fury, and he tried to find his footing. “Colson. You Godforsakenfool—”
“Uh, uh, now,” the man I took to be John Colson said, and suddenly, a piece of splintered wood levitated, carved itself with rapid precision into a stake, and then hovered out of reach above Terrence Shop’s head, its tip pointed at his cranium.
Patrick’s father seemed euphoric. There was a fervor in his eyes that I was sure I’d seen before. “?’Fraid I’ll have to renege on our deal, Shop,” he said, and then to me, “Up you get, darlin’.”
He was shoved aside then, his face and that of the driver’s replaced by one that, after everything, seemed heavenly.
Patrick held one arm out to me, something pained crossing his expression. “Come on,” he said, urgency marring every line of his face. “Hurry.”
I lifted my injured arms, and he grasped them. If the wounds split, or fresh pain tore free, I didn’t feel it. I only felt his sure fingers, circling around my wrists, hauling me free of the wreckage, out into open air.
“You scum!” Shop spat from below, the stake still hovering threateningly above him. “Half the city’s policemen are moments behind!”
“Them coppers ran into a spill some ways back” came John Colson’s elated voice once more. He still had the Craftsman by the throat, still grinned as though this were sport. “Fuckload of barrels toppled onto the road and blocked ’em in. Horrible luck.”
“Patrick,” Shop now appealed, turning his attention away from JohnColson. “If you run now, you remove the last hope of amnesty for your people. I will burn every town, every Craftsman in the brink to ash.”
Patrick looked down at the lord as though he were a plague. “Pray to God we don’t meet again, Terrence,” Patrick said, voice murderous. “Next time you see me, I’ll be the one puttin’ a bullet in that empty chest.”
We left Terrence Shop in the buckling carriage on an empty street, the windows of buildings above overcrowded with onlookers pressing their noses to the glass. Patrick jumped from the remaining rear wheel and turned to reach for my waist, and I went to him as one turns to the sun.
He caught me as though I weighed nothing, and then my feet were on the ground, and he was turning me around, urging me onward. “Run,” he insisted, gripping my hand beneath the shackles. “As fast as you can manage.”
And he led me back down the lane, the faces above tracking our path, until the shadows of an alley bore down on us and the cobbles turned to dirt.
We sprinted through stagnant black puddles, through the grimy underbelly of the city, through a skinny maze of steaming drains and houseless Crafters, who barely lifted their chins to watch us pass. I stumbled often and Patrick caught me twice, his voice insistent. “A little farther,” he said. “Come on, just a little farther.”
At the end of an alley so narrow we could barely squeeze through, Patrick came to a sudden standstill. Heavy footfalls approached from behind, and I turned, panicked, only to find the man who was surely John Colson thundering in our direction, a radiant smile of triumph splitting his face in two.
He winked at me and put his index finger to his lips.
Ahead was a wide dock, filled with waiting passengers dressed for long travel. Narrow boats stuttered to their pylons and waited for passengers to alight and board. Gray-faced Crafters smoked and manned the steering wheels in long coats and wool caps.
A policeman bellowed names of destinations from the dock, funneling the harried crowd into their prospective queues, his mustache quivering with every shout.
“Shit,” Patrick hissed, and reached back with his arm toward me, as though he could push me out of sight.
