Theo sighed heavily, more drawn than I’d ever seen him, and said, “A book that may reveal the whereabouts of Idia’s Seam, if such a thing exists.”
The name clattered somewhere in the stores of my memory, a Scurry schoolyard where children clawed the mud with their bare hands.I’m diggin’ all the way to Idia’s Seam.
My gaze flickered between Patrick and Theo both. “Idia’s Seam?” I parroted. “Thefable?”
“Not a fable,” Theo said, his face in shadow. “Just a well-covered secret.”
And I believed him. The House was built on lies—if they believed this real, then they would have kept it close.
“The book was found in the Morland archives,” Patrick added, and the rest of the tale was not needed, for I could feel the sudden fervor in the room emanating from John.
But not Theo, who appeared merely trapped.
“And what now, Patrick?” I asked him, for surely there was some grand plan turning in the cogs of his mind. I could see that he was trying—and failing—to hide his own zeal.
“You’re here to thieve yourself a copy of the book from the Morland archives? Is that it?”
“Don’t need one,” John grunted. And he pulled from his coat a much-abused book. “Young Theodore thieved the original, didn’t you?”
Theo looked darkly at the object. “And as I told you back in the National House, I’d feel better if I could carry itmyself—”
“Don’t give a rat’s arse how you feel, boy. You just be grateful you’ve been allowed along.”
I stared at the book, my breaths shortening. Embossed on the cover were the wordsThe Stewards’ Testament.
Hide, hide the witches,
The Stewards they hid three…
My mother’s face swam in and out of my vision.
I looked back at Theo. “It’s real?”
He sighed. Nodded.
“It’s written in Verian Script,” Patrick added, and my gaze swerved to his. He was watching me carefully now, blue eyes sparking. “That’s why we’re here. There’s some Scribbler who works in the archives who can translate. A descendant of the Stewards, or so says Shop.”
I closed my eyes briefly, the first tremors of a headache beating about my skull. “You’re going to look for the Seam.”
Of course they were.
“If we don’t,” Patrick said slowly, “thentheywill, Nina. Only they don’t have a way to find it. They don’t have the book.”
“It’d mean the end of the war,” John inserted, spinning the little book in his palm like the needle of a compass. “With a Charmer to dig up the terranium and an Alchemist to siphon it?” he whistled. “The swanks might as well kneel now.”
So this was why Patrick had yet to turn me away.
“Is that what you want?” I asked Patrick, ignoring his father. “The entire nation on its knees? Do you want to lead all of Belavere Trench?”
Patrick’s eyes iced over. It sent a shiver down my spine. “I want to drag the ministers from their nice beds, their nice houses, and have them watch as I burn it all to the ground.”
I saw then what he saw: Lord Shop and his fucking cane, the ministers lining the courtyard to watch my mother swing from the noose. The tidy streets of Belavere City, every brick mined by Crafters. Kenton Hill ablaze, Gunner bleeding. Tanner in a drawing room, proclaiming me his weapon, his knife.
A deep cold slithered through me. “Is this why you saved me?” I asked him. “Because you needed someone to dig up your seam?”
I already knew it was. I hated the way my voice shook.
Patrick didn’t answer. I looked away.
