And he couldn’t simply leave her there on the docks or dump her in some Dorser hovel, could he? Patrick was hardly a gentleman, but he was no devil, either.
Besides, he thought Kenton could use a Scribbler.
And shehadbeen useful. Far more so than even he’d bargained for. Before Polly, messages were sent via Otto and Scottie, through the tunnels. It could take days to send a warning, a week to settle a deal. With Polly, the raided towns received necessary bluff sooner. Betrayals were caught in the wind and silenced quickly. The coppers in Kenton sent their missives by Scribbler to the National House, and no one came to see what had become of their quiet parish in a continent booming in bullets and smoke.
That is, until Polly had sold them to the slaughterhouse in a single scribble.
Until she’d undone an entire rebellion.
Now here she was, dressed in high fashion, gambling in Morland—the prize for setting Kenton Hill alight and bringing the House a living, breathing Alchemist.
Patrick breathed deeply. In their line of business, the last man standing was the one with all his cards still pressed to his chest. When rage found him, he’d learned to temper it.
Right now, he was the dark void of a serpent’s mouth. He was filled with venom, lined with teeth.
Polly sat tied to a chair in The Mistress. Tamir’s apartment was lit by candle, turning his trinkets orange and morbid. He was pacing in the periphery, his hands together in prayer, mumbling apologies, curses, a growl of profanities in a foreign language. Every so often, his eyes strayed to the window, as though he expected a barrage of coppers to break through it at any moment.
Tamir would have to run, too. Patrick would need to find a new Union member to take over the establishment, to keep ears and eyes on Morland.
As though Patrick had said it aloud, Tamir yanked a large bag from beneath the bed and began filling it at random.
“He’s flighty, ain’t he?” John said from where he lounged in a kitchen chair, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “Calm down, Tammy. Coppers don’t work that quick. They won’t be round for a while yet.”
“And I suppose you’ll just shoot them when they arrive?” Theodore asked.
John winked. “You’re a quick fuckin’ learner, kid.”
Theo had his back pressed to a wall. “They were lowering their guns,” he said bitterly. He had a soldier’s look about him, the light all burned out. “We could have walked out of there.”
“Aye, well, that all went to shit when the lady here decided to start a fuckin’ earthquake.”
Patrick thought Nina on the brink of starting another any moment. Like him, she was wire-taut, set to trip.
They were, each one of them, the head of a pointed spear, glancing off the other. How long before the hostility pierced through? And who would lunge first?
There was only one thing tying them together, and it was the book clenched in Patrick’s hand.
Polly looked at them all in turn, her eyes shaking in their sockets. Patrick tried not to see the flames of Kenton reflected there.
There was no tulleyroot. Theo had dumped it all on the way back. If not for him, Polly’s tongue would be decaying before his eyes.
“Do you read Verian Script?” he bit out. Sometimes he made his voice quiet to incite fear. Tonight, he couldn’t find the wherewithal.
Polly blinked at him in surprise. “I—s—some,” she allowed.
“Are you a descendant of Stewards?” he asked next. He saw no benefit in dancing around the point.
She paused, frowned in earnest. “My grandfather believed we were,” she said eventually, twisting her hands together. “He’s the one who taught me the language. But… my father didn’t like it, and my mother was an Artisan. Mention the Stewards around any Artisan, and they’ll react as if you’ve told a joke in poor taste.”
“But your grandfather is a Craftsman,” Patrick said, leading her. “And he believes.”
Again, Polly paused before answering. “Hewasa Craftsman,” she said, her brow lined in confusion. “But yes, he believed.”
“He passed?”
“A few years ago,” she said, looking from one set of eyes to another. “What is this about?”
Patrick took the book out and placed it on the table. He slid it across the surface to her.
