“This,” he said blankly, “was supposedly written by the Stewards.”
She stared at it, then exhaled all at once, as though he’d punched a hole through her chest.
Patrick watched carefully. “You recognize it.”
Her mouth opened uncertainly. “I—yes. It was his, I think. My grandfather’s.”
“And he taught you how to read it?”
Polly hesitated. “In a manner of speaking.”
“You’ll translate it.”
She stared at the book, still trying to puzzle through something. “How did you find this?”
“It was in my father’s possession,” Theo answered.
Polly looked at Theo. “You stole it from him?” she asked, only it wasn’t accusatory. It was almost… impressed. Like she couldn’t imagine anyone crossing Terrence Shop, choosing to place such a target on their back. “Why?”
Theo shifted uncomfortably, clasped his hands at his back. “My father… There is little he wouldn’t do to get what he wants.” His eyes trailed to Nina. “I couldn’t just stand by.”
He didn’t mention his hand in getting his father what he wanted. Didn’t tell Polly that he was only here, it seemed, because Nina was here.
Polly shook her head, turned her attention back to Patrick. “Pat, I—I want to—”
Patrick slammed his fist on the table, and all the trinkets on the shelves, the clocks and windchimes and dishes, they all quaked in response.
Polly’s face crumpled. She drew herself inward, away from danger.
“You’ll translate it,” Patrick repeated, waves of wrath swelling from the cords of his neck, the tendons of his arms. “Or you’ll die here. I’ll do it myself.”
She swallowed. Her eyes flickered to Theo, sensing her one alliance among them. The only one who might still hold some sympathy.
And she might have found it there. If it weren’t for his infatuation with Nina, he’d be as much a traitor to the Union as Polly.
It was hard to say which of them Patrick despised more.
“I had to do it,” she said then, her voice breaking in desperation. “You know I had to. Tanner—”
Patrick stood. He took the chair beneath him and lifted it by its leg, hurled it at the wall behind him. The parts splintered and scattered across the room, and though Patrick wasn’t nearly sated, the sound was enough to make an impression on Polly, enough for her to hear her own bones in the snap of the wood.
Patrick leaned against the arms of Polly’s chair, his face inches from her own.
“You don’t get to explain yourself. You understand?” He thought she did. “I don’t want to hear how you didn’t have a choice, or how sorry you are about all those dead people and their burnin’ houses. Their deaths are onyourhands, Polly.Youkilled them, just as surely as if you’d set them alight yourself.”
She sobbed, disintegrating by pieces.
“Otto survived the attack. Did you know that?” Patrick asked now, and he watched the information sink into her like a knife. “Did you care, Pol, if he lived or died? Or were you only ever dreamin’ of the day you’d sit at a card table in Morland, in your fancy fuckin’ dress?”
She closed her eyes, as though shutting out the world. “They werecoming,” she said brokenly, her voice a rasp. “The infantry were coming anyway, and I couldn’t stay. I didn’t want to die.”
“You led them safely to the very middle,” Patrick said. “You know, Pol, beneath hell, there’s a place that’s worse. They save it for traitors.”
Tears shone in her eyes. “They were alreadycoming—”
“THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE LET THEM COME!” Patrick seethed. “Let them be blown apart on the fuckin’ hills!”
“And then live as a fugitive?” she asked. “Hope the soldiers didn’t eventually make it past all those landmines? Try my hand in the brink again, alone? That didn’t work out so well the first time.”
