Patrick went to the copper closest and held a gun between his eyes. “How black is the soul of a man who lets his townspeople burn?”
“Please,” he begged. Always, at the end, they begged.
“Unfortunately for you, boys, I’ve got my own blackened soul.” Patrick stepped back. He put his gun in his coat, took the three from the countertop, and stowed those away, too.
John pulled a canister of kerosene from his pocket and poured the contents over their card table and the floorboards beneath their feet. Patrick struck a match. “For Trent,” Patrick told them. “By dusk, our work is done.”
Patrick did not follow his father back into Bleaker’s Textiles. He knew there would be no sleep for him. It was a kind of penance, he thought, that even bone-deep weariness wasn’t enough to let him rest on nights like this.
He stayed out in the cold, his back against the outer factory wall. In his mind, he imagined the route from Trent to Sommerland. From Sommerland to Kenton Hill. He calculated the transit, estimated the number of injured who would die in this factory in the coming days. He devised plans to get supplies here faster. He had contacts in Baymouth he could reach out to. He could—
Boots ground into snow, and Patrick looked up to see Nina sneaking out into the night, sliding back the factory door.
Patrick sighed. He couldn’t explain the quiver of relief that burned through him in that moment.
Her eyes fell to his hands, currently pilfering his own pockets to no avail. He hadn’t been aware of it until that moment. “What are you looking for?” she asked.
Snow was catching in her hair, in her eyelashes. “A cigarette.”
She should be sleeping. She’d spent hours in the cold burying corpses. She’d walked miles and miles underground and almost been buried alive. Instead, she was assessing him, rose lips slightly parted, slender eyebrows pinched. She crossed her arms over her chest and dipped her head against the cold. “I should like to take a walk.”
Patrick scoffed tiredly. “No, you shouldn’t.”
But she shrugged, wrapped her borrowed coat tighter around her, and abruptly set off. She looked back over her shoulder at Patrick as she passed him. “Are you coming?”
“Nope.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, and marched off into the dark, disappearing around the corner.
“Damn it, woman,” Patrick hissed between his teeth.
He shouldn’t follow. Lord knew he shouldn’t follow.
“Fuck me,” he muttered, shaking his head.
He found her again in a smoker’s hole. Kenton Hill factories didn’t bother with such things, but he supposed in a textile factory, the masters wouldn’t want their fabric stinking of tobacco and ash. The workers would come to this outer shed in the winter. It kept out the snow and the wind enough to light a cigarette, though not enough to keep out the chill.
Nina sat on a bench within, discarded newsprint at her side. On it, the headline readUnion Trades Alchemist for Earth Charmer’s Clemency. Nina frowned at it.
“I would have, you know,” he said, leaning against the doorframe.
She looked up at him. “Would have what?”
“Traded myself if it meant keepin’ you from the whip.”
Her eyes shone star-bright. “Why?”
He considered his answer carefully. “I’ve seen you bleed enough,” he said, his eyes slipping to her arms. “Don’t think I could watch it again.”
She looked down at her feet. “Are you pretending you can’t stomach the sight of blood?”
“Not yours,” he said observationally. He didn’t look at her as he said it, only stayed leaning against that frame, affecting an air of indifference he didn’t feel. “Some walk,” he quipped.
By way of reply, she held up a single white papered cigarette. “Thought the night called for it,” she said. “Take it.”
Patrick’s head tilted. “And just where did you get your hands on that?”
“In the coat Tamir gave me.” Her other hand opened to reveal a matchbox.
