“You should be on your way,” she said next, already turning from us.
“We’d like to stay until tomorrow,” I said suddenly, and Patrick’s head turned in surprise, then John’s and Theo’s and Polly’s. “We want to help however else we can.”
It wasn’t the whole truth. I wanted time in Trent, enough to find answers. Some confirmation of the suspicion unfurling in my gut.
“There ain’t any coppers left to kill,” Edith said. “But we need scouts, and people who can fetch water and launder. There are houses on the west side, closer to the trading post, that were never searched for supplies.”
She left us to it.
“I’ll search the houses,” I said immediately to the rest. “See what there is to salvage.”
Patrick came up close, right to my side, and looked where I looked, out over the beds of the wounded, rows and rows of them. “What are you doin’?” he said beneath his breath.
“It’s not a coincidence,” I insisted. “It can’t be.”
That was how I found myself walking through the wide lanes of Trent with Theodore, who hurried up behind me.
I turned at the sound of his approach, and a groan escaped me.
“Not the friendliest welcome,” he muttered, slowing to match my pace.
“No welcome about it,” I said in answer. “Shouldn’t you be charming water from the river?”
“I set out to, but John practically shoved me aside. He’s building some sort of contraption with Patrick.”
I sighed.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Wearen’t going anywhere.I’msearching for supplies.”
He watched me as he walked. “Then I’ll accompany you.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.”
“You’ll have to forgive me eventually,” he said softly, a whisper of desperation in it. “I insist. I’ll not give up until then.”
I turned to him, and he stopped with me. There was snow in his dark hair, on the tips of his ears. He looked a decade older than we had been in Kenton Hill.
“This isn’t the House,” I hissed. “You’re no longer a lord. Your insistence meansnothinghere.”
He nodded. “You’re right. But I do intend to earn your forgiveness, Clarke.”
“Harrow.”
“Nina,” he settled. “And you haven’t turned me out yet. A man has to wonder why that is.”
I kept walking, past the crumbling remains of Crafter houses and outdoor lavatories and snow-banked horse carts. Theo followed one step behind. “I don’t trust you enough to let you leave,” I told him sharply. “You’d be back in the House by morning. We both know your father would round you up, and you’d tell him everything.”
“You don’t think I know how to lie?” Theo said. “That I wouldn’t do that to protect you?”
“I think you turn the shade of the seat you take,” I said. “Like a reptile.”
We came to the far edges of destruction, the houses and buildings in this part of Trent not crumbling or choked in ash. Windows were broken, and most had their doors flung wide. A lone cat walked between houses, searching as we searched.
I approached the first door and hesitated. The number hung loose. A child’s doll lay just over the threshold, its face concaved. Snow, in great flurries, had piled over the stoop. Wind howled through.
The air was too still, the snow too bright, the sky encroaching. Birds in far-off trees rabbled, ignorant to the shiver of abandonment. Without thinking, I moved closer to Theo’s side, like a child does when shadows start to take shape.
