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I swallowed, trying not to look too surprised, lest someone around us notice.

After a considerable silence, Polly said, “Do you ever imagine that perhaps the idium got it all wrong?”

A few nearby wallflowers were staring now, their ears pricked. Several paces away, Theodore’s father, Lord Shop, caught my eye.

He turned his cane in our direction.

“Shh,” I warned, snatching Polly’s hand. I ushered her sideways. “Outside. Come on.”

We wove through the throng and escaped through the open doors, our heads ducked and faces turned away. Gardens stretched out beforeus, neatly hedged and haloed in golden light from hundreds of torches speared into the flower beds. The music of the party settled into gentle waves, and Polly and I were alone, save the few couples stealing private moments behind peony bushes.

I pulled Polly into a dark corner, not too close to the exit. “They’re lying to us,” she continued, as though a wall inside her had been knocked down and she couldn’t stem the river. “I don’t think they have control overanyof it.”

“I’m sure it’s—”

“War iscoming, Nina. They know it, and they won’t tell anyone.” Polly was trembling. Her fingernails bit into my palms. “My father says that half the policemen have abandoned their posts already.Half!They’re all Craftsmen. How are we to win a war if our own army is made of the enemy?”

The wordenemystruck me. Her parents were Crafters. She’d once belonged to the brink.

“They’ll think nothing of killing people like us, Nina.Nothing. They’re stronger than us. Crueler.”

I went quiet. There had been a boy in my Scurry schoolroom who’d routinely held me against a brick wall in the yard and forced black beetles past my lips. I still remembered the way they’d tasted. I wanted to argue with Polly but found I couldn’t.

Instead, I embraced her. “Even if what you believe comes to pass,” I said, “we’ll still have the greatest minds working to keep all of us safe.” And as I said it, I realized it was true. What would bullets and dynamite matter next to an army of thousands who could turn the land against them, crack the earth beneath their feet, and bury them whole?

“They’re lying to us, Nina,” she said into the tender flesh of my neck.

“Nina?” came a voice. “Polly?”

I felt her disentangle from me immediately. She wiped her eyes and smiled at the newcomer. “Theo.”

“Pardon the interruption,” he said, eyes darting between us.

I was quick to take his arm and guide him away from Polly before she could say something she regretted.

“Is she unwell?” he asked me, looking back at her.

“Just feeling sentimental,” I said. “Too much champagne.” I leaned my head against his shoulder to hide my face.

“What did the two of you talk about?” he asked, his suspicion plain. I wondered if Polly’s voice had traveled too far in the ballroom.

I considered lying, but panic climbed my throat, and there was no one I trusted more than him. So instead, I asked him the question on the tip of my tongue. The question we had, each one of us, wordlessly agreed not to utter. “Theo, what will you do if this war comes to pass?”

He rolled his eyes. It seemed so often recently that his eyes rolled when I spoke. “Don’t be dramatic. There’s nothing to fear.”

“You and I haveeverythingto fear. Do you truly believe that we won’t be put on the front lines?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nina, stop. Enough with this.”

My voice was small. “Enough with what?”

“With this…naivete! We aren’t children anymore.”

I breathed, once. Twice. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Good God, Nina. It means we have responsibilities to uphold. Did you really think we could just hold hands forever and ignore what weare?”

A knife incised my chest, twisting inward toward my heart. “Are you prepared to follow any order then?” I asked. “Whatever it might be?”