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That was war, wasn’t it?Look at the buildings we can crumble. Look at how many we can kill.

I nodded weakly, a tear escaping over the curve of my cheekbone. “He was right,” I murmured. “It was the center of everything.”

He stepped toward me, then thought better of it. He buried his hands in his pockets. “My father was—isa good man. I might not be paintinga pretty picture, but he’s not evil. He sent warnings. We thought the city would be evacuated.”

“The House of Lords didn’t take the idea of a rebellion so seriously back then,” I said, wiping my fingers beneath my eyes.

Patrick’s voice turned wry. “Or perhaps they knew we would attack, and theywantedthe Nation to see what barbarians we are.”

And didn’t that sound right? All those caricatures in the newspapers of blood-smeared Crafters—men willing to bury an entire generation of Artisans under rubble.

I wished I could stem the tears. “How did he do it?” I asked. “How did he get into the school?”

But Patrick shook his head, and for a moment, I thought he swayed where he stood, or perhaps it was me.

“No, Nina,” he said. “Not him. Me.”

Of course.

“We dug a tunnel from the outskirts of the city to the center, all of us. Scottie, Briggs, Gunner, Donny, Otto. Two miles long, right underneath the building. But it was me who set the explosives and the wires. It was me who detonated it. My father was miles and miles away, celebrating in Colson’s.”

I remembered the sensation of the floor rising and sinking, the walls and ceiling splitting, lights exploding. All those beautiful things, covered in plaster dust. I thought of Patrick, belowground, wiring the boxes that would pitch it all into a crater.

“I swear to you, Nina,” he said now, eyes hard. “We didn’t know you were all waiting above it. If I had…”

I exhaled, then eventually, finished the sentence for him. “If you had known, you would have pushed on the plunger anyway, because you believed it was right.”

His jaw rolled. “I like to believe I wouldn’t have. I need to believe that.”

I didn’t much care to pick apart whether he was lying. I was running through cracking halls, Aunt Francis pulling on my hand.

Then, back in Kenton Hill, Patrick’s arms went around me, and I was swallowed in warm darkness. I buried my face in it and waited for the shaking to stop.

“Just breathe,” he told me. “It’ll pass.”

Slowly, achingly so, it did. And he pressed his cheek to mine, as though he was trying to steal the tears slicking my skin. “I’m sorry, Scurry girl,” he said, and it felt years old, heavy with burden. His face came away as wet as mine, full of ghosts.

We walked the remaining journey without exchanging a word. Just my hand in his, all the way down Main Street and through the pub and up the stairwell. All the way to number fifteen.

And he bid me goodnight before I thought he would, and turned to retreat, and it was me who stopped him. I clasped his hand when he tried to reclaim it, and without saying a word I asked him if he would kiss me again.

He shook his head, slowly, painfully. “The night’s grown too sad for it, Nina.”

But there had been joy, too, hadn’t there? There’d been laughter and flushed cheeks and racing hearts. And he wanted to. It was written all over him.

“Men turn into boys when it comes to girls,” I reminded him, though I had no right. “Perhaps we can let it just be about that.”

He looked at me, tormented, a card house quickly folding. And I couldn’t say why I pushed him, or why I felt suddenly starved. In truth, I wasn’t thinking at all. I only felt, and whatever it was, I was sure he felt it, too.

So when he crowded me against the door I was already expecting it, and I hardly moved, hardly breathed. His hands slipped over my waist and around my back, and his voice ghosted over my lips. “I’ll wake up tomorrow, and you’ll have been somethin’ I imagined, I’m sure of it.” And then his lips pressed to mine. Briefly, softly, and so heart-wrenchingly gentle.

And then they lifted, and I felt deserted.

“Sleep well,” he told me, hands disappearing from my body. “I’ll send Sam up.” He was descending the steps long before I could muster any sensical response.

I touched my fingers to my lips. Vaguely noticed that they trembled. Then, I smiled so widely that I thought they might crack.

It was a while before I moved, before my heart slowed and my muscles uncoiled. I turned to number fifteen and went inside, listening for the snick of the doorjamb as it shut, and still, all I could see was his face. I leaned my forehead against the wood.