Page 110

I spat the remnants of bile before him onto the checkered floor.

“Come now. Surely your foray into our world left you with better manners than that. I remember you to be quite the young lady. I must admit, the first time I laid eyes on you, I was surprised.”

“Surprised I didn’t walk in on four legs?” I rasped.

“Ha! Quite,” he laughed. “I had no idea they still taught children in Scurry to speak in more than monosyllables. But you defied my expectations, Nina. And again in your schooling, when you continued to impress your professors! It bothered me quite a bit at first. I’d expected you would fail, and I don’t usually like to be wrong.” He paused, and in the silence I closed my eyes, shuddering inwardly.

“But in your case, I was pleasantly dumbfounded. A girl from the brink, excelling as a Charmer? And the very first earth medium we’ve been blessed with in more than a hundred years!” He sat on the nurse’s chair by the cot, brushing loose hair away from my eyes. I wanted to bite his fingers clean off, spit the bones out. “We had a nice time together, didn’t we? We shared tea and biscuits, and you were such an enthusiastic little thing.”

“I was achild,” I croaked. Small orbs of light were forming in my periphery, closing in.

“You were. And what followed was an extended period of adolescent rebellion.” His hand closed around my jaw, angling it up toward him. “And now you are home, and ready to live up to all that idium you stole.”

My eyes were shut again, weren’t they? Better this way, to speak to the dark. “I won’t—I won’t bury people.”

He sighed. “I know you sympathize with them, Nina. It is difficult to ignore your roots. But you, of all people, should find some opportunity in all this. A chance to put right what was wrong. A chance to take revenge, for all the wrongs done untoyou.”

I shivered. “Shut up.”

“Your father, may his soul rot—he does not deserve your sympathy.”

“Shut up.”

“He was too far gone to notice you. Wasn’t he? Always too dosed or drunk to protect you the way a father should.”

That swelling tide rose within me again. A river of vomit, though not a speck of it seemed to find the lord’s shoes.

“And your mother, she was already in the wind,” Tanner shook his head sadly. “God says vengeance is righteously sought by the aggrieved, Nina. And I believe vengeance is yours.”

I shook my head, brain matter sloshing to either side. If I’d been capable, I would have carved a hole in the earth right then and pitched us both into the crumbling black. I slumped toward the window. “I’m not fighting your damned war,” I mumbled. “Best put me in an iron cell and hope I don’t find a way out.”

He chuckled. “And what good would you be to me there? No. I won’t be your jailer, Miss Clarke. But I might be your executioner.”

Pain lanced in every direction. I realized his thumb was digging into my temple, where the flesh seemed most tender. He worked a groove into the skin, and I cried out.

“I will drop a ten-ton stone on your head, and the world will have lost a very accomplished Charmer. Let me make this perfectly clear. If you are of no use tome, then I will make you useless tothem.”

Fear closed in. It eclipsed my mother and father and Scurry and cells made of iron.

Tanner’s mouth was at my ear. “So, you will join our side. The side you so brazenly stole onto, and you will be of use. Yes?”

I swallowed. Nodded.

And what did it say of me, that I gave in so quickly?

“Good.” He released me again. “That’s good.”

He let me sit there and pant and shake, a scolded dog bent to subservience. He patted my leg. “Don’t worry. I won’t be sending you off to crumble mountains onto every poor mining town in the brink. We’ll still need them, after all, once this war is won.”

Was I crying, or was blood running down my face?

“This nation does not run without those mines, I’m afraid. A fact the Craftsman haven’t been able to accept. There is only one particular town I wish to bury, Nina. And it won’t be easily squashed. The Miners Union wants you badly enough that I believe if I dangled you out in the open, they’d bring you right into the fold.”

Which town? Surely any town was a price too high. “And once I’m there?” I asked. “What then?”

“Well, we’ll need to ensure you won’t scamper off, won’t we?” He turned his body to the door. “Nurse?” he called. “Would you bring in our guest?”

From the hall came a soft whimper, a shuffling of feet across tiles. The nurse appeared in the door again, and with her she dragged the arm of someone unwilling. Someone who, though frail, resisted.