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She had the air of a person whose mind had departed their body. She stared off vacantly, at the walls and ceiling but never at me. Her light hair had been cropped short, and still the curls matted. Sharp lines cut across her forehead and webbed the corners of her mouth. Her feet were bare and her toes curled in nervously as though they wished to burrow beneath the floor.

It took a long moment for me to recognize her. After all, she’d been a younger woman at last glance, and me, a girl of just eight.

“Ma?” I whispered. And the pounding in my head doubled.

She seemed unable to unstick her eyes from the wall, but her bottom lip trembled.

“Ma,” I said again, as forcefully as I could. “Ma? It’sme. It’s Nina.”

There was an air of death about her, as though it might reach out and snatch her away at any moment. Tears shook on the pink rims of her eyes.

Still, she didn’t look at me.

I made to move toward her, and she flinched.

“Alive and well,” Tanner said. “I do enjoy a reunion.”

But she was far from well. Far from the woman meant for bigger places. Now it seemed those bigger places had devoured her whole and spat her back out.

She was both a stranger and my first love.

I turned to Tanner and spat in his face. The way a miner’s daughter should. “What have you done to her?”

He wiped a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, barely managing to hide his fury. “I’ve opened my doors to her. She’s been with us for some time now, haven’t you Ms. Harrow?”

And still, Rose Harrow said nothing, did nothing. Beneath her breath, it seemed she hummed something; a child singing to soothe herself, a song I vaguely recalled.

“Ma—”

“Quiet little thing. Sneaky, even. I looked long and hard for your parents when you were a child, Nina. The moment your name came across my desk, in fact, and I saw through that half-cocked plan Francis Leisel devised. Your father was simple enough. A Scurry terranium miner. But your mother? She was nearly impossible to locate. You’ll never believe where I found her.”

Another shiver, a whimper. Rose Harrow hummed louder.

“She was working as a servant, right here in the National Artisan House!” Tanner clapped his hands as though it were all a gag. “There was an understanding, you see, between the Crafters that served us and kept sensitive information from public knowledge. Hold your tongue, do your duty to the House, and we may reward your family members with opportunities Crafter-born children rarely receive.”

“Idium,” I whispered.

“Correct,” Tanner nodded. “It seemed your mother had been under our remit for some time, foryoursake, obviously. A selfless mother, indeed.” He looked over Rose Harrow with none of the fondness his fair words suggested. “Though her service to us did not necessarily mean we had plans for you, it appears you made those for yourself, Miss Clarke. When I found her, she was relieved of her position immediately, of course. With you in the Artisan school, I couldn’t help but think the proximity would prove too tempting for her. She was much louder on that occasion, if I remember. The histrionics of women have always confounded me. You’d think she’d be pleased to hear what her daughter had become, but alas, she fought the policemen who escorted her to the train station and all the way out of the city.

“I found her right where I left her, in the squalor of Trent, but not quite as loud anymore, and only half a wit remaining. It seems the brink has not been kind to her.”

Nausea swelled once more. I saw my mother sewing buttons on a knitted sweater, kicking rocks into the riverbed.We’re made for bigger places, you hear me?

“We’ve become well acquainted, your mother and I,” Tanner continued. “And I plan to keep myself acquainted with her while you fulfill your duties to the House.”

Fresh tears slipped over my cheeks as I stared as this shadow of my mother. I felt the weight of every wall cave in on me. “What do you want me to do?”

“Well, that’s where the complication lies, Nina. You see, we need you to find their headquarters, of course, in order for you to bury it. But you’re not to do so straightaway! You’ll need to bide your time. Earn their trust.”

“For what?” I asked. “Why earn it only to break it?”

Tanner curled his fingers into his trouser legs. “They have something that belongs to us.”

CHAPTER 36PATRICK

Behind the empty bar, there was a bottle of rum no one had touched in years.

It was distilled by John Colson, drunk sparingly and only on dire nights. On its label were the words:For the recess of head and heart.