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Story: A Forbidden Alchemy

“I’d gathered that already,” she said, straightening her blouse. “But as I’ve just demonstrated, I can take care of myself. I might even have to protectyou.”

He cursed beneath his breath. “Change your shoes,” he said. “You’ll meet Donny, Otto, and Polly in the pub. I’ll be there within the hour.”

“Polly?” Nina asked. “Why Polly?”

Patrick moved toward her, felt her intake of breath when it seemed he’d reach out and touch her, and it took everything to keep his hands to himself, to ignore the way she looked at him. Instead, he pushed at the gate by her back. “You’ll see,” he said.

CHAPTER 39NINA

When I was a child, and scared, I could imagine peace where there was none.

I could redraw my own cot into a feathered bed, the kitchen into a dining hall, my father at the head of the table and my mother still there. All of Scurry made new.

I did it again now, putting fraught things away in drawers. It was shockingly easy to do in the presence of Patrick, where the heat of him clouded every other thought. I could imagine I wasn’t balancing on the precipice of a cliff.

The five of us—Patrick, Donny, Otto, Polly, and I—had entered a new pit, one Otto referred to as the southeast line, its entry point not disguised like Margarite’s tunnel. This one was simply dug into the bottom of a hill in Kenton’s outskirts.

The ceiling was at least tall enough to allow a person to stand, the walls wide enough that my shoulders didn’t brush the sides. It seemed a well-traveled path. There were even points where two people could walk side by side. We carried nothing among us, not even a birdcage, and so I assumed we weren’t making the journey to trade.

The men stayed ahead, walking at a quick clip without uttering a word. I walked just behind Polly, who hummed to herself, apparently familiar with the affair.

It remained baffling to see her amid the dirt.

“Who is it that we’re meeting?” I asked her quietly.

She shrugged as though it hardly mattered. “A dockyard master probably, or another union member.”

I searched for another safe question. “And why haveyoubeen brought along?”

“They never really tell me,” she said easily.

Ahead, Patrick, Donny, and Otto were nearly out of sight. Polly and I had fallen behind. It seemed as good a place as any to speak frankly.

My voice became a whisper. “Theo said you were sent here,” I said carefully, “by the same person who sent me.”

She slowed very slightly, her eyes on the men ahead, pupils widening. “Lower your voice,” she warned, though I couldn’t have been quieter, and the others were only echoes along the walls. “Yes,” she said.

“For the same purpose as Theo?”

She nodded, her discomfit obvious.

“And you’ve found nothing?”

It took her a moment to answer. “I’ve found a lot I didn’t expect to find.” It sounded cracked and broken. I thought of Otto and how closely they’d been seated on that step. “As for Domelius Becker, very little.”

And I sensed, though I couldn’t be sure, that she was as trapped in the same corner as me. “What were you threatened with?” I asked. “Or are you here out of honor?”

She huffed a dark, bitter laugh. “No honor, just the promise of a bullet from either side.”

“Polly, we—”

“We can’t speak here,” she murmured, so lowly I barely heard it. “Come to the pub tonight. Better to talk where there’s too much noise for anyone to hear a thing.”

We said no more.

For three hours we walked until my feet and stomach and backprotested, until the ground seemed to slope upward and the walls narrowed. And then, a shaft lift.

“Up you go,” Otto said, proffering a hand to Polly to lead her inside. He held on a second longer than necessary, and I watched Polly smile at her feet.

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