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“You want to skive a poor man of his dues, Pat?” Lionel continued, blinded by anger or ego. “Why don’t you send one of those pretty girls over here, and we’ll part with no bad blood. All debts paid.”

Foolish man. Did he not smell the blood on the air?

“Lord almighty, Lionel,” Otto uttered, scratching the back of his head. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

“Ah, Lionel, now you’ve gone and spoiled a whole lot of blood between us,” Patrick said, and finally, his hand reached into his waistcoat.

The waiting hammers cocked.

Gun barrels rose and leveled with Patrick.

And it was odd, wasn’t it? That I should suddenly fear for the well-being of Lionel, and not Patrick, who was faced with three men and two guns?

Patrick said “Donny?” and it seemed an order. “Otto?”

Otto moved quickly, grabbing Polly and me by our shoulders and pulling us against the tunnel wall.

But I saw it all. I watched all the moving parts.

The men and their shadows pulled their triggers. The bullets exploded from their chambers. Nine or ten, the reverberations deafening. Andsomehow, the bullets clattered in far-off places; it was unclear if any hit their target. And when it was over, Patrick finally pulled a gun from his holster and shot a single bullet, and Lionel toppled backward, skull slamming upon the culvert floor.

Then there was only the ringing in my ears, Polly’s breath on my cheek. My throat throbbed as though I’d shouted, and I wondered if I had. I might have screamed his name. Sound lagged.

But he did not seem harmed. No blooms of red sprouted along his back. He did not descend to his knees and then to his chest. He stood tall and straight and pointed the gun at the remaining two men, their own weapons now lowered, smoking, spent. They held their hands up and backed away. I sensed their fear, their confusion.

“Take Lionel’s body home with you,” Patrick told them. “And when I call on you next, don’t walk into this fuckin’ tunnel with guns.”

The men hesitated, then as one, nodded. One of them said “Yessir” in a voice that bordered on a boy’s. I blinked the light back, trying to see them clearly.

They retreated, dragging Lionel between them, and Patrick didn’t turn his back until they were swallowed by that circle of yellow and out of view.

Patrick turned. He closed his eyes briefly, then picked up the sack of weapons and threw it over his shoulder.

Otto hustled Polly to the shaft, with Donny at his other elbow. “Come on,” he told her gently, disappearing with her into the dark.

And I was aware that my chest rose and fell too quickly, and that my body was coiled tight enough to break the bones within. Patrick saw that, too, and when the wall behind me began to crumble, giving way to my trembling hands, he held up both of his. “Shhh,” he whispered, suddenly inches away. He stroked my face once, twice. “Easy.” The walls cracked. “Nina, calm down. You’re all right.”

But my head shook of its own accord, and a sound escaped my lips.

And it seemed, though I didn’t know how, that he understood.

“I’m all right, too,” he said instead. “Look at me, Nina. Nothing hit. I’m all right.”

A squall of breath left me, and my head fell to the crook of his neck and shoulder. And I didn’t give a thought to anything but just that. Just warm skin and the arm around me.

“We’re safe,” he said, and it was so soft.

Soft enough to end a war. Soft enough to break me.

CHAPTER 40NINA

The trip to Dorser had, at minimum, confirmed two things.

The first was that Patrick had the Alchemist alive. There was no doubt of that.

The second would require an interrogation.

Oddly, they hid the bag of guns we had retrieved from Dorser inside a grate on Main Street, of all places. Otto lifted the heavy iron cover in broad daylight, taking no notice of the passersby, and Patrick jumped through into what appeared to be not a drain, but a fully equipped bunker.