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It stuck to the windows at dawn, curled into Patrick’s collar as he dressed. Nina shivered in her sleep. Tonight, he’d ensure a fire was lit in the hearth.

It seemed to Patrick that she was uneasy in rest. Her body was curled into a spiral. Her eyelids were in flux. Whatever dreams played out beneath them carved creases in her forehead.

Contrarily, Patrick had rarely slept more peacefully. It reminded him vaguely of a time he’d swigged a vial of bad bluff in his adolescence and felt battered by some invisible gauntlet. It had knocked him unconscious into the next day, sleeping dreamlessly, but the waking was entirely different. He’d felt pommeled, flayed then. Today, he awoke in a mind he hardly recognized.

He leaned over the bed and pressed the pad of his thumb to her furrow, smoothing out the lines. As she came awake, he pressed his mouth to hers, felt her fingers thread into his hair in that way they had a tendency to do. “We’ve stolen enough hours,” he murmured into her neck. “No more slothin’, Scurry girl.”

They were first to Margarite’s Modern Ladies, their breath pulsing out in clouds as they let themselves into the shop.

Scottie and Otto followed quickly after, Otto balancing a cigarette between his lips and newsprint in his hands. He read something that made Scottie laugh. They greeted Patrick and Nina with shiny cheeks and high spirits.

“Far too early for such good moods,” Patrick told them, despite the unlikely occurrence that he himself felt fifty pounds lighter than he could ever remember.

Scottie laughed, his great shoulders quivering. “Otto found an Artisan paper lyin’ about Dunnitch last night,” he said. “Got an interestin’ headline.”

“Dunnitch?” Nina queried. “You were in Dunnitch last night?”

“We had a trade arranged,” Patrick answered, holding his hand out for Otto’s paper. “Night is safest.”

“A trade for what?” she pressed.

Otto didn’t pause for even a beat. “Bit o’ this, bit o’ that,” he said. “Sugar, salt, meat. You get the idea.”

“And who handles these trades in Dunnitch?”

“Just some comrades of the Union,” Scottie said.

Patrick unfolded the paper and quickly found the headline:

Miners Union Negotiate for Safe Return of Domelius Becker.

Patrick shook his head, a huff of mirth leaving him.

“What is it?” asked Nina.

“Just the House of Lords scramblin’,” he said and offered her the newsprint. Beneath the headline was a rendition of Tanner, offering an address at his lord’s lectern. Assuring a crowd, no doubt, that all was under control, that peace was imminent. That soon, the errant Crafters would give over their Alchemist, and idium would be restored to the dispensaries.

Otto chuckled heartily, clouds of smoke enveloping him. “Bunch o’ old nutters.”

“I take it no such negotiations are afoot?” Nina asked, her eyes rapidly tracking the lines of print.

Scottie tipped his head back and crowed.

“When the canals freeze over,” Otto said. “Them lords say whatever they want to their news Scribblers. Bunch of fuckin’ lies.”

Nina seemed pensive. She smiled wanly. “They must be desperate.”

Patrick nodded. “The tide’s turnin’. They can feel it.”

“Almost time to storm the castle,” Otto said, rubbing his hands together. “Just need that pathway, miss.”

Nina’s smile weakened, and Patrick wondered if she judged these men their callousness, the slapdash way they spoke of mounting an attack against the House of Lords. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. They had not lived in the castle as she had.

He wondered, in a deluge of sudden worry, what effect this was having on her. Could she live with it all, after it was done, knowing the part she’d played? Could she live with him, knowing he’d asked it of her?

But Nina dusted her hands together, then looked to Patrick. “Time’s wasting,” she said lightly. “Shall we?”

They waited for Gunner, Briggs, and Theo to arrive. It seemed all three were suffering last night’s choices. Gunner and Briggs cursed and swigged black coffee from tin mugs. Theo’s eyes were dark-rimmed and slitted. He looked at no one.