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She watched him carefully, confusion marring her features. “But… you asked me to stay.”

Patrick nodded. “I did. And I’m a selfish bastard to do it.”

“Then why—”

“Because you’ve been stuck in my head for thirteen long years,” he said. “And now that you’re here, I can’t bring it upon myself to see you leave.” He lifted her then, clear off the floor, and her screeching laughter tinkled down the tunnel as he pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m in love with you, I’m afraid.”

When Patrick was a boy, he and his brothers had stolen flares and lit them all at once. The gunpowder combusted into a million bolts of hot light. He saw it all again in Nina Harrow’s eyes when he told her he lovedher. “There might be things I can’t tell you,” he said. “There might be secrets. But I’ll never lie to you, Nina. And I promise I’ll love you as well as I can.”

She was quiet and contemplative for a long moment, and then she grew sad. Her lips pressed together. “I… I want this to work.”

His wretched heart soared. “Then it will. But I’m warnin’ you. I won’t be an easy man to love.”

“Ah,” she said, tightening her hold around his neck, her mouth hovering dangerously close to his. “But that’s exactly the problem. You’re entirely too easy to fall in love with.”

If he ever forgot her face, and the way she looked at him just then, he’d loathe himself, so he didn’t kiss her right away. Instead, he lingered. “Do you trust me, Nina?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“Then there’ll be trust between us, too. As well as love.”

She exhaled and closed her eyes. “I hope so.”

“Good enough,” he said, and he kissed her as reverently as any man had ever kissed a woman, completely oblivious to the dark. Oblivious to Theodore, who waited twenty paces down the path, blending with the shadows, churning with rage.

CHAPTER 53NINA

I had designs to return to bed when we finally stumbled back into Kenton Hill. The lanterns were beginning to blink to life overhead. Snowflakes fell lightly around us.

“We’ll be attendin’ First Frost, then?” Scottie asked.

My curiosity piqued. “What’s First Frost?”

Gunner grinned. He threw a heavy arm around my shoulder, then Patrick’s. “It’s a party, darlin’. For the first day of winter!”

“It isn’t winter for another several weeks.”

“Aye, by the calendar perhaps, but then there’s Idia’s winter.”

“Idia’s winter?”

“When she first lets the frost stick to the ground,” Patrick intoned. They were nearing Colson’s, and even from a distance it seemed desolate.

I frowned. “Where is everyone?”

“At the market,” came Theo’s voice. He continued on to that darkened, lopsided building and all its mismatched shingles without a glance back.

Every muscle ached. My legs longed for reprieve and my stomach longed for sustenance.

I felt Patrick’s eyes on me. “I’ll take you home,” he said. “Come on.”

“Don’t even think of it, brother,” Gunner said, his face darkening. “You’re not shirkin’. Not tonight.”

Patrick stole Gunner’s cap and slung it into a nearby coal bin. “I’m not in the mood to babysit a bunch of drunks tonight.”

I watched conflicting emotions skitter across Patrick’s face. His eyes slid to mine and held.

“That’s beside the point. It’s Dad’s tradition, Pat,” Gunner said to him then, having fished his cap out of the soot. “He’d never forgive you for missin’ it. If I’ve gotta drag you—”