Page 172

The air outside winded me. It sliced my throat, forced me to bury my nose in my coat collar, but I did not stop. I slid my boots on, tied the laces, coursed down the alleys of Main Street as quick as I dared, not crossing a single soul save the stray cats and vermin. Patrick’s stolen pocket watch pressed tightly into the palm of my hand. The time read a quarter till the hour Polly had marked.

It wasn’t a long journey to the eastern tunnel, and I was thankful I’d been there before. Left at the saddlers, then past the town houses, row after row; they were all black-windowed and silent. I tried not to think of anyone pulling their curtain aside to see a woman alone at an hour meant only for dark work.

I passed through identical brick veneers, moving mud away from the soles of my feet as I passed over gutters, and finally, finally, the hills spread out before me, and I could see the indentation on the hillside that would burrow into its depths, then fathoms below, all the way to the Alchemist.

There was no sign of Otto or Scottie, though I squinted through thedark for any sign of movement. Perhaps they were already partway down the tunnel, leaving me to follow quietly behind at a distance.

The yellow grass stalks were monochromatic in the night. The hill fell away behind me and it seemed as though this journey might not be so difficult. That I could simply slink away and be back before the sun threatened to rise. In the morning, I would have the exact location of Domelius Becker.

The pit entrance was small and vaulted with thick struts. It would be pitch-black inside, and I hadn’t accounted for that. I would need to walk with either hand pressed to the walls and feel my way through. I shuddered and stepped into the gloom.

I felt my way along in the dark, ears straining for the echo of far-off footsteps. But there was nothing. Just uninterrupted black, dirt beneath my hands, Patrick’s watch ticking its reproach.

I tripped and almost fell, my hand flying to my mouth to muffle the gasp.

And then a sound came.

Feet on the earth. Not the far-off kind I expected to hear. This was close. Discordant. I turned blindly in all directions and felt something touch my calf. The beginnings of a scream strangled me.

That something circled my ankles, sniffed at the hem of my skirt. Panted. And all the breath in my lungs released at once. I laughed, relieved. “Isaiah,” I whispered, leaning carefully to feel for his scruff. He licked my hand. “What are you doing here?”

“Funny” came a wrathful voice. There was a click, and a light flared.

I backed into the wall hard, my head bouncing off the struts.

Patrick stood before me in the halo of his lighter. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

CHAPTER 58NINA

It might as well have been a bullet.

Patrick stood there, just six feet away, his outline taking shape in the dark. And his expression was one I recognized—the same one he wore when I was first brought to Kenton Hill, the harder layers not yet pared.

And he stared at me as though I wasn’t recognizable at all.

His hands were empty. He carried no gun.

Something primitive and base swelled. Survival, perhaps. My feet carried me toward him. “Patrick. Wait.”

He watched my legs quake and stumble with keen discernment, as though that confirmed something for him. His eyes met mine from beneath his lashes, and they pierced as well as any blade. He didn’t react when I fell into him, when my hands lay flat against his chest, then gripped the lapels of his coat. He only grew more rigid, staring down at my hands as though he no longer knew them. “Where are you goin’, Nina?”

I thought of a thousand more lies in that moment. But none of them passed my lips.

“Yeah,” he said. His breath fogged between us. “I can see all those stories passin’ over your eyes. Which one are you gonna pick?” And beneath all that knife-sharp severity, there was pain; only for a moment, he let me glimpse how deep it ran. “You’ve got this last chance to give me the one that’s true.”

I didn’t speak, and in the absence of my response, his eyes flared. The lighter clicked off, darkness collided, and his hand wrapped tightly around my wrist, began hauling me through the black, out, out, out, faster than my legs could move. I tripped and stumbled, until icy night air sluiced my cheeks and the stars glinted accusingly above.

My back was shoved up against the struts at the pit entrance, his face an inch from mine. “If you make me ask it once more, I’ll fill in the answers myself,” he said, voice barely controlled.

I inhaled once and said the only thing that could be said in that moment, my heart breaking the walls of its cage.

“I was following Otto and Scottie,” I said, shutting my eyes. I didn’t want to see the ripples of betrayal on his face.

“Tell meallof it,” he said darkly. His hand gripped my jaw then, and he angled my face to his. “Open your eyes.”

I did as I was bid, only to drown in ocean blue. Tears rolled over my cheeks, over his fingers.

“What are you looking for?” Patrick said, though I was sure he knew the answer. “Tell me.”