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And the Crafters in the shadows flooded out, throwing their grenades and pointing their rifles into that sea of ink.

And Gunner turned back to me. He cocked his pistol.

“Gunner, no.” My hands trembled as I rose them in surrender. “Let mehelp,” I said. “I can stop this.”

“That ain’t for me to decide,” he grunted, something mournful in his eyes, and the butt of his pistol collided with my temple.

I heard the cap of a grate sliding, Gunner’s grunts as he lowered me into the bunker beneath. Felt the darkness surround me.

And then there was nothing at all.

CHAPTER 65PATRICK

By the time Patrick climbed out of his pit high above, Kenton Hill was screaming.

People were scrambling up from below, running to the tunnels. He threw himself down the slope with sickening desperation, passing bawling children and people with babies in slings or on their backs.

The entire way, his heart remained in denial. It thumped a bid ofNo. It isn’t possible.

It wasn’t possible for the fire to come from within.

There was only one way in. It wasn’t possible.

Unless…

Theodore, his mind concluded. Who else but him? The rich Artisan boy in love with the girl who’d discarded him for a miner.

Patrick clambered over the pickets and wove through familiar alleys. He jumped into the first grate he saw and pulled out a rifle and a box of bullets. He cut his knees on the drain edge as he climbed out, then bolted through the hordes running in the opposite direction to escape the town limits.

It took only minutes to reach the havoc. The closer he came to the heart of Kenton, the louder the destruction, the more cloying the smoke. He shot three men in Artisan navy before they could turn to see him streaking past.He threw the full weight of his body into a soldier straddling a woman on the sidewalk, her sleeves ripped free of her shoulders. He pressed his pistol into his gut and fired.

The town square was somewhere ahead, and it all seemed engulfed from the sight of its rooftops. Just one more alleyway before the fray.

And Patrick would blast every one of them away. He’d have them eat their own fire.

From the dim of a narrow alley, Patrick threw his back against the brick wall and loaded his rifle. In the square, men lay on their faces. Their bodies, clad in navy or otherwise, were strewn everywhere. A circle of armed infantrymen stood in the center of the skirmish. They guarded three figures in long coats, fire in their palms. The Charmers sent streams of it into the town beyond.

Shirts caught fire and men ran, shrieking, only to fall on the bayonets of waiting Artisan soldiers.

Grenades detonated and sent both sides hurtling into the night, their stomachs and limbs and scalps torn from the rest of them.

The Crafters of Kenton Hill were holding the Lords’ infantry in the square, keeping the fire Charmers from spreading their flames to the rest of the town, but they held them at bay by inches. More soldiers flooded from Margarite’s doors, a seemingly endless reserve, and the Crafters were pushed back, allowing the fire Charmers and their ring of guards to expand outward. Within moments, they broke through, and jets of fire plumed into the air, alighting the shingles and gutters of every roof they touched. Soon, all of Kenton would be ablaze.

Where was Nina?

Was she safe?

What of his mother? Of Donny and Gunner?

The sound of pounding feet came from behind Patrick, and he turned and raised his rifle, hammer cocked, finger prepped.

“Wait!” said the voice, his face emerging from the shadow.

Theodore Shop stared at Patrick, his eyes wider than they’d ever been, his mouth slackened in shock.

He bore no weapon, just the same dirt-clad clothing he’d worn in the tunnels, his skin gritty with it. “I’m not with them,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “Pat—”

Patrick had the barrel at his forehead within a second, his forearm pinning Theodore to the wall at the throat.