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“Havin’ them remodeled,” he answered, grinning at the sound of her feet following. “The chains are all rusted up.”

The grass whispered around her footfalls as she walked, her breaths shortened. “What of the land mines?”

“No need to worry.” Patrick turned to walk backward. He tapped his temple twice. “Got them all memorized. Just walk where I walk and stay close.”

Her cheeks turned sallow and she quickened her pace.

Day waned, and weak sunlight turned the grass stalks flaxen. Patrick led a complex and winding path through the deadly maze, unmarked by anything discernible. They passed a sole apple tree, rounded a broken wagon. He heard her breaths hitch with the decline of the slope, and for a moment he thought he felt her exhales hit the back of his neck. A lump rose in his throat.

“You’ve changed much more than I imagined,” she said without warning, the dirt paths just ahead.

Patrick thought it the most understated thing he’d ever heard. “That I have.”

“I read the papers,” she said. “Every week. When the rumors about the idium popped up, I wondered if you’d started them.”

Patrick scoffed quietly, darkly, though when he looked at Nina, her face was stricken. “Me?” he questioned. “No, Nina.Westarted them. You and me, the day we broke into that fuckin’ cellar.”

She blanched. “Those rumors started the first ripples of war.”

“That they did.”

“Yet I’m supposed to trust that you’ll see me safely out of the Trench?”

“You should trust no one, Nina” was his answer. “Not a single soul.”

In the distance, from the muddied alley of two brick town houses, came a swift-moving silhouette. It bounded, barking madly, over a low-bearing fence and out in the fields toward us. For a moment, it became sidetracked by a scent to the west. Only when Patrick whistled once, short and sharp, did the creature turn and resume its course.

Nina watched the dog leaping happily over grass stalks in every direction. She scowled as it circled Patrick’s feet manically.

“Hello, Isaiah,” Patrick said. The animal panted up at him a moment, then bounded away, running freely over the open land.

“There aren’t any land mines,” Nina said. “Are there?”

“There are.” Patrick grinned. “Nowhere nearby, though. That wouldn’t be safe, now, would it?” He found a stick in the grass and threw it toward Isaiah. “No dungeons, either.”

She made a noise of exasperation or sheer annoyance. It was difficult to tell. “Trust no one,” she muttered.

Lord, he’d hoped she hadn’t grown to be beautiful.

“We’re not villains, Nina,” Patrick said. “Just simple Crafters.”

“Simple Crafters who blow up schools,” she spat.

He sighed bitterly. “In our defense,” he said, “we told you we were comin’.”

CHAPTER 17NINA

The dog led the way into town, his brown tail swinging side to side and nose to the ground. He turned every so often to spy Patrick, who paid him no mind. Patrick only watched the ground as he walked, kicking stones away from his boots, hands in pockets. He did not slow his pace for me.

For days after the bombing of the Artisan School, I’d been shell-shocked, my skeleton rattling inside me long after the fact. On occasion, my head still swam, my vision blurred unexpectedly.

I felt that way now, like I’d been thrown in opposite directions.

I wanted to hurl something vitriolic at him. Accuse him of killing my friends, my aunt. But in truth, there’d never been many friends, and my aunt wasn’t truly my aunt. So instead, I said, “You murdered children in that school, you know.”

He didn’t turn. “Did we? Or did our Right Honorable Lord ignore the dozens of messages we sent in warnin’, directin’ him to evacuate the city?”

“But he didn’t,” I said. “And you blew it up anyway.”