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“If I hear he’s fallin’ off your barstools, I’ll be handling him myself.”

Tess’s eyes darkened, but again she nodded, swallowing warily. She looked Patrick up and down like she barely recognized him. “You sound likehim,” she said, and Patrick didn’t need to ask whom she referred to.

He turned his back on her.

The air outside was colder this morning. The seasons were turning. Soon, the hills would turn brown and frostbitten, the gas would run low again. The water heaters would groan ominously.

But no one in Kenton Hill would grow cold in their homes. No one would go hungry. No coal would be spared for Belavere City or anyone else. Not anymore.

Patrick entered the narrow alley that ran down the side of Colson & Sons. He was due to meet Otto and Scottie, see what news they’d heardalong the tunnels, then the Miller family about the produce distribution at the marketplace. There were problems to be solved. Always fucking problems. Running a town was a succession of crises—there was no bottom to the barrel.

“Pat!”

He’d barely set foot into Main Street.

Sam jogged toward him, the boy’s face shiny and harrowed. “Pat… I’m sorry…” The boy looked over his shoulder frantically. Patrick half expected a cavalry on his tail. “She’s gone.”

“What?” Patrick’s stomach hollowed. “How long ago?”How far could she have gotten?His feet turned to the south, to the old train tracks.

Sam panted heavily. “She said we’d walk together, that she wanted to explore… then she was just gone—”

Patrick whirled again, his skin prickling. Sam took a purposeful step back.

It always seemed to Patrick that there was something on his face or in his voice that unsettled people. Warned them. Perhaps it was the mere fact that his last name was Colson.

“Awalk?” Patrick repeated, voice deadened. He decided it was not a good idea to grab the boy by the collar. He was just a kid. “You took her on a fuckin’walk, Sam?”

“I told her no,” he said, gripping his cap in his hands. “But she threatened to break apart the buildin’! And you weren’t in the pub. And she promised it were just a walk—”

Patrick shook his head. Cursed at his feet. “Where did you lose her?”

“By the candlemaker’s,” he answered in a hurry. “Turned around and she were gone.” He made a gesture with his hands, as though Nina had turned to smoke before his eyes.

Patrick looked up Main Street, filled now with merchants and Crafters of every trade completing their day’s work. The trolley rattled by, filled with ruddy-faced children dressed for school. Nina was nowhere.

“I think… I think she’s gone, Pat. She’s made a run for it.”

“No, she hasn’t,” Patrick said, already walking, feet falling hard against the cobbles. “I’ll find her.”

Sam hurried to catch up. “But… where?” he asked, exasperated. “I searched everywhere.”

“Go home,” Patrick told him. He did not spare the boy a glance as he took off. Patrick ignored the nods of those he passed and took a left turn at the end of the road, where the streets turned to canals and funneled out into the hills.

You’re still here, he thought, quickening to a jog.And if you’re not, I’ll be bringin’ you right back.

CHAPTER 21NINA

The canals were soupy and pungent through the industrial buildings, but when they spilled out into the hills, they transformed. The brick coping became rocks. The water cleared a little. The farther I followed, the more color I could discern. Moss, cobalt, rust. Eventually, when the town was behind me and the vein of water wove through shallow valleys between knolls, I caught the upsets of small fish disturbing the surface. Away from the grime of humans, water was just water.

The land was beautifully devoid. There were barely any trees, just wave after wave of hills and their dancing grass, all shades of gold. No wildflowers. No blue sky. Just ghostly green mountains in the far distance, and the ribbons of water running through hand-hewn troughs.

These canals were Artisan-made, I knew. Trenched by an earth Charmer, no doubt, who knew the ways to curb the possibility of erosion. Miles upon miles of canal networks, all intersecting and diverting to every corner of the continent. They were the channels of most Belavere trade.

But this canal, the one whose edge I toed with bare feet, this was Idia’s Canal. The very first carved into the earth, by the daughter of God herself. I wondered why Idia had chosen Kenton Hill, of all places, to bestow this first gift.

I wondered if she peered down on this place now and regretted it.

Idia’s Canal, to my horror, had been intentionally dammed. Tons ofrock and dirt blocked the water’s exit. No boats. No tracks or trains. No way into Kenton Hill except on foot. It was no wonder the House of Lords had never come looking here. It was an impossible trek.