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He stared out over the town’s rooftops. “You can relax,” he said. “Wouldn’t be wise of me to put hands on a woman who could bury me alive, would it?”

“I suppose I should thank you for the idium,” I said slowly.

He gave no reply.

I wet my lips and spoke again. “It was quite a risk. Who knows what I might’ve done?”

He leaned back on one hand. “Call it a show of good faith. As I said, I need you ready.” He closed his eyes for a moment, lifted his face to the sun. The pinch in his expression seemed to melt away.

And I stared at the column of his throat, the stubble that darkened his jaw, the shadows beneath his eyes.

“Was it everythin’ you expected?” he asked.

There were lines that joined the corners of his mouth to his nose, more between his eyebrows. It was easy to be lost in the pathways of his face. “No. It’s nothing like I expected.”

He nodded, opened his eyes. “We filled it in when Tanner declared war.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Idia’s Canal.” Patrick nodded downhill, where the water met the dam. “It’s why you gave Sam the slip, ain’t it? Why I had to chase you all the way out here.”

I shifted uncomfortably, trying not to look at him. “You needn’t have chased me at all. I’m not running.”

“No,” he said, stroking Isaiah’s head but looking at me. “You’re not.” It seemed as though he wanted to say more but didn’t. The silence stretched.

I couldn’t help but let my eyes stray over him. “You look wretched,” I lied. “Tired.”

“Didn’t sleep. Had some things to tend to.”

Something about the way his tongue flicked made it sound ominous. “What kinds of things need tending in the middle of the night?”

He waited a beat before answering. “There’s always a problem to fix around here.”

“Like what?”

I knew immediately that I would not be privy to whatever “problems” he saw to in the late hours. Not yet. “Leaky pipes,” he said.

I wondered how much he controlled, how many people he was responsible for in this town he’d barricaded from the rest of the world.

The skin under Patrick’s eyes was purple and heavy. Perhaps it was exhaustion that stopped him from hauling me back to Colson & Sons. In any case, he seemed content for now to settle into the grass, leaning back on his elbows.

A wordless tension fell.

I twisted my fingers in my lap, fumbling for something to say. “How does the water reach the pipes?”

Patrick raised his eyebrows. “It collects in tanks on the roof. The pipes connect to the tank.”

“But how does it heat?”

“Roof tiles heat it in the summer. In the winter it passes through a boiler.” He went quiet again, in no hurry to say anything, to go anywhere. He only watched me, absentmindedly petting Isaiah.

“What of the light—”

“You don’t like the quiet, do you?” he interrupted, his voice swallowing mine whole. There was a grin to his tone, though it did not materialize on his face. “You prattle even more than I remember.”

My mouth snapped shut. I scowled.

That grin broke across his face, though he seemed reluctant to let it. “The glare is just the same, though. About as dangerous as a loaded fuckin’ pistol.”