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He threw the coin in the air. “Heads.” I stared at the coin, exasperated. Patrick looked indifferent. “Did you ever think of home while you were there? Did you ever regret your choice to be an Artisan?”

“That’s two questions.”

“Pick one.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “I tried not to think of home. Not much back there to think of.”

“Not your family?”

I gave a tight-lipped smile. “Flip the coin.”

He did so without looking at it. “Heads. Did it bother you to be surrounded by frauds?”

I stared at the traitorous coin and bristled. I supposed there was little point in lying. “Sometimes.”

“Heads. Didyouever feel like a fraud?”

“Does this coin have another side?”

He flipped Lord Tanner’s face over. A canary glinted back at me.

“Answer the question,” Patrick said softly.

Anger burgeoned between my ribs. “Every day there. And all the ones since.”

He nodded. Another test, it seemed. One I seemed to have passed this time. He tossed the coin. Lord Tanner’s profile sat face up in the grass.

“God, have mercy—”

“Did you ever think of leaving?” he asked.

I sighed. “No.”

“And did you ever think of me?”

The coin lay forgotten.

Catastrophe waited between us, something that ought not be touched or turned over. The grass whispered, my chest ached, and Patrick’s eyes were more all-encompassing than the redolent sky.

I bit my bottom lip, and his eyes traced the movement. Then I took the coin from the grass and tossed it into the air. “Tails,” I said. The spell broke, though he moved no farther away. “Do you truly believe your father is alive?”

He spoke without blinking, lips barely moving. “He’s alive,” he said. “I only need to know where he’s being held.”

“And you’ll tunnel beneath?”

“Andwe’lltunnel beneath.” He gestured to the coin before me. I tossed it once more into the air and watched it land. Heads.

“What did he ask you to do, Nina?”

A jolt of panic rattled through me. It wasn’t necessary to ask whohewas. The venom coating the word was clarity enough. It seemed Patrick wasn’t expecting an answer, or at least not an honest one. Already he turned away, the question futile.

I wished he looked as off-balance as I felt. I hated feeling so unsteady while he remained completely self-possessed. Did he not feel the ground shifting beneath us?

With effort, he tore his eyes from the horizon, extracting a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it. The smell reminded me of Scurry, of the single-room town house I’d been born to—bricks and plaster impregnated in ash.

He turned with an open case, offering me one, but I shook my head in distaste.

“You don’t smoke?” He raised his eyebrows, surprised.