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Patrick shrugged warily.

“Music,” she said. “Dancin’, too. Says it turns people into clowns. Imagine being so… so…”

“Constipated?”

She smiled reluctantly. “Miserable. Every one of them’s the same. Miserable and tired. Too uptight to dance.”

Her lips had thinned as she spoke, sourness curling them inward.Every one of them’s the same.

“Maybe in Scurry.” Patrick frowned. “But not everywhere. Not in Kenton Hill.”

Nina rolled her eyes.

“We dance.” A strange desire to impress her had come over him. “Iam an excellent dancer. Just ’cause we ain’t Artisan, don’t mean we’re no fun.”

She laughed once, then turned her head away, dismissive.

Lord, but she was annoying. Huffy. Edgy. He thought it was likely time she had someone show her up, take her off that high horse. For a Crafter’s daughter, she sure had the opinions of an Artisan.

Patrick stood abruptly, towering over her. When she looked back, confused, he flattened his expression into one of severe concentration.

Then Patrick danced. Nothing too ambitious, just a folk jig. His feet kicked up the dust and a group of nearby girls giggled and backed away. When Nina’s cheeks flamed, he spun on the spot, lifted his arms, jumped. He heard others clapping in time, hooting insults.

Then he was yanked back down to the dirt, Nina’s hand gripping his belt.

“Bloodyhell,” Nina cursed, only releasing Patrick once his arse had firmly hit the ground. She looked about her with rising embarrassment. “You got gas in your head?”

He sniggered. “Got music in me feet, Nina Harrow, or whatever Artisan bullshit you’d prefer.”

A smile broke free, then a burst of laughter. Then he was laughing, too.

Both of them falling about in fits.

He wanted to ask her a thousand other questions. He was acutely aware of the time ticking by, though he’d forgotten all about the train he was so desperate to return to.

“If you don’t get into the school,” he asked cautiously, “Where will you go?”

She shrugged like it didn’t much matter. “I’ll find a place.”

“In the city? You gonna work in a factory? That’s all the Crafters do here, you know. My dad says it’s worse than prison.”

“Won’t matter much when I become an Artisan, will it?” She stared pointedly back at him, daring him to contradict her, and he wanted to. If it wasn’t for the knowledge that she might stab him with that pin in her skirt, Patrick would’ve called her daft.

“What makes you so sure?” He was leaning closer, not wanting to miss the answer. He stared at her lips, just in case.

It took a moment. She rolled those lips around like she needed to chew the words first. She looked over Patrick’s head to the endless rows of red rooftops, and her hands danced in her lap. Finally, she looked back at him, grinned, and said, “Just feel it. In here.” And she didn’t point to her head, where the Artisans believed creativity lived. She pointed to her chest, and Patrick knew that if she could show him directly beneath the skin and sinew and bone, there would lie her beating heart.

He wanted quite desperately to know what it was back in Scurry that would make her so eager to live on unfamiliar streets. He wanted to know what made her itch.

Whatever drove her, it was sprinting through her mind as they sat there, a foot apart, in fancier clothes than they ought to be in. It ran wild in her blood, chasing her away. For one horrifying moment, her eyes went glassy and she gulped in a fragile way. Patrick had the urge to touch her cheek.

In the end, he didn’t.

“If the idium doesn’t work, you could come back to Kenton Hill with me instead,” Patrick heard himself say. Didn’t know why he’d said it, except that his chest was surging and Nina hadn’t blinked.

She didn’t answer. She only dried her eyes on her sleeve and looked to the woman waiting by the microphone. “How long do you think we’ll wait?”

“A while yet,” Patrick said, relieved. “They’re not past Dorser and Dunnitch.”