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Theodore raised both hands with his palms down. The water seeped back into the ground, absorbed once more. In the ceiling, the leaks receded, diverted for now.

Patrick finally stood straight in the pocket Nina had left in her wake, leaving the lantern at his feet.

“All right, Donny?” Patrick called.

“Think I’m fuckin’ deaf now, too,” Donny answered. “Are my ears bleedin’?”

“Just the one.”

Nina watched Patrick with an unfathomable expression, and he her. The crater bitten out of the wall loomed threateningly. “Should I keep going?” she asked.

“No,” Patrick said, a smile in his tone. “You most certainly shouldn’t.”

A crease appeared between her brows. She looked at Donny’s bloodied ear, and then at the wreckage beyond Patrick’s shoulder as though only now truly seeing it. “You said ‘as quickly as we can,’?” she reminded him.

Patrick swallowed. “Aye, I did. But we can only go as fast as it takes for us to make the hole safe. And that groaning you heard?” Nina’s eyes went to the ceiling, as though she heard it still. “Disruptions in the earth. We want to avoid the weak spots. Donny here”—Patrick jutted a thumb toward him—“he has the best ears on the continent. He’ll hear any danger a ways off. You listen for him to tell you when to stop.”

Nina wiped her hands on her muddied skirt. “Oh,” she said meekly. “I’m sorry. I—I got carried away.”

Immediately, Theodore wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t need to apologize,” he told her, and Nina’s lips pressed together. She fell quiet.

Patrick saw it then, the tight coil stuffed inside Theodore’s middle. It sprung at every opportunity to steer Nina. To keep her within reach.

Patrick wondered how long it would take for her to spring back at him. “We’ll clear the dirt from the tunnel,” Patrick said now. “We’ll need a few hours—”

“I can help,” Nina offered, almost eagerly. “I could move it topside?”

But Patrick was already shaking his head. “The shaft can only hold small loads at a time, and it only has a hand pulley. If it snaps, we’re stuck.”

She seemed put out.

“Things move slowly down here,” Patrick said, the smile creeping backinto his voice—he couldn’t help it. “There’s a sleeping monster in these walls. Best we don’t wake it.”

It seemed she wanted to argue. Her hands wrung together.

“You can’t doallthe work, Nina,” said Theodore, rubbing his hand along her arm.

Her lips pressed once more into a thin line. She nodded, then stepped out of Theodore’s reach and raised a hand. Clods of dirt rose in midair and landed gracelessly in the wagon between them. “I’ll do that much, at least. Save your shovels,” she said.

Patrick only nodded once, though inside, he marveled. Never before had he seen so much power. The ease with which she wielded it. “Donny, keep an ear to the wall.”

“Don’t you worry. I’ll keep an eye on things, Pat,” his brother responded, winking in no particular direction.

“Shut up, Donny.”

CHAPTER 32NINA

The sun was still high when we breached topside again and spilled out of Margarite’s Modern Ladies.

The air was cool and clean, and I filled my lungs with it.

After six hours, Patrick had called a halt to the work. By then, I’d carved five miles out of the earth, bending slowly around to the south.

My hands no longer itched. My mind was pleasantly languid, the tangles of thought now elongated and buoyant, without much resistance to them. I was afloat.

The other men, Donny gripping Gunner’s shirtsleeve, began their weary stagger over the square and through the brick arch, no words exchanged other than the mention of a pint. It was a repeat of a memory—men mired in filth from the mines, lighting cigarettes and spilling into the nearest drinking hole. In my levity, it did not rankle. It felt different, an alternate world.

“Come on,” Theodore bid me, holding his hand out. There was a silent expectation that I would take it. “I’ll take you to your room. Get you something to eat.”