Page 99

“Ah, Nina,” he drawled. “We all turn back into boys when it comes to girls.” He patted his pockets with fumbling hands. “Will you be offended if I smoke?”

“Yes.”

“Goddamn,” he muttered. “You might be the death of me.”

Isaiah bounded ahead of us, apparently keen to be home.

I noticed how quickly we fell in step beside each other. He offered his arm, and I took it, trying not to fixate on the flex of the muscle beneath his sleeve, the warmth emanating all the way through. The sunlight painted him gold.

“Four weeks, Isaiah,” he said quietly. “Four fuckin’ weeks.”

Isaiah, too taken with the smells of the town, didn’t answer.

I didn’t need to ask what was in four weeks. I swept away a clod of dirt from my blouse.

“It was… remarkable, what you did.” He squinted down at meagainst the cascading light. “I’ve never seen anythin’ quite like it. How do you feel?”

It was hard to answer his question. I inhaled a certain amount of pride. “Like a thousand wires inside me have all been snipped free.”

I smiled. For the first time, the thought of using my medium wasn’t tainted by quiet shame, not with him. Patrick knew it all. He knew exactly where I’d come from.

“It’s been a long time since I leveraged so much magic at once. I’m out of practice.”

Patrick whistled low, then shook his head. “God help us all, then,” he said, averting his eyes.

I was a lit match.

“What of the rally?” he asked now. “Will you give me another chance to persuade you to the right side?”

I rose my eyebrows at him. “I assumed I’d be made to stay behind.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t pick the locks the second my back were turned.”

I only grinned.

He grinned in return, clicked his tongue. “S’pose it wouldn’t be wise, leaving you alone at Colson’s while every man, woman, and horse looked the other way. You’d be a sitting target.”

I rolled my eyes. “Is there truly anyone in this town who would go against you?”

“Can’t be too careful,” he muttered. “But you should come to the rally. Let Teddy take you.”

“Theo.”

“Whatever.”

Suspicion crept in. “Why are you being so gracious?”

He shrugged.

“And why are you letting me come to the rally? Do you think it might turn me?”

“I get the feeling it’d take a lot more than one party to convince you.”

“Party?” I repeated, confused. The only rallies I’d witnessed included a lot of slogan-shouting from an increasingly bloodthirsty crowd. “No politician’s speech?”

He sighed. “It’ll be quick,” he allowed. “After that, it’s just drinking and dancing. If there’s one thing this town can agree on, it’s how to do both at the same time.”

I tilted my head. “Do you dance?” I thought of all those stuffy Artisan School dance lessons to a string quartet in a marble-hewn ballroom. Men with ramrod spines and upturned noses.