Page 19

Sound was muted there, beneath the debris of the Artisan school.

A five-hundred-year-old institute, now imprisoning its students beneath its weight, crushing air from our lungs.

There were burdens upon my arm and leg, too. Timber. Stone. Things I could not hope to shift. My head was bent awkwardly so that I looked sideways, up the steps to a building that once housed me but was now a crumpled burning ruin.

I was trapped. In a moment of desperation, I put my mind to the ground beneath me and bid it to concave, but the rubble only sank and took me with it.

I do not know how long I lay there, in a bowl of the earth, blanketed in wreckage, but it was time enough to believe I would die. To consider who exactly had killed me.

Rebels. Crafters. The Miners Union. All one amorphous entity.

What could they accomplish against those of our ability? When I’d first heard the words, they had sounded like derision. Now they sounded like a terrible realization.

What could they accomplish?

What damage could be rendered?

My ears were so clogged I did not hear the grating stone, but I felt the crushing weights on my limbs lift free, followed by a sudden onslaught of pain. I cried out.

“Nina!” A voice graveled, choked by dust. “Thank God . Thank God.”

Theo—his arms winding behind my shoulders and knees. He pulled me against his chest and I screamed. I pulled my damaged arm into the cradle of my body.

I was surprised to look up and see that the sky still existed, still bogged in fat gray clouds. Cries not my own rent the air; they intensified when I pulled my ear away from Theo’s shoulder.

“Are you hurt?”

All over , I thought. “My arm.”

“You’re bleeding.”

I could feel that, too. The warm, slow drip from jaw to collarbone. Blood flowing from a cut on my cheek. I thought my arm might be broken.

I turned my face inward again and hoped Theo would carry me for longer. Take me away , I thought. Take me anywhere. I was sickeningly dizzy. I wanted to go home. Home to Scurry.

“Can you stand?” He didn’t await an answer. Gingerly, my feet were guided to the ground, and the rest of me quickly followed, crumpling there on the warm cobbles.

“Whoa!” Theo said, his hands on my shoulder, my wrist. “Just sit. Catch your breath.”

I blinked furiously until the vision before me solidified into one unfractured picture.

The Academy in pieces, its roof inverted, fire scampering among the heap and consuming morsels.

Artisans everywhere. Bleeding. Crying. Working to unbury the buried.

Injured Masons struggled to free people from all that stone.

“Aunt Francis—”

“You can’t help her,” Theo said brokenly, leaning in to fill my vision. “I’m sorry. I tried to get her out, but…” Here his words failed him. “She’s gone.”

I knew already. I had meant to say, Aunt Francis is dead . My lips shook. My chest heaved.

“We need to go somewhere safe. The Union might attack again,” he said, panicked.

A cold, cruel dread swept through me.

“We’ll go to the House of Lords,” Theo gripped my chin, commanding me to focus with a pleading look. “My father will help us. Help you . Nina. Nina? ”

But the House of Lords intended to hide me away, to keep me safely locked up until they needed a weapon. The very same Lords who had bid us to stay, to ignore the warnings.

I’d be a fool not to ensure I have all my knives sharpened.

“We need to hurry,” Theo said, eyes darting around the dust. “Let’s leave. Now.”

To the House of Lords. To Lord Tanner. To be those knives they wanted us to be.

An earth Charmer is quite a valuable thing.

You would do what is necessary, would you not?

You’ve got a mind of your own. Don’t let those fuckers take it.

“Come on,” Theo said, pulling me to my feet. “I’ll carry you.”

“No. Wait.”

“My father will know what to do—”

“I can’t,” I shook my head, and the world spun. “I won’t.”

A pause, and then: “What?”

“I can’t go to the House,” I said. “I…” People around us screamed and wept, and I thought, This is what it is to bury people alive . Then I thought, This is what they’ll ask of you. To bury the Union in return. Bury the Crafters. Bury the brink.

I couldn’t.

Lord. I couldn’t.

“We should run.”

Theo’s mouth fell. I noticed a graze on his chin, a scrape on his neck.

“Run away with me,” I said, this time more forcefully. I took the lapel of his jacket with my good hand and clutched it tightly. “We’ll leave the city. We can go anywhere.”

But Theo’s face had taken on a look of panic, of confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Please,” I said. I was twelve. I was thirteen and fourteen and fifteen. I’d only wanted to paint and dance and see what else life could be. “Please. Come with me.”

His hands dropped away. His confusion turned to alarm. “You’re not thinking clearly,” he said. “The Miners Union… if they find you, they’ll kill you. The House of Lords will keep us safe.”

But they hadn’t.

“These fucking Crafters will get what’s coming to them.

” He spat the words through gritted teeth.

His jaw shook. He looked around at the chaos, and a choked sob sprang free.

“We can help,” he said with a nod, as though convincing himself.

“We have to help, Nina. We can fight back. The House needs us.” Theo grabbed both sides of my face.

Pain splintered down my neck. “You’re the most powerful Artisan I know, Nina Clarke. You can bury these fuckers.”

And I saw clearly the world divided in two: him on one side and me lost in the middle.

“Aunt Francis,” I said, the words springing from my lips half-formed, half-thought. “I need to see her. I need to know.”

“They’ve already started clearing away the bodies—”

“ Please, Theo! ” I shouted, my voice cracking. “At least let me see her one last time. Then we’ll—we’ll go to the House,” I said. “We’ll find your father.”

I watched his expression falter, then give way. “Wait here,” he told me. Then he wiped the blood from my cheek with his cuff and disappeared into the rainstorm of dust.

I watched him go.

Then I mustered all that was left of me, and dragged myself off the ground.

And I vanished.

RIGHT HONORABLE MASTER OF THE NATIONAL ARTISAN HOUSE

Lord G. Tanner

To

HONORABLE HEADMASTER OF THE NATIONAL ARTISAN SCHOOL

Professor H. Dumley

Professor,

My most sincere condolences in the wake of the attack on our national academy. It was with great sorrow I felt the ground shake seven nights afore. My sorrow only grew when the scale of destruction and loss of life was relayed.

I write this letter in hopes of bringing you comfort. The House of Lords meets today, wherein we shall condemn the rebels who sought to bring down the womb of our great state. War will be declared.

This calls to question the location of the earth Charmer, whose faculties will be sorely needed in the days to come.

With the dust settled, I had hoped she would have appeared before us by now.

Make no mistake, Professor. If she should not avail herself to her state, the renegades will surely take advantage where we cannot.

I do not need to explain the implications of such an event.

Our police search as I write this letter, and should they find an individual harboring Miss Clarke, such a party will be penalized most severely.

This uprising shall soon come to pass, and with the Artisan school rebuilt from the rubble with the greatest minds at your disposal, I know your ministry shall reign once more.

Yours faithfully,

Lord Geoffry Tanner