Page 25

I scowled, then peered beyond him. A tall, polished counter stretched along one side, lined with occupied stools.

A man in a peaked cap spat thickly into a waiting bucket at his feet.

Round tables crowded the floor, bustling with yet more patrons and their drinks.

The volume was like a blast of hot air. Laughter, shouting, music—a piano.

A man stood atop a wooden chair and tried to tap dance but abruptly fell sideways.

Isaiah suddenly appeared at my thigh, panting for attention.

“On your bed, Isaiah,” Patrick said firmly, and the great dog lumbered off to a waiting nest of blankets by the wall. “Nina, go on in.”

My nose wrinkled. “I’m not a dog.” But I strode into the fray regardless. I thought I heard him inhale sharply as I passed.

The noise grew impossibly louder.

“Oh ho!” came a throaty call. A man alighted his stool awkwardly, spilling half his pint on the floor as he did so. He had a pockmarked face and hair sprouting from his jaw in uneven patches. He was before me in two large strides. “And who’ve we here?”

He smelled of sweat and grease. The black smeared on his gums explained the watery look in his eyes.

Bluff , I thought. The bad sort. I remembered the look from Scurry, where the men would trade for and swallow a dose of it before their shift in the mines.

They went down the shafts smiling and bleary-eyed, then came back with shaking hands, dry tongues, and a penchant for throwing bottles.

I backed away a step.

“Look at this, lads! A lady in trousers.” He hooted, grabbing a belt loop at my waist. I shoved his fingers away. “You’re soaked through, miss,” he said, undeterred, and his eyes lingered on my chest, where too much cleavage showed. “Lemme warm you.” He reached for me.

A chill swept through me. Fear. Every muscle in my body became taut.

“Hello, Bernie” came Patrick’s smoke-hazed voice. He stood over my shoulder, a head taller than me, close enough to put a hand on my waist. I felt the heat of his fingertips through my clothes.

Something strange happened then, a reaction. Not just from the man named Bernie, whose eyes had left my face and become afraid. Not just in the energy that left Patrick’s fingertips and imprinted on my skin, but in the entire establishment.

The music stuttered, then softened. The patrons closest immediately quieted, alerted that something was imminent—a sizzle of danger.

Whatever silent warning had been sent through the air quickly found the broader crowd.

Conversation died. Laughter was smothered.

A charge lingered. Each patron stared over my shoulder to where Patrick stood.

I looked back at him to see eyes I did not recognize. Cold as glaciers.

“Patty,” the man named Bernie said, pulling his cap from his head. “I… I meant no harm, Pat. Apol-gees.” But the bluff made the consonants blend where they shouldn’t. He tried again. “ Apologies , miss. I thought you were alone.”

Silence. For a moment, Patrick only stared at the man, but the effect was haunting.

Then he looked across the room. Smiled thinly. “No trouble,” he said, eyes finding Bernie again. “A misunderstanding.”

Shoulders relaxed, breaths were exhaled. The piano man picked up in the middle of the melody, right where he’d left off.

I, too, drew a breath as the tension broke, and all eyes turned away once more. But Patrick stepped closer to Bernie. He patted the man’s shoulder amenably and leaned down to his ear: “You don’t want to do that again, Bernie, or I’d have to cut a piece out of you. You know that.”

“Pat, I—”

“Go home to your missus,” Patrick said, straightening. “Wash your fuckin’ mouth out before you get there.”

I watched, entranced, as Bernie nodded fervently, eyes rolling in his great head. He donned his cap and skirted around us with his nose down, then fled. There was no other word for it.

Around us, festivities continued.

Patrick grimaced. “This way.” He took my wrist as he passed, fingers pressing firmly into the flesh, and the sounds, the smells, the feel of his calloused palm on my skin—it sent a roar of memory shuddering through me.

My father’s hands had been the same, skin thickened and worn.

He threaded us through the crowd with a sense of urgency, to the side of the bar where a door waited.

Before he pulled me through it, I caught sight of a woman glowering at the two of us.

She stood by a large keg, a dishcloth tucked into the apron around her waist, jaw taut, mousy hair tied back, eyes as blue as Patrick’s.

Then the door swung shut, and we were in a claustrophobic spiral stairwell.

“Let go of me.” I said immediately, pulling my hand free.

Patrick shook his head, then began taking the stairs two at a time. “Thought that school might’ve taught you better manners.”

I cursed beneath my breath, hurrying to keep up once more.

He tsked. “You can take the girl out of Scurry, but you can’t—”

“Fucking hell, Patrick, slow down !”

He gave a low whistle but didn’t slow at all. “Still got a pin in your arse, I see.”

I stumbled as the echoes of his quiet laughter spiraled up to the distant ceiling.

We climbed to the very top, finally arriving on the last landing. A narrow hallway with three doors, brass numbers screwed into the wood: 13, 14, 15 .

A young man no older than eighteen or so sat on a stool at the end of the skinny hall. He stood at the sight of us. “Pat,” he greeted, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Patrick nodded to him, then pulled a key from his pocket.

He ignored the door to the left and the right and unlocked the last one, number fifteen.

“As you were, Sam,” Patrick told the boy, and I looked back to see Sam nod eagerly, sitting straight-backed on the stool and looking dead ahead, except for the furtive glance he spared for me.

Patrick had to duck his head to enter the room. I followed him, and the door shut with a weak thud.

The ceiling was bowed in its middle, like it might split at any moment.

The four walls were papered in faded cherry blossoms, the only break in the pattern coming from a crack along one wall and the window fitted with a bench.

The bed was made of timber, the mattress lumpy, even with its neat coverings.

It was a room redrawn from a hundred other rooms I’d occupied before. Sparse. Small. Dark.

But pipes fed through the plaster and hung over a large basin, and there were valves on the sides. A chute wedged beneath the other side of the windowsill, disappearing over the roof tiles. By the bed was a cord that hung from a sconce, and I could not fathom its use.

A large bleached rug covered the floorboards, and a squat wardrobe sat beside the door.

“There are some clothes and linen in there,” Patrick said, watching me closely. “If you need anything else, ask for Mrs. Colson.”

I spun. “Your wife?” But of course he should have a wife. He’s not twelve anymore.

“My mother ,” he corrected. “And the innkeeper.”

The bar maiden with blue eyes flashed through my mind again. Colson & Sons. I exhaled and nodded. “You didn’t strike me as an innkeeper.”

He smiled thinly. It did not reach his eyes. “It will be less complicated if I don’t strike you as anythin’.”

My pulse quickened. It suddenly seemed entirely improper that we should be standing in this room together, door pressed shut at my back.

I shifted uncomfortably. Why did it have to be him?

He looked down at my legs, then back to my eyes. “You’re nervous,” he accused softly.

My face heated. “Shouldn’t I be? I was knocked unconscious and brought here blindfolded.”

He tsked. “Scottie lets his nerves get the better of him sometimes. He’ll be properly scolded, I assure you.”

I chewed over something I wanted to say but wasn’t sure how to. “Those people downstairs. They seem… afraid of you.”

He was slow to answer. “Do they?”

“You threatened to cut that man.” I pressed, my fingers trembling. “And I’m supposed to believe you won’t lay a hand on me?”

He went still then. Pensive. His hands moved to his pockets, and he buried them. I found myself unable to look elsewhere, though every instinct suggested I should.

“It’s not wise to trust anyone at all, Nina Harrow, though it might ease your mind to know that we won’t be seein’ much of each other after tonight. You needn’t be nervous.”

I raised my eyebrows skeptically.

“Earth charmin’,” he said, by way of explanation. “That’s all I need from you. When it’s time, you’ll go to the tunnels and move the earth so that we can get where we need to go undetected. Our diggers will help you where they can. Until then, you won’t be bothered.”

“That’s how you’ve stayed hidden all this time?” I asked. “You move about in tunnels?”

“We’re miners,” he said, and I hated the smirk in his voice. “It ain’t so mysterious.”

“And what of the information you mentioned?” I asked. I wondered what intel I could possibly have that he wanted.

“I’ll have someone collect you when there’s somethin’ we need to know.”

I frowned. “We?”

“Colson and Sons.” False grandeur colored his tone. He gestured to the room around him as though it were a showpiece. “In the meantime, you’ll rest. Sam will wait outside your door, should you need somethin’.”

I glanced back at the door in question. “He’ll wait there all night?”

“He’s paid handsomely to do so.”

“And if I should wish to explore Kenton Hill? I’d like to see the landscape. Perhaps visit Idia’s Canal.” A small eagerness kindled in the pit of my stomach. I thought of the main street of Kenton Hill and its many oddities.

Patrick sighed, pulled a cigarette from the inside of his coat. “You know Idia’s Canal, do you?”

“I read a lot.”

“I remember.” He said nothing more for a moment, tapping the unlit cigarette against his thigh. “This here is a fine window.” He gestured to the pane. “One can see for miles.”

I felt each muscle in my body tighten. It took colossal effort to unlock my jaw. “And if I should grow tired of the view?”

“Then you’ll need to break down the door and hope Sam is feelin’ generous enough to let you pass.

Though I wouldn’t wager it if I were you.

I’ve paid him to drag you back in, should you try it.

Don’t try it , miss, for my sake. One knock on the head is regrettable, two would begin to make me question my honor. ”

So I was a prisoner, then, as I’d suspected. My lip curled. “I thought I was free to take the next train out?”

“Ah,” he said. “I’m afraid I lied about that, too. We’ve repurposed the trains and their tracks.”

My mouth fell open.

He didn’t smile as he spoke. “We can both act, Nina, only I didn’t need a fancy school to teach me.”

“Fuck you.”

He twirled the cigarette in his fingers and looked out the window once more, thinking. It was a while before he spoke again.

My head pounded. I wished he would leave.

“You speak different,” he said into the small space.

“Stand different.” There was no inflection to it.

I couldn’t tell if it was an insult or something else.

“You’ve got that high-society swagger now.

Nose in the air.” He allowed his eyes to travel openly over me.

They stuck to that place on the inside of my forearm, where an ugly, shapeless scar contorted the skin. “But you didn’t join ’em, did you?”

I wondered if he spoke to himself or to me. We held that gaze for an interminable time, trying to peel back the layers of each other and find something recognizable beneath. Trying to make sense of our paths that had diverted so wildly and yet somehow rejoined.

Bellowing inside me was the insistence to run while I still could.

He said, “I need you to stay inside this room, in this buildin’. It’s important that you don’t go farther, miss. Do you understand?”

“I understand plenty,” I said between clenched teeth. The effect was dampened by my sudden swaying. It seemed my legs were finally beginning to give out.

Patrick took two short strides toward me, his hands reaching my shoulders before I teetered over. “Whoa there,” he grunted, then cursed softly.

I found myself sitting on the bed, dizzy now.

“Someone will bring up a plate of food,” said a voice, its direction unclear to me. “Rest, Nina. I’ll have a doctor visit you in the morning.”

“Don’t need a doctor,” I murmured, words blending.

“Nevertheless, one will be sent. For now, take this.” He handed me a corked amber bottle. Its glass was emblazoned with the words INK TINCTURE . Bluff.

My eyes closed of their own accord. I unstoppered the bottle and brought it to my lips, grateful for the medicine.

But the liquid, I realized with aching slowness, did not taste of bluff. It was metallic. Icy cold.

Idium.

My eyes opened, and I found Patrick watching me warily.

“So then, you have the Alchemist.” I said, only it came out slurred. “The rumors are true.”

I fell back onto the covers, the bowed ceiling sinking closer and closer.

“Rest.” His voice was deeper, hypnotic even. “I need you ready for what’s comin’. You’re safe here, I promise.”

Nowhere was safe.

A sigh, and then a hand swept tangles of damp hair from my forehead, and I could not tell if it was my own or that of another. Darkness smothered sensation, and I gladly curled into its embrace.