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The teahouse was, unfortunately, filled to the brim with wives and their mothers and the widows who’d ventured out for the day, and Patrick was loathe to step into their henhouse.

There was no quicker way to stir gossip than to step into a teahouse.

But Nina looked weary. She limped slightly as she walked, no doubt suffering in shoes that did not quite fit. There was a purpling in the corners of her eyes that Patrick suspected came from the clobbering Scottie had given her. He ground his teeth.

“Stay,” he said to Isaiah, and the dog sat heavily by a lamppost.

Patrick thought it unlikely Nina would allow him to take her to a doctor. She’d evidently missed the one he’d sent to her room that morning. But he supposed he could offer her a chair, a warm drink, some fucking tea cake.

He sighed internally and stepped inside.

The moment he crossed the threshold, he was accosted. A widow named Mrs. Hedley stood from her wicker-backed chair, ignoring her tea, the pleas of her companion, and took two tight steps toward him.

Her hot hand collided with Patrick’s cheek, and he bore it with good grace, blinking back the reverberations. “Hello, Mrs. Hedley,” he greeted her.

Patrick was aware the shop had fallen quiet, all conversations halted. The entire place seemed to hold its breath in wait for Mrs. Hedley’s repercussions.

Colson he felt their eyes on the back of his neck.

Nina paid them no mind. She seemed to be trying to thread a bolt into his forehead, with the aim to crack it open and see inside. A pause, and then, “Did you kill him? Is that what the Colsons do?”

“This is hardly the place to discuss murder. I brought you here for tea.”

“I’d rather know the man I’m agreeing to work for,” she said. “You can keep the tea.”

It was hot in the enclosed space. Her ringlets curled tighter in the humidity, falling from the clasp at her neck into her face. They made her look more herself.

Patrick flexed his fingers. “All right,” he said slowly. “Did I kill Mrs. Hedley’s husband? Sam’s father? The answer is yes, and no.”

She sat back, seeming to take Patrick in anew. Perhaps she was reshaping that image of a twelve-year-old kid in her mind, carving out space for more. “What happened to him?”

Patrick shrugged. “Went into the tunnels,” he said. “Didn’t come out.”

“Tunnels you ordered him into,” she guessed.

“Yes. Tunnels I ordered him into.”

She scowled. “And they collapsed? She blames you for that?”

“People have to blame someone.”

She went quiet and bit her lip, deep in thought. He could almost see the tangle beneath her brow being teased out piece by piece.

“Patty,” said a voice. Mrs. McCallister, the tea shop owner, was suddenly hovering over his shoulder. “Haven’t seen you here in a while.”

“With good reason,” he sighed.

“You certainly stir things up, eh?” she glanced at Nina, then did a double take. “Is that—”

“A good friend of mine,” he said curtly. Mrs. McCallister’s mouth closed, and she nodded once. “What can I get you?”

“Tea,” Patrick said. “And cake.”

Mrs. McCallister rolled her eyes. “What kind ?”

Nina smiled at her. “I saw some lavender bread in the display,” she said. “It looks beautiful.”

Mrs. McCallister brightened immediately. “Oh, it ought to, love. Was me Ma’s recipe.”

Nina’s head tilted to the side. “How do you make it rise so perfectly? Mine always fall dead flat.”

“It’s in the yeast. Lager is better than stout.”

Nina’s eyebrows rose in fascination. “Really?”

The women chatted a minute longer, discussing the intricacies of lavender cake, and all the while, Patrick watched Nina.

He watched her smile stretch and her cheeks rise.

He saw the way she held her spine straight, her neck long, shoulders back.

She had an elegance about her, one that didn’t match Kenton Hill.

Too regal for pubs and tunnels. Artisan-hewn, so much so that the Scurry in her was barely recognizable.

But it was there. Patrick could see it.

Then again, he was looking for it. Probably closer than he ought to.

There were specks of pigment across her nose, beneath her eyes—faded but discernible.

Every so often her Eastern tongue got the better of her, elongating her vowels.

She looked people in the eye when she spoke, her chin level and not floating somewhere up with God.

All of it reminded Patrick of that courtyard girl—the one whose hand he’d held in Belavere City. The one whose cheek he’d kissed.

The one he’d thought of every day since.

“Pat?” Mrs. McCallister was saying. She was waiting for the answer to a question he hadn’t heard. Nina stared back at him, amused. “I’ll have what the lady is having,” Patrick said.

Mrs. McCallister walked away with a knowing twinkle in her eyes.

Lord , Patrick admonished himself. She’s just a woman, Patty. Like any other. But he shouldn’t look at her so closely, or she might recognize the wanting.

“So,” Nina said now. “You’ve started a revolution. You’re feeding the hungry. Protecting allied towns with your tunnels and bolstering ingenuity within your own walls.”

Patrick’s eyebrow rose. “Makes me sound like a bloody hero.”

“You’d have me believe you were, wouldn’t you?”

God help him, but Patrick enjoyed it. The challenge. The prickling aggression.

He leaned closer until she was the only one who could hear his reply. “I told you I would try to get you on our side,” he said. “But I won’t trick you. I’m no hero.”

“Then what are you? Why are these people so afraid of you?”

“Because I kill their husbands and drag their children out of their rooms in the night.”

“The truth,” she demanded. Her voice was sharp as a guillotine, slicing the air in two.

Patrick almost smiled. “All right,” he began. “The truth is, my family is in the business of justice.”

She frowned at him. “What does that mean?”

“Sometimes it means feedin’ people, helpin’ them find safety,” he said. “Other times, it means dynamite and bad deals and men with bullets between their eyes.”

He paused, waiting for it to sink in. He saw the fear when she swallowed, when the gooseflesh rose along the column of her neck.

“Oftentimes,” he continued, “the business requires me to do both, and the people here know it. They’ve seen it.

That inspires fear in a lot of ’em. But it inspires trust, too.

The village needs somethin’ big and bad to stalk about in the night.

They feel safer havin’ it, even if they’re scared of it.

” Patrick looked around at the guests of the teahouse.

“As you said, the war hasn’t touched this town, and they know they have Colson and Sons to thank. ”

“The big bad thing in the night,” Nina echoed.

Patrick nodded. “That’s the whole of it. I do sorry things for the greater good of this town, and that’s all you need to know.”

“And what about the rest of the world?”

“That’s someone else’s village.”

The tea arrived in chipped cups and mismatched saucers, but steam rose pleasingly from the bread, and Nina’s attention was absorbed. She placed her hands carefully in her lap, as if to keep them from clawing at the food.

Patrick scowled. “Waiting for somethin’?”

Her eyes did not leave the plate. She must be starving. “Would you like—”

“Just eat, Nina.”

And she did. Artisan etiquette be damned, she nearly devoured the slice whole.

She grinned, satisfied, when the food was gone. “Lord, that’s good.”

“They don’t have lavender cake in your big city?”

“I haven’t been to the city in seven years,” she said, dusting crumbs from her fingers. “We can stop pretending I’ve been living a life of luxury, if you please.”