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What will happen to you, when Tanner learns you’ve been seduced by the man you were sent to bury?”

Theo came closer.

He reeked of whiskey. Whiskey made good men angry and angry men violent. I hid my shaking hands, lifted my eyes. “You assume it’s me who’s been seduced?”

It was enough to give him pause.

“Do you give me no credit at all, Theo?”

He rose onto his toes and back onto his heels, the neck of the bottle dangling precariously in his grip. “You planned it?” He sounded mollified, at least in part.

I shrugged in a way I hoped seemed offhand. “Is seduction not the quickest way to ruin a man?”

He blinked twice. Then he slowly raised the bottle to his lips and swigged, contemplating. “You looked at him a long, long time, Clarke. Same way you used to look at me.”

Perhaps jealousy was the quickest path to ruin.

I barely recognized him in those shadows, menacing and brash.

The drink propelled his voice, made me flinch inwardly, but I hid it.

“We were sent here to find the Alchemist, Theo, and in two years, you’ve been unable to.

Patrick’s careful. It’ll take more than trust before he reveals where they’re keeping him. It’ll take—”

“Love,” Theo finished. “Is that your plan, Clarke? Are you to make him fall in love with you?”

I wanted to tear my own heart from my chest. “Yes.”

“A tall order to achieve in a few short weeks,” he muttered, his expression no less severe. It seemed at any moment he might slip over the knife’s edge. “That’s when they’re planning to raze the National House, you realize? Four short weeks.”

“I need more time,” I muttered, and this, at least, was true.

“Then you’d better dig slower.” It ricocheted across my skin. “You know as well as I do, if they reach the city, the game is up.”

I wanted so badly to sit. To think.

“We should be frank with each other,” he said then, now close enough that I could smell sour breath. “Why don’t you tell me what orders Tanner gave you?”

You’re on this side , I reminded myself. This is your side. “Find Domelius Becker, then bury everything.”

He watched me for too long, until I felt undressed by his eyes. “And you’re willing to carry it out?” he asked, voice steeped in doubt.

I’d made a promise to myself to not think of it, to not imagine sinking Kenton Hill into a pit. “I don’t have a choice .”

But Theo seemed to be weighing things in his mind, trying to find the side to bet on. “What threats did Tanner use to persuade you?” he asked, and hidden beneath all the whiskey and jealousy was a muted concern. He softened.

“Execution,” I said shakily. “For myself—and for my mother.”

Theo’s eyes went wide. He turned away, ran his free hand through his already mussed hair. “I—I didn’t know,” he said.

“How could you?” I frowned. “You’ve been here.”

He nodded to the shadows.

“And what were you threatened with?” I dared to ask.

“Threatened?” he asked. “After Crafters robbed the laboratories, stole the last Alchemist, and left my mother to die?” He shook his head.

“There were no threats, Nina. I was an ordained lord for the House, and when our Right Honorable head gave me my orders, I simply followed them, as I’d pledged to do. ”

“So the scandal of your exile was—”

“A lie,” he nodded. “A very thorough one. How else could the Miners Union trust me? They needed to think I was already a traitor to the House.”

I had no right to reproach him, but still, I did. I was here under duress, while he was here of his own volition, though I supposed the result would be no different. My hands would be as dirty as his.

“I volunteered myself, Nina, if you can believe me so stupid.” He looked around the room with distaste. “And in return, Tanner made me a promise.”

I quailed. “What promise?”

“You.”

I froze.

Theo turned his back to me, gazing toward the window and the town beyond.

“He promised me that he’d find you. Finally, after years of my pleading and petitioning.

Of doing every fucking thing asked of me, he finally agreed.

” When he turned back, his grin was contemptuous.

“They looked for you at first, did you know? I badgered my father, badgered anyone who would listen, to try harder. But eventually, they gave up. Assumed you dead. They stopped looking. Except me. I kept looking. I found your supposed first address in Sommerland and learned that there had never been a girl born to the name Nina Clarke. I looked at the registry from the year of our siphoning, and you weren’t there, either.

There was a Nina Harrow, though. A girl from the brink.

Her name was blackened out with so much ink, it was nearly impossible to read the indentations.

” He exhaled deeply, his shoulders falling.

“I learned that you’d lied to me. All that time. ”

I said nothing as he swayed. Guilt wrapped a hand around my innards and squeezed.

“I began to wonder how a girl from a pit like Scurry could become an earth Charmer, of all things. It’s so incredibly unlikely.

An act of God, surely.” He scoffed, stumbled.

“The more I dug, the deeper it went. The idium isn’t a prophecy.

In fact, there is no such thing as prophecy, only alchemy.

” He shook his head. “I wondered if you’d tell me, Nina.

I’ve wondered for years… was it an accident?

Or did you figure it out when you were still Nina Harrow and decide to make yourself into something big? ”

I was only twelve , I wanted to tell him. I was twelve, and I couldn’t go home.

“I found the vials in a cellar,” I told him. “And overheard someone talking about them. I stole an Artisan vial and swallowed it.”

He huffed an acknowledgment. “Clever. Though, you always were. Smart, but quiet about it. That’s what I loved about you.” For a moment then, he seemed lost. A muscle along his jaw throbbed.

“I couldn’t tell anyone,” I said softly. Even to me, it sounded like a weak excuse. “What was done was done.”

“And you couldn’t trust me, because I was the son of a lord.” The words dripped with bitterness.

“I considered confronting Tanner. I almost burst into his office and threw all my findings onto his desk, but that day, a group of miners were caught outside the National House with boxes of dynamite, and I watched them shoot down four police officers before they were subdued. One of them took a knife out of his pocket and dug a copper’s eyes from the sockets, held them up like damned trophies.

” Even now, the memory seemed to nauseate Theo.

“For all his faults, what Tanner says is true. The Miners Union are barbarians. Animals.” He took another swig.

When he blinked now, his lids stayed closed for long moments.

“I made a decision then about which side I’d rather have in charge. ”

I wondered if it were John Colson who’d lifted the knife and taken a dead man’s eyes. He’d been among the group arrested that night. “You chose to avenge your mother?”

“I chose the Artisans” came the answer. “I chose Belavere Trench the way it was before war ruined it. Tanner had the idea to bait the Miners Union out of hiding, to allow them to take one of us into the fold. And in return, he agreed to find you. He promised to keep you safe.” Theo approached, though his legs wobbled.

His hands slipped awkwardly around my neck, and he held my face, blinking at me as though I’d just now materialized.

“Two years I’ve been here, working for the Colsons.

Trying to find the damn Alchemist. But always hoping for you . ”

I kept very still. Very quiet. When drunk men looked at you, they saw not one but three. A one in three chance they’d miss.

“And my prize is watching you dance with someone else?” His eyes narrowed.

“Ha! It’s almost funny. Is it a fair punishment, do you think?

For breaking up with you?” His fingers loosened, rather than tightened.

The whiskey, thankfully, choosing the course of melancholia.

Theo backed away, hands dangling limply at his sides.

“I’m not punishing you, Theo,” I said gently. “I’m doing what I must.”

He wiped his nose. “They’re bad men, Nina. Patrick Colson will kill you if he finds out.”

“I’ll need your help,” I said, a net constricting around me. “ Please , Theo. I’m begging you to say nothing. Don’t interfere.”

“You think so little of me, that I’d give you away?” He seemed more hurt than offended. “No. You go ahead and play your game with Patrick Colson.” He stalked in the direction of the door.

“Theo?” I beckoned, suddenly panicked. “Theo, what are you going to do?”

“I’ll watch, Nina,” he grunted. “I’ll just stand back and watch.”

“I’m only doing what I must,” I repeated. I hated how desperate I sounded.

“As will I,” he muttered. “I’ll have a scribble sent to Tanner.”

“A scribble? But… how?”

“Polly.”

I faltered, confused. “Tanner sent her as well?”

“Of course,” he said. “We’re Artisans, Nina. She’s on the right side of this.” With one last hollow look, he left, the door bouncing off the jamb, and I rushed to lock it. I smothered my mouth with my hands and swallowed a sob.

Fuck. Fuck.

Somehow, I made it back to the bed. I crawled under the sheets and curled onto my side without bothering to undress, to take my shoes off or pull the pins out of my hair. I shook violently.

There had been other nights like this, praying the mattress would swallow me, chest so tight it felt like it was constricted in rope. Too many nights to count, though never quite as piteous.

In a continuous matinee, I thought of Tanner and Theo and my father. Of my mother and how delicate she had become. I thought of miles and miles of tunnel. And I thought of Patrick.

I sank my face into the faded quilt and screamed myself hoarse, begging God to explain to me, just this once, why it had to be him , and why it had to be me.

And the price of it all seemed insurmountable. All those men and women and children.

All of it, for idium.

I lay there and wrestled with it until the shaking subsided, and then, exhausted, I told myself that I would do what I must.