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“Of course I didn’t,” Polly said sadly. “What I believed was that I’d found my ticket out of the brink, at long last. I wrote a scribble to the House.

I told them the place they’d been looking for all these years was Kenton Hill.

I thought I’d be brought home the very next day.

” She shook her head again, heavy with remorse. “That was nearly three years ago.”

My chest hollowed. I supposed I was more aware than anyone that Lord Tanner knew exactly how best to utilize us, his greatest tools against the enemy.

“You know,” she laughed, “I came here expecting… well, I’m not sure what I was expecting. But it wasn’t this place,” she said. “It wasn’t these people.”

“Gangsters?” I asked wryly. “Hawkers? Prostitutes?”

“Community,” she said seriously. “Kids. Neighbors… friends.”

I watched her closely, and whatever she thought of made her smile.

“You haven’t been here long, Nina. But you’ll see it, too.

Try not to.” Her eyes had stuck to something—or someone.

When I looked, I saw Otto shucking his coat by the door, his forehead iridescent with sweat.

A group nearby cheered at the sight of him.

I watched conflict pull at the corners of Polly’s eyes and lips. She swallowed. “Despite the pretty lights and the jokes, remember that they’ll kill us the moment they figure us out. They’ll do anything to keep this place hidden, Nina. Anything. Do you understand?”

I nodded, and something unfurled within me. Was it terror or defiance?

“We’re stuck between two guns now,” she said. “That’s all there is to it.”

But of course there was more. There was Otto, whom she could hardly look away from, and all of Kenton Hill. All of it pearled in my vision.

And wasn’t that the true evil of war? That it didn’t have the decency to strip the humanity of those we killed?

“I can guess why you’re here, Nina,” she said to me now.

“You don’t need to tell me. But promise me, before you do it, you’ll give me enough warning to turn my head.

I—I don’t want to see it happen.” She closed her eyes, as though the scene were unfolding here and now.

All these men and women buried beneath mountains of dirt.

“Either that, or bury me with them. God knows there’ll be no peace for me after this.

” She swallowed the rest of her drink and wrapped her arms tightly around her middle.

I felt suddenly sick, but before she walked off, I asked, “Would you do it if you were me?” It came out rushed, desperate. After all, I’d run from these very thoughts for seven years. I’d refused to confront them. “Could you do it?”

She gave me a look that said, very plainly, that the question was pointless. A drain to circle. “Can you ?”

I pressed my lips together. There were two guns, as she’d said, and the answer to that question could fire either of them.

It was safest to say nothing. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Polly—she seemed as reluctant as me, someone with no real loyalty to Tanner.

Someone who, like me, had no interest in tearing this town apart.

But Patrick’s voice had arisen from some hidden depth. Trust no one , it said.

She watched me for a moment, then stood and waved to Otto. The piano belted a new melody at that exact moment, and the drinkers and dancers brayed.

I thought of Polly traipsing from town to town, leaving fire and ashes in her wake.

Patrick reentered the pub when it was at its most raucous.

I didn’t see him so much as sense him. I felt the crowd disperse, the air stricken, the music slow for half a second. Or perhaps it was all in my mind, the pressure mounting atop me showing its first effects.

He grinned when he saw me. It was small and fleeting; he tore his eyes away to hide it. Took off his coat, addressed a few patrons who slapped his shoulder or raised their glasses and hollered.

He made his way slowly through the swarm, quickly nodding and untangling himself from the people who sought to speak to him, until finally, finally, he was close enough to touch.

He lowered his mouth to my ear. “Come on,” he said, his voice drowning all the others. “It’s about time I bought you a drink.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to appear unaffected by how close his face was to mine. “You own all the liquor,” I reminded him.

“Then I’ll buy it twice.”

He pulled me to the bar, then disappeared behind it, pouring two glasses of whiskey. He left bills beneath the till drawer.

Tessa Colson was noticeably absent. The bar was tended instead by a burly man with a low-slung apron and a spotty teenage boy.

“Where’s your mother?” I asked. “Is she well?”

Patrick passed me a glass. “Everyone deserves a day off sometimes,” he said. He held his drink up. “To topside.” An old miner’s toast. He clinked his glass against mine and swallowed the liquor in one gulp.

I watched it disappear with wide eyes. “God. You’ll be dancing on the counter by the top of the hour.”

“Have some faith, Nina.” He reached back to retrieve the bottle. “I can hold off for at least another two.”

I laughed. He appraised me furtively. “I should ask you if you’re all right,” he said then. “After the events of the day.”

I thought of those flashes of light and the smell of gunpowder, Lionel dropping in a heap with a single hole in his forehead. I repressed a shudder. “I shouldn’t have expected much else from a gangster.”

“Revolutionary,” he corrected. “In any case, it was the opposite of what I wanted you to see.” The regret rung clearly.

My answering grin was weak. “Don’t mind me, Patrick. I insisted on coming, and I’ve seen men shot before.”

“But I do mind you,” he said simply, and the heat of his gaze was too intense to hold. I looked away, warmth creeping up my neck.

“Come on,” he said. “Sit with me.”

We returned to a table occupied by Donny and Gunner, engaged in an arm wrestle.

The surrounding onlookers were placing bets, shouting at either brother with increasing frenzy.

As Patrick and I sat, Gunner smashed Donny’s hand down onto the tabletop, cracking it down its middle, and half the spectators exalted while the other half groaned.

Money was snatched, the winners quickly dispersed with their take.

“I let you win,” Donny said, swiveling in the direction of Patrick and me. “Who’s this?” he asked.

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Who d’you think?”

“Not you , you pouty bastard.”

I suppressed a laugh. “It’s Nina.”

Donny grinned rather suspiciously and pulled a chair out with too much grandeur. Gunner stared at me in a way that told me I was not welcome at his table.

This wasn’t a revelation. I hadn’t been oblivious to Gunner’s quiet contempt.

I sat in Donny’s offered chair and stared straight at the oldest Colson brother. When the silence stretched, I gathered myself and said, “Is there something you wish to say to me?”

In my periphery, I saw Patrick lean back in his chair with a smirk. “Good luck, brother,” he said.

Gunner waved me away, a vein pulsing in his neck. “Why don’t you go on up to your room. I ain’t in the mood for any swank bullshit tonight.”

I sniffed. “That’s a shame. I’d written a poem just for you.”

Donny smirked and shifted to the edge of his seat.

“Yeah?” Gunner chuckled darkly. “Then you can recite it to your pillow, darlin’.”

“I want to hear it,” Donny said immediately, and Gunner kicked him.

“ Fuck. Ouch!”

I cleared my throat exuberantly.

“In old town Kenton, come quick,

While Gunner boy swings his dick.

And the ladies will sigh,

For his balls have gone dry,

And his cock is the size of a prick.”

What followed was a ripple of shocked silence, first broken by Patrick, who laughed around the rim of his glass and watched Gunner closely.

Then Donny slapped the table and hooted, startling the patrons nearby.

Gunner, for all he was worth, did his best to remain stoic.

But seconds passed, and I refused to look away.

Donny almost slid off his chair in hysterics, and eventually, Gunner’s lips twitched upward despite himself.

His eyes brightened. “She’s got some bullocks on her, Pat, I’ll give you that,” he said, finally lifting his stare from me. He shook his head and lit a cigarette.

I turned to see Patrick quietly chuckling, watching me.

“Bet they didn’t teach you that at your fancy school,” Gunner continued. He had turned his body just slightly, now including me in the fold. This was how brink men often were—hard and calloused, but simply won over if you showed them your mettle.

“Not quite,” I allowed.

“Then you learned it from some dirty Craftsman,” he tsked. “What would your ma and pa say?”

“My father was a miner,” I said, and watched Gunner’s eyes pop. “He taught me that poem when I was four.”

“Nina’s from Scurry,” Patrick offered.

“Scurry?” Gunner replied, his interest seemingly piqued. “What do they dig for over there?”

“Terranium.”

“Ach,” Gunner grumbled. “Nasty fuckin’ work. All that rock and dynamite.”

I shrugged. “Soot isn’t much better.”

“Aye, but I’d take it any day over bloody terranium.” He saluted me with his pint. “To your dad,” he said, and took a swill.

I kept my features measured and brought my own drink to my lips, taking the barest of sips.

Otto and Polly joined the table then, falling into chairs with flushed faces and wide smiles. The shadows darkening Polly’s eyes had disappeared. Otto spoke to her conspiratorially, and she laughed.

“What’re you laughin’ about?” Donny said. “I heard you say my name, Otto.”

“I was tellin’ Polly about the time we stole horses from Old Parker’s barn, and you accidentally saddled a donkey.

” Otto chuckled. “This was back when we were kids and Donny could still see a lick. Not enough to tell the difference between a horse and an arse, obviously.” The table fell into a fit of laughter.