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“But you’re forgettin’ the rest of the story, Otto,” Donny grumbled. “The part where you fell clear of your horse with your trousers caught in the stirrups. He had to walk back into town in his underwear.”

Otto sobered, and the rest roared harder, even Patrick, who mussed Otto’s hair.

“How you two weren’t thrown into the fuckin’ clink astounds me,” Gunner guffawed.

“Ah, Patty took two bottles of whiskey from the bar and walked it over to Old Parker. Made me take the donkey back, too,” Donny said. “He promised not to go to the coppers.”

My lips felt as though they might crack from overuse.

I realized I hadn’t smiled often over the past seven years.

And something else was thawing away, releasing me.

I watched them all taunt and pick at one another, listened to the stories of their younger selves.

Every so often, Polly and I locked eyes, and I remembered what she’d said about trying not to see it—this patchwork affection among them all. I found I was jealous.

During an interval of conversation, Patrick reached over and took the bottom of my chair.

In one smooth movement he scooted it closer to his own, so that parts of our arms glanced each other’s, though to look at it would be to see nothing of consequence—the pub was brimming and there was hardly much room for anyone to stand without touching another—but a current flared to life beneath my skin.

I couldn’t help but steal glances up at him, and each time I was struck with how engrossingly handsome he was. Had I ever suffered an attraction so devastating?

I hadn’t.

And the realization hit me like a freight train. I knew then that I couldn’t do it.

I looked at the longstanding friendships before me, in this pub alone. In the market and hills beyond, there were whole families, neighbors greeting neighbors. Freedom and dancing. All this good among the bad. And then there was Patrick.

I couldn’t do it.

I wouldn’t.

But then what?

Two guns , Polly had said.

Amid the chorus to “Sleep, Whistle, Sleep,” Theo arrived.

The pub was a din of off-key singing. Patrons had their eyes closed and their arms over one another’s shoulders, swaying back and forth in time with the piano. Polly was sitting on Otto’s lap, and I with my arm pressed tightly to Patrick’s.

Theo was covered head to toe in mud.

It caked on his face and cracked where he frowned. His eyes were rimmed red and he looked bone tired; he measured Polly and me and the drinks in our hands in a deadened way.

Warily, I put an inch between Patrick’s arm and mine.

And Patrick noticed. I felt his eyes land heavily on me, then bounce to Theo.

The din receded.

“Theodore,” Patrick said casually, though surely, he’d noticed the fissure down Theo’s face. “Get a drink. Join us.”

But Theo’s eyes only skittered as far as Patrick’s hand, which had reached around the back of my chair and rested just short of my shoulder, not touching, but sending a message as clear as if it were.

Theo reserved his response for me. “Enjoying your evening?” he asked, voice empty of emotion. Next, he addressed Polly. “And you?”

Polly swallowed. She stood from Otto’s lap and smoothed out her dress. “I should be off to bed.”

“ Sit down ,” Theo said, more aggressively than anyone ought to among so many miners. All three Colson brothers stood from their seats, as did Otto. A more menacing sight I’d rarely seen.

The pub quieted.

“You’ve had a long day, Teddy,” Patrick said, in that low, rumbling voice. “Perhaps you’d better turn in, eh?”

But Theo’s anger seemed to evaporate, right there on the spot.

Perhaps it was the hulking figures that stood taller than him, shoulders wider than his, that cooled his blood.

He smiled genially. “I’ve only just arrived,” he said, ignoring Gunner at his shoulder with great effort.

Theo sat. “Stay awhile longer, Polly,” he said with faux politeness. “Let’s have a drink.”

Slowly, the Colsons and Otto sat, though Patrick and Gunner traded wary looks. “Why don’t you get everyone a beer, Otto,” Patrick said. “You owe us about a hundred of ’em.”

“I’ll get them,” I said, immediately standing. In truth, I needed a moment of reprieve.

I left before anyone could stop me.

At the bar, the keep didn’t ask for payment. He placed a tray of pints on the counter with a meek “Here you go, miss,” and hurried on to the next customer.

I downed an entire drink before stepping away, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. When I turned, it was only to nearly upturn the entire tray on Theo’s chest.

I froze.

That same tightness remained around his mouth, his eyes. He stood not half a foot away from me. “Had a productive day, did you?” he asked.

My gaze shifted to the patrons nearest, then over his shoulder.

“Yes, he’s watching you,” Theo said icily. “So smile. Offer me a drink.”

He was right. I smiled at Theo, lifted the tray for him to take a pint.

“Make any progress?” Theo said now. “Or did you and Polly simply sit on their laps all day?”

“ Don’t ,” I said, my smile wavering slightly. “You don’t get to say that to me.”

“Forgive me. I’ve been in a hole all day. My patience is a little spent.” He waited expectantly, and for a moment I was torn. Telling him everything and telling him nothing both felt like a betrayal.

“They met a man in Dorser who gave them guns,” I said quietly. “That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Theo queried. “And what of the person we were sent to find?”

“It’s not as though I can simply ask him where he’s hiding an Alchemist, Theo.” I laughed as though we were exchanging jokes. I hoped from this distance that Patrick couldn’t see the strain beneath the surface.

“And I can’t keep creating leaks and pretending I don’t know how to fix them,” Theo gritted out. “I’ve bought you these extra days, Nina. Use them. The sooner we can leave this hellhole, the better.”

“The sooner I demolish it, you mean.” I said it beneath my breath, but he heard it still. How was it that voices could crest and fall all around us, but be of no consequence to him? Had he already buried them in his mind?

“I’m aware of the enormity of the task, Nina.” His voice had grown softer. He sighed, and his shoulders fell. “Perhaps I can—”

But Patrick had risen from his seat, and his intention was clear. “This isn’t the time to discuss it,” I interjected.

“When is the time?”

Patrick drew nearer. “I don’t know, tomorrow night?”

“I can’t keep this up forever, Nina.”

I just had to find a way out of this mess. Lure the two guns away. “I need more time.”

Theo leaned down nearer to my ear. “Then use it wisely, Clarke. And be careful.”

I nodded, and before Patrick could arrive, and Theo could melt into the crowd, I finished another pint.

Patrick watched the ale disappear with suspicion. His eyes stuck to Theo’s retreating back. I wiped my chin furtively and tried to plaster on a smile.

“Are you all right?” he asked without looking my way.

“Fine,” I said. “Theo was just apologizing. He becomes ill-tempered when he’s tired.”

“Does he?” Patrick said, looking down at me. “In two years, he’s not so much as raised his voice.”

I gave a little shrug. “Using your medium is exhausting. I suppose it got the better of him today.”

But Patrick’s attention was on the swinging door Theo had disappeared behind. His head tilted to the side. “When we caught up to him in Dunnitch, he told us he was searchin’ for a girl,” he said. “He meant you .” It brooked no argument, no room for denial.

I shifted uncomfortably. “Perhaps.”

“He’s still in love with you,” Patrick continued, sounding oddly contemplative. “I’ve gathered that much, but I’m having trouble with the probability of it.” And this time there was black suspicion.

My stomach roiled. “The probability?”

“Of the two of you ending up here, of all places,” he said. “In a town the rest of the country has forgotten about. How unlikely it is, that he found you after all?”

The tray in my hands slipped an inch, and his eyes tracked the movement. I tried to look indignant. “ You brought me here,” I reminded him.

He nodded, taking the tray from my hands and placing it back on the bar. “Like I said, it’s the probability of it. Perhaps you were destined to find each other.”

I laughed, the first swells of giddiness bubbling up my throat. “God, I hope destiny has something more in store for me than the boy I loved when I was eighteen.”

Patrick simply watched me, eyes on my lips, following the next drink I tipped into my mouth.

I was sweating. The room seemed hot as a furnace.

Noise clambered the walls in my ear, and the fabric of my blouse suddenly itched unbearably.

Patrick would see my flushed skin and think me drunk.

He didn’t suspect, didn’t know, would never hold a gun to my temple with his finger on the trigger. Bang.

I took another drink.

“Go easy,” Patrick warned, brows pinching. “You’ll drown yourself.”

And indeed, I had begun to feel as though I was underwater, where all sound was transmuted and dull. It was very inviting.

“If he is who you want,” Patrick said next, nothing but blue eyes expanding and retracting in my vision. “I’ll step out of your way. But you’d better tell me now, Nina.”

I shook my head. “No” I might have said. It was difficult to tell. I took his hand without making the conscious decision to do so, and perhaps I overbalanced, because his other came to my shoulder, and he said, “Whoa, there.”

In my periphery I saw Polly and Otto dancing again, and her arms were wrapped around his neck.

The pianist made room on his bench for Scottie, who thrashed on the keys.

I found a half-glass of abandoned whiskey on the table.

Patrick said, “You’ll regret that,” and made to take it away, but I held on.

I found his face in the soup of faces and drank the lot while he watched warily.

“You’re very handsome,” I told him. “Even when you scowl.”

Perhaps I told him again about those drawings of him in the rubble of the Artisan school.

Perhaps I told him other things, too, like how scared I had always been in those halls, how scared I was still.

Utterly terrified every second of the day.

I had no idea if any sensible thought colluded with speech.

It was so difficult to tell while underwater.

At some point in the night, however long it lasted, his arms came around me—were we dancing again? Faces spun on a carousel. The ground had fallen away. I shut my eyes and leaned my head against his chest and was struck by the steadiness of his heartbeat.

How did we get here? I thought.

“God knows, Scurry girl, but here we are,” he said. And I wondered if he’d somehow found the lock to my chest and was bleeding it of every good and terrible thing I’d ever done.