Page 60

I had strange dreams.

Gun barrels coughing smoke in the air, shaped into portraits by Theo and his precise hands—a rendition of my own face with two different sides to it.

There were trolleys and tunnels and Isaiah, who brushed against my legs and frolicked away.

Patrick and Polly and Theo and me, all seated on a train tumbling onward, onward, beyond our control.

One by one they jumped from the moving carriage at uncertain intervals, beckoning for me to follow, while I plucked the spokes of a dandelion clock and hoped it would tell me when to go.

I awoke to lurid light filtering through the curtains, cutting my face in two. Dust motes squalled in the beam, the air felt heavy, the bedding too oppressive, and I shucked it off with sudden, violent desperation.

I groaned quietly and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. Slowly, my mind churned, presenting me with snatches of the evening prior in frightening distortion. It had been a long time since liquor had gotten the better of me.

My leaden arms fell to my sides and my hand met with coarse, stringy fur. It moved up and down beneath my touch.

My eyes snapped open.

Isaiah waited several inches from my face, his body as tall as the bedframe, his head on the mattress, stretching to reach me.

“Hello,” I rasped uncertainly, and his tongue unfurled from his head.

Beyond Isaiah, another sound found me—soft breath, in and out.

I bolted upright.

In an armchair before the hearth, Patrick slept with his chin on his chest.

My slamming pulse slowed at the sight of him—purple eyelids, crossed arms, legs slack and too long for comfort. He seemed softer like this, the sharp edges of him muted in sleep.

I suddenly recalled a whisper in my ear telling me to lay down, to sleep.

He must have carried me to my bed, up all those flights of stairs.

I was dressed in the same clothes I’d worn the night before, less my shoes. There was a jug of water and a waiting glass at my bedside. A pocket watch with his initials etched into the back. The time was nearly noon.

“Lord,” I mumbled. I’d slept half the day through.

Patrick sighed in his sleep. Shifted slightly. Isaiah went to him and pooled at his feet. The fire behind him sputtered weakly.

In the Artisan School, there’d been many male and female models cycled through the classrooms for us to draw or carve or sculpt, to learn the human form. But mostly, the bodies had just been bodies. I’d often struggled to see the splendor.

But I thought this man before me ought to be carved into stone. My fingers itched to recreate him. I wondered if it was because he was truly special, or if it was that tether between us. Perhaps it colored my view.

I looked at the hands wringing in my lap. How intolerable it was to think of cutting him away while he was so close.

“You speak to yourself when you frown” came his voice.

I startled. Gripped my chest in fright.

Patrick watched me beneath heavy eyelids. “Always mouthing things under your breath. Like you’re having an argument with yourself.”

I exhaled in a gust, sparks of floating light igniting. “Sometimes I am.”

“Hmm. Don’t imagine anyone wins.” The timber of his voice did damning things to my insides. My blood raced. His eyes swept the length of me and everywhere his gaze touched, warmth followed. “How do you feel?”

Like I’d been trampled. Like I wanted to feel his mouth on mine. “Fine.”

“Drink the water,” he said, gesturing to the bedside table. “It’ll stave the headache.”

There was, indeed, a pick grinding a fine hole into my skull. “Thank you.” I swallowed it gratefully. Then, self-consciously, I said, “You slept here all night?”

“Sam had the evenin’ off,” he explained.

I frowned. “And you think I’ll disappear if I’m not guarded?”

“It’s not a matter of keepin’ you locked in,” he sighed. “It’s keepin’… others locked out. But in this case, you insisted I stay.”

“I—I did?”

He nodded, his eyes traveling down to my waist. “Many times.”

Mortification flooded me. He gave a weak smile. “I’ll leave if you want me to.”

“No,” I said, too quickly. Already I’d wasted half the day. Theo couldn’t flood the tunnels forever. “Unless,” I stumbled, “you have somewhere to be?”

“Usually,” he admitted, “but not today. Gunner is taking a shift in the east mines. I’ve left Donny in charge of the market. I heard from Briggs at dawn—there’s a new leak in the tunnel. The Charmer will need another day to patch it.”

“Theo.”

“Yes, him.”

Guilt and gratitude mixed together, quelling the warmth in my middle, though not completely. I shook them away. Use these days wisely.

“You speak in your sleep, too,” Patrick said then. “I’m starting to think you might never shut up.”

I rolled my eyes. “What did I say?”

“Somethin’ about guns,” he said, repositioning. “Two guns.”

Dread pooled in my mouth.

“After that, I couldn’t say. I fell asleep. Didn’t wake up until Briggs came to the door.”

I tried not to show my relief, tried to breathe normally. Patrick didn’t seem suspicious in the least. In fact, he seemed satisfied. “You sound surprised at the thought of sleeping,” I noted.

“I don’t sleep well,” he reminded me, and I wondered if what he meant was that he didn’t sleep at all. That there was never enough peace for him to sleep.

He exhaled in a gust and looked my way, and I returned my gaze to my lap. I couldn’t quite explain the fear that lingered, only that it wasn’t a fear for my life. It was the anxiousness of being alone with someone who makes your blood sprint.

“I fear I made a fool of myself last night,” I uttered.

But he shook his head. “It was a trying day. You were only letting off steam.”

Perhaps, but hadn’t I forbidden myself from drinking long ago? Wasn’t there enough danger without liquor loosening my tongue?

I should count myself lucky I hadn’t said something incriminating and awoken—or not—at the bottom of a canal.

“I want to ask you somethin’,” Patrick said, and it brought my gaze back to his. I wondered if it was always his intention to swallow me whole.

“I have questions, too,” I said. And here it was, that irreversible moment.

He pulled that damned coin from his pocket. “Shall we flip to see who gets the first one?”

“That depends,” I said without humor. “Will it be a fair toss? Or will you use your medium to manipulate the outcome again?”

Silence. I thought I felt the tick of his heart. He rolled his jaw slowly before speaking. I counted one breath. Two. “What gave me away?”

“Besides the blatant cheating?” I asked. “And the bullets that didn’t hit?”

He tilted his head.

I sighed. “You went home with a bottle of magic in your pocket, Patrick. What twelve-year-old boy could resist the temptation?”

He nodded, even smiled at the accusation.

“I used to imagine you on that train back here,” I said. “I wondered if you’d thrown the ink out the window or given it to someone else. Stupid, isn’t it?” I asked him.

“No,” he said. “It’s likely the only sensible choice there was.”

“But you were only twelve.”

“I was,” he agreed. “And angry as a bull.”

I nodded. “You’re a Smith?”

“An untrained one,” he said with a shrug.

“Of lead, I presume. Or perhaps steel. Why keep that from me?”

He looked into the fire, perhaps to give himself a moment to cultivate an answer. “You asked me last night if I trusted you,” he said. “I confess, I don’t come by trust so easily.”

“Do your men know?”

“They do.”

“Theo and Polly?”

“They suspect, but I don’t tell them everythin’.”

I fell quiet. I let the knowledge settle around me and took him in anew. “So, then, we’re both kids from the brink turned Artisan imposters.”

His mouth twitched. “You’re smiling,” he said. “Why?”

“It’s nice not being the only one.” I paused. “Can I ask one last question?”

He nodded warily.

“The last Alchemist is alive.”

He didn’t answer, only turned that coin over in his fingers a few times. “Sounds like you’re tellin’ me, not askin’.”

“Is that a yes?”

“You’ll need to give me an answer to get an answer.”

I braced myself. For one fleeting moment, I thought he might ask me something with a catastrophic answer. And I wasn’t sure I could lie.

He weighed his words carefully. “I promised you a ticket out of here, to somewhere safe. Away from the Trench.”

I waited, his question banking up in the silence.

“I wondered… if I could prove to you that I could protect you… if you’d ever consider this place, here with me, as somewhere safe.”

He didn’t rise from the chair. Didn’t adjust his position. And yet it felt as though he had just grabbed me by the rib cage and squeezed.

“You want me to stay in Kenton Hill?”

He nodded slowly, and in the following seconds I felt completely translucent, as though a mere bob of my throat or the flicker of an eyelid would be too telling.

But he had cast his own veneer aside. Behind those simple words was a deep wanting, and I saw it plainly. It mimicked my own.

“How did we get here?” I asked aloud, the question genuine. I could no longer see the paths behind us.

He smirked, though his eyes remained tight. “You’re making a habit of askin’ me that.” His tone implied he didn’t much care how we’d arrived. He waited patiently for my answer.

I knew I should tell him yes, that I’d consider it, consider him. It was the obvious answer. Theo and Polly would want it.

Get closer to him, make him trust you. Find the Alchemist.

I could see how quickly he would fall in love with me. It seemed almost as though he were predisposed to it. That his mind was already made.

What I could not fathom was how I was not to fall in love with him.

I was failing already. Tumbling into it.

Somewhere in Belavere City, Lord Tanner stalked some government parlor and my mother sat waiting in a cold cell, and I was here, unable to do what I must.

So, I did nothing. I remained here plucking at dandelion petals and hoping the correct course would present itself. I had pulled Patrick willfully into a trap without ever deciding to do so.

I was sinking, and soon, there wouldn’t be a way back.

But there had to be, somehow. Surely there was a way through?

Patrick waited, just feet away, and he remained a force to be reckoned with, taking my hand and pulling me through the throng. Whispering reassurances and sinking a vial of promises into my pocket.

If there was a way out, surely it was with him.