Page 7

Patrick pulled me through the courtyard, around the groups of children resorting to schoolyard games in their boredom. I went without protest.

It was hot. I was tired and hungry and sick of waiting. I was fizzling with an anticipation I couldn’t bury. It was a relief to move.

I realized too late where he was leading me.

His fingers curled tightly into the back of my hand and pulled me down the side of the building where several children sought shade and the servants of the National House smoked.

There was nothing here but more sandstone perimeter, more ivy climbing the limescale walls, more dust and dirt underfoot.

The lane was filled with horses and carts and wagons of all sizes.

Drivers bellowed at one another to make way as they came and went, trying to barrel through and around to make their next delivery. Craftsmen, every one of them.

“We’re not s’posed to be down here,” I hissed, pulling back at Patrick’s hand.

He turned, winked one of those startling eyes and smirked. “You’re not scared, are you?”

I gave him the most derisive look I could muster. “What are we doin’?”

“Gettin’ somethin’ to eat. I’m starvin’.”

I was, too. “If we’re caught, they’ll throw us out!”

Patrick stopped as a door to our left opened, and we dropped to the ground, protected from view by the crates stacked precariously along the exterior wall. The servant who exited did not look our way. They whistled to the driver. “You next!”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Lord, that was close.”

But Patrick’s eyes were plastered to that open door, the servant with his back turned, the space between. His face took on a frenzied gleam.

My eyes widened. “Patrick. Don’t even think it.”

“Chicken,” he whispered on a grin.

“I’m not a chicken .”

“Then get your wits about you, Scurry girl. On the count of three. One—”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Two.”

“You honestly think I’ll follow you, don’t you? Do I look stupid?”

“Three.” Patrick dropped my hand, saluted me, then hurdled the crates and sprinted through the open door, disappearing within.

“Shit,” I breathed. There was absolutely no sense in following.

So many people came and went, Patrick was bound to be caught.

Boys were truly idiots. He’d likely smacked straight into the chest of a copper when he stepped inside.

His wrists were probably in irons. He’d be taken back to the train any moment.

It was very well for him . Patrick wanted to be sent back out into the brink. What did he care if the House rejected his right to a siphoning? Perhaps it was what he sought—a way to avoid the gamble altogether.

It occurred to me then that perhaps Patrick was afraid. What if he took to the idium and it revealed him as an Artisan? He did not speak of home with a stiff jaw the way I did. No, he spoke of home as a place he belonged. What if the idium revealed he didn’t?

Perhaps I’d leave him to this poorly hatched plan, to his train and bad fortune. What did I care, after all?

The moments passed, and he did not reemerge. The door hung open, and the servant who’d exited it seemed engaged in a heated argument with a driver. No police officer hauled Patrick back out into the dust.

Go back to the courtyard , I told myself. Before someone sees. But I stayed and I waited. My heart galloped.

Suddenly, his head reappeared. Patrick’s eyes peered around the doorjamb and spied me in the hollows between crates.

The smug bastard raised an eyebrow.

Get back here! I mouthed to him, gesturing frantically. My eyes darted to the servants and drivers, all of whom were so harried that none spared a glance for the children playing cat and mouse by the door.

Hurry! I mouthed.

But Patrick Colson did not budge. Instead, he rolled his eyes, as though he’d never met a girl quite as hysterical as me, then disappeared once more.

The servants and drivers carried on with their scrimmage, and truly it seemed no one took notice of a damn thing besides. I imagined what else Patrick would call me, should I stay safely outside. Wimp. Wuss. Coward. I could already see the smirk on his face.

There was that other niggle, too. The one that longed to see the inside of this building.

Suddenly, there was an earsplitting crash as two drivers ran their wagons into each other. Horses whinnied. Men swore. The rabble intensified.

A switch inside me flipped.

Over the bleating and braying of the traffic, I bolted from my hiding place, bounded over a slew of fallen potatoes, and slipped inside the National Artisan House.

A long hallway stretched ahead, and at its end, I saw the oak desktops stretch within an open hall. Five men with bored faces sat along its length, vials in their hands, queues of children before them.

The siphoning ceremony.

Only it wasn’t so ceremonious. The officials called “Name?” as new children approached them. They ran a focusing glass down long, long lists. They retrieved a tiny vial from the crates stacked haphazardly at their sides and put it down again on the desk in front of them. “Drink,” they said.

The children did. I watched entranced as they uncorked the vial and brought it to their lips with shaky hands. They drank the solution and cinched their eyes closed as it went down. Then the officials pointed to a box of lumpy items that sat on the desk before them. “Hold each one in your hand.”

The children did as they were asked, questions in their eyes, wondering if there was something they should be feeling.

They picked up and replaced each item in the box like they were shopping for ripe fruit.

When nothing happened, the officials barely looked up from their lists.

“Crafter,” they said. And the children’s eyes either fell or widened with relief.

There was only one child who earned a different reaction.

A boy, well dressed and well groomed. He stood with his back straight and his chin high.

He looked so thoroughly highborn that I couldn’t help but stare.

“Theodore Shop,” he told the woman behind the desk.

He drank his idium, and when he put his hand toward the box, a drinking glass filled with water quaked threateningly.

Both child and official reared back, eyes wide.

“Easy, boy,” the official told him. “Let it come to you.”

Theodore Shop frowned in concentration. Instead of lifting his hand, he simply stared at that glass.

The water within rippled with increasing intensity, swirling in violent circles, until finally the glass tipped, and water dashed across the tabletop and seeped over its sides.

Quickly, a servant approached with a rag, sopping up the mess before it dampened swaths of lists.

“Artisan. Charmer!” the official said, clapping, smiling—the first smile of any. “Medium: water!”

Theodore Shop merely stared at the mess he’d created with his mind, and a small, rose-cheeked grin emerged.

In the next moment, a hand closed over my mouth and dragged me sideways into a dark room. A door closed and smothered all light. I was pressed abruptly to a wall, and some instinct bid me to bite down.

“Ouch!” Patrick’s breath washed over my face. His fingers disappeared. “Fuck!”

The sound of footsteps in the hall approached, and we both froze. But they didn’t slow or stop, didn’t open the door to inspect. They passed by, the sound softening, and Patrick and I sagged and stifled laughter in our cuffs.

I put a hand against my thundering heart. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” there was a grin in his voice. “Holy shit.”

There was a click. A flicker. A flame spluttered to life in Patrick’s hand, illuminating his face.

For a moment, I gawked at it. It came from a tiny silver tin. “What is that?” I hated how awestruck I sounded.

Patrick watched me curiously. “A lighter. You don’t have none in Scurry?”

“If we did, would I bother askin’ about it?”

Patrick smirked. “This particular one is me father’s invention. Here,” and he held it up for closer inspection. “This wheel here, it sparks the flint. The oil in the canister keeps the flame burnin’.”

I eyed it warily. “Your dad, you say?”

Patrick winked at her. The flame danced in his irises. “Not all genius belongs to the swanks.”

My eyes fell to his lips as he spoke. He was quite a bit taller than me but as close as he’d yet been, and my stomach came alive, networks of sputtering bursts erupting from my gut up into my chest. I felt suddenly shy. My cheeks heated. “We should leave,” I whispered to him. “Now.”

He was far from panicked. In fact, his smile widened. “You followed me in,” he stated. “Didn’t think you would.”

“What?” I spluttered, the reverie broken. “You gave me no choice .”

“Nah,” he shook his head. “There were plenty of choices.” The lighter flickered as he held it higher, as though to see me better. “You chose to come in with me.”

My stomach twisted once more, and he seemed to see it.

His eyes glinted. “You like me, don’t you?”

Heat flooded my face. “What?” I blustered. “ Ugh! You’re disgust—”

Patrick threw something at me then. I only just saw it before it hit my stomach. Something round and heavy.

A little cake sat cradled in my hands.

“Eat up,” Patrick said. “Then we’d better go. You’re a bad influence on me, Nina Harrow.”

I hesitated, but the rumble of my stomach soon silenced any other thought.

I said nothing as I ate, but I found myself smiling around the pieces of cake in my mouth and wondered whether the pounding of blood behind my eyes was fear or furious excitement. The two seemed tightly braided.