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At dusk, Donny came again to pound on the door. He threatened to break it in and drag Patrick out.

“In case you forgot, Pat, an entire fuckin’ pit caved in day afore. The whole town’s waiting downstairs for you!”

The bath Patrick and I shared had become tepid, yet neither of us made any move to rise.

“I’ll be down in a moment,” Patrick called, sighing with tremendous reluctance. “Hold ’em off for a bit, will you?”

“They’ve come to hear you speak, Patty. What am I s’posed to do?”

“Play ’em a song,” Patrick suggested, playing with a tendril of my hair. “Pass out a round of drinks.”

“They’re four deep already, Pat. Hurry up!” He hit his fist against the door one last time, then stomped away, cursing us both loudly.

“And so, it ends,” Patrick muttered beneath his breath.

He held my fingers in his beneath the water, but now rose them to press his lips to their pads.

Then he lifted himself from the water, the streams running down all those fine muscles.

He stepped out of the tub and collected a towel with which to dry himself.

“If I asked you to wait here until I get back, would you do it?” he asked me.

I grinned at him, resting my chin on the lip of the basin. “Not a chance.”

He groaned. “Every man, woman, and child out there will be wantin’ to buy you a drink,” he said, donning his clothes in distractingly practiced ways. “It’ll be midnight before I can tear you away.”

I laughed. “So you are the jealous type.” I rose from the bath and stepped out.

Patrick was suddenly before me, hands sliding around my wet waist, “It’s not jealousy. It’s greed.”

The way his tone graveled, pulled at the cords of my resolve. Heat descended into my belly. “Haven’t you ever heard of the risks of having too much of a good thing?”

“Not in this case,” he said, then drugged me with his fingers skating down my neck.

I exhaled shakily. “You won’t distract me. I’m coming with you.”

He sighed, then released me. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The thrum of the pub rang up the stairwell, pulsing the windows in their frames on each landing. Even at this early hour, someone belted the piano keys, voices walloped, the unmistakable thunder of dancing shook the floorboards when we alighted the stairs.

I raised my eyebrows at Patrick. I noticed he had already stowed away that light in his eyes. The peace that had been on his face was gone. Back was the careful veneer, that knife-sharp glare. But his hand remained on the small of my back, gentle and sure.

“Are they… celebrating?” I asked incredulously. It seemed in poor taste.

“Don’t judge them too harshly,” Patrick said.

“They’ve come to expect catastrophic loss when a mine collapses.

Yesterday feels like a miracle by comparison.

It is a miracle,” he said, his gaze boring into mine.

His fingers touched my cheek. “I’ll apologize now for what’s on the other side of this door. ” Then he pushed it open.

Uproar descended upon us.

A voice screeched, “The Charmer! There she is!” and it seemed the entire sea of faces turned simultaneously.

A discordant cheer rent the air. Glasses clinked above heads.

Men waved their caps and women covered their mouths with their hands.

Some of them wept. Several children, none of them taller than my hip, swarmed my legs and gripped hold of my dress.

They hugged me, shoved limp dandelions into my palms, pulled me forward into the crowd.

I looked over my shoulder, silently pleading for help, and found Patrick leaning against the wall beside the door, hands in his pockets, a small grin on his face.

I was swallowed by the horde a moment later, and Patrick disappeared from view.

I felt as though my hand was gripped and shaken by a hundred different people, all their faces floating into view and then abruptly disappearing, replaced by more.

“Thank you, Miss Harrow. Bless you.”

“You’re a gift from God, surely.”

“Me brother were in that shaft. We owe you his life.”

“I’ve always trusted Patty Colson. Always! And now he’s brought you to us.”

“You consider yourself a Kenton girl now. If there’s anythin’ you need…”

It went on and on. Somewhere in the mix, I caught a glimpse of Theo and Polly. They sat together in a bay window. I looked long enough to make out Polly’s pinched expression, Theo’s balled fists, before they were eclipsed once more by another wave of drunken gratitude.

Eventually, Gunner clawed me out of the scrummage. His large frame appeared at my side, and his presence alone was enough to make those clustered nearest take a step back.

“All right, you dolts. That’s enough for one night. Let the girl breathe, for fuck’s sake. She ain’t had a single drink yet.” He offered me a wink, a sly grin beneath his wild beard, then gripped my upper arm and pulled me away.

Gunner brought me to the bar, found a stool for me to sit on, and glared at anyone who tried to approach. They quickly diverted, and though the floor space was entirely occupied, a foot of space was left around me.

Tess appeared before me with a pint. She said nothing, but her hand patted mine before she departed.

“Well, fuck me,” Gunner grunted, staring wide-eyed after his mother. “Don’t tell me you cracked Tess Colson?”

I shrugged. “Turns out she rather prefers you alive.”

Gunner let out a laugh the likes of which I hardly thought him capable. He appeared a different man. “Only sometimes, I assure you.”

All around us, it was more of the same. A tumble of dancers slammed their feet on the boards as they skipped around their partners.

When the most inebriated spilled their drinks on another, it was met with not ire, but laughter.

The bay windows were steamed and sweating and Tess pulled a large brass bell over her head and rang it. Its peals were met with more cheers.

“A round on the Colsons!” she shouted, and the piano rejoiced.

I watched it all with a growing warmth. The thrill in the room—I’d never seen a thing like it, not in the pubs of Scurry or in the ballrooms of Belavere City. Nothing existed in those places that could replicate this. They were, each one of them, a single piece of a larger joy.

Happiness swept through me. I let it.

I turned to Gunner. “Thank you for the rescue,” I said.

But he shook his head. “You’re stealin’ all my lines,” and he clinked his pint to mine.

Just then, Tess Colson climbed onto a chair behind the bar, and her voice rang out at a decibel that seemed supernatural. “QUIET!” she shouted, and it served to silence at least half the crowd. “Scottie! I’ll mash your head in if you don’t quit.”

Scottie, who’d once again commandeered the piano, saluted her with a wayward grin, then promptly fell off the bench.

“Right. The Union meetin’ is about to commence, and at least half o’ you aren’t an official member,” Tess said. The comment was met with resounding dissent. “But I’ve got no earthly hope in hell of movin’ you out o’ me pub. So, if you insist on stayin’, commit to shuttin’ your trap!”

There were a few brave or stupid souls among the wash who cheered or whistled in response. But upon the glare Tess issued, they soon fell quiet.

Patrick appeared behind the bar and helped his mother from the chair. It seemed she wobbled on her descent, though Patrick shielded it from view.

“Go on, Patty!” Gunner cheered drunkenly, and the crowd laughed. They looked to Patrick expectantly as he stood on the chair, then on the bar top.

And so did I. I marveled at the boy in that courtyard who had become this man—arresting and steadfast. I saw precisely what Kenton Hill must have seen in him. Someone unswerving.

I felt as though I understood it then—the toll paid to keep a place like Kenton Hill safe. To keep it aboveground and functioning. What wouldn’t one do, to preserve something so invaluable?

“I call to order this extraordinary meeting of the Miners Union of Kenton Hill. Tonight, we’ll be skippin’ formalities.”

His spectators bellowed.

Patrick’s eyes swept to me, held.

And I knew what he would do in the next moment. I shook my head and thought of Theo sitting somewhere in a corner, watching.

Patrick knelt down and held a hand out for me. “Do me the honor, Scurry girl.”

My hand shook. Whatever commendation I’d receive next would be undeserved. And would they see it on my face, when I stood before them all? Would they know that my intentions here hadn’t always been pure?

But Patrick’s fingers took mine, and Gunner’s hands hoisted me from behind. And suddenly I was standing beside Patrick, and the people of Kenton Hill were calling my name as a chant. My real name.

“Yesterday, Kenton Hill suffered a loss of four men. But we were also gifted the safe return of many more, the likes of which we Crafters have never seen. They went home yesterday evening to their families, slept in their beds, awoke this morning to a new day. And for that, we have exactly one person to whom we ought to give thanks.”

He spoke to them, but he looked at me. He lifted a glass of whiskey into the air. “First, we toast those fallen, Idia claim their souls.”

Glasses were hoisted into the air. They remained poised, waiting.

“Next, we toast our old Kenton, whose hills we have sworn to defend,” Patrick’s voice rang out as though he stood on a summit. It was reverent. Commanding. “And last, we toast Nina Harrow, who lifted an entire hill off our backs.”

I was deafened by cheers, all of it coalescing to a shrill ring. Patrick drank his whiskey, and his stare robbed me of breath.

He smiled. I smiled, too, more widely than I ever had. And he took me up in a kiss in front of everyone, giving in to whatever enslaved us right there on the countertop.

Sound came punching back, full of joy. The barriers between me and Patrick, between me and Kenton Hill, seemed in that moment entirely surmountable.

We would break into Belavere City and free our loved ones.

We would take down Lord Tanner, and I would never need to live in fear again. All problems could be rectified.

That evening was colored gold. It glinted from every corner, every eye. Patrick led me to a table with his brothers, Scottie, Briggs, and Otto, and I blushed as Donny made countless inquisitions about what Patrick and I had been doing upstairs all day.

“Playing checkers, were you?” he asked while the others jittered. “Cards? You can tell me if my brother don’t know how to keep a woman entertained, Nina. I’ll keep it in confidence.”

Finally, Patrick kicked the leg of Donny’s stool sideways. His brother went sprawling onto the floor, and the others broke into hysterics. “Fuck me, Pat! I was only askin’.”

“Ask her again,” he said. “I dare you.”

Donny sensibly kept his mouth shut.

The crowd eventually thinned, patrons tipping their caps or waving to me as they left. The night grew late when I saw Theo and Polly across the room again, still seated against that bay window, drinks untouched, expressions unchanged.

Theo stared a hole right through me, though his eyes flickered more than once to Patrick’s hand on my knee.

“I need to help my mother in the kitchens for a while,” Patrick said into my ear, and I resisted the urge to try to drag him upstairs.

“I can come,” I replied, turning toward him. Donny and Gunner were already standing, bidding the others goodnight.

Patrick shook his head. “No need,” he said.

“But I’ll be at your door later.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek.

It could have been a gentlemanly gesture, except for the way he lingered, except for the words skating across my skin.

“And you’d better let me in. I might break my neck crawlin’ in through that window. ”

I laughed and let him leave without argument. I watched him rebutton his waistcoat and follow his brothers behind the bar, all while two pairs of eyes lanced me from afar.

It seemed there was a conversation that wouldn’t keep till morning.