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But it appeared Theo had already done so. He held up a glass with only dregs at its bottom. “I took the liberty,” he explained, and downed the final swill.

Gunner eyed the cords in Theodore’s neck in a hungry way. “You know what you need, Teddy? A woman. Or a man, if you’re so inclined. Work out some o’ that hum in your drum.”

“Gunner,” I reproached, tensing.

But Patrick squeezed my leg. “Let it be,” he said very softly.

And was it my imagination, or did Patrick nod ever-so-slightly in Gunner’s direction?

“What say you, Teddy? We can rent you a warm body for the night. My treat.”

The other men laughed. Polly went rigid. Surreptitiously, Patrick maneuvered me onto the chair by his side.

“Whores and bluff,” Theo nodded, staring into the depths of his glass. “Your favorite remedies, Gunner, are they not?”

The table quieted, surprised. I gathered it was unlike Theo to respond at all.

“Tell me, do you take the whore first, or the bluff? Can’t imagine you can even keep yourself upright if you take the bluff first, let alone anything else.”

Scottie, Briggs, and Donny hooted, but Gunner’s cheeks had lost their pallor. His eyes flitted to Patrick and away.

“I heard your wife just walked out on you,” Theodore continued. I wondered if the liquor had made him stupid. “My condolences. Was it the whores? Or did the bluff make you limp?”

Theodore had turned to face Gunner head on, as though welcoming that first punch. An invitation to swing back. He waited; the table held its collective breath. Patrick rose from his seat.

But Gunner only smiled. It was small at first, but then widened.

Soon he was laughing heartily, his head thrown back.

The others joined tenuously, and Gunner caught Theodore in a headlock, mussing his neatly combed hair.

“We’re all whores, Teddy,” he barked, his good humor sending another wave of hysteria ricocheting down the table.

“That should be your first lesson. Take my advice, don’t ever let marriage enter your mind. ”

Gunner shunted Theo into a seat and passed him another drink, though his fingers wedged deeply into Theo’s shoulder, and he sent a deliberate look down to Patrick, gauging his response.

I thought I saw Patrick shake his head.

It was a while longer before I realized I’d been holding my breath.

For a time, the night drew on with a forced sort of peace.

The men continued their banter and drank a shocking amount of ale, but none so much as Theo, who refilled his pint twice as often.

He offered nothing in the conversation but stared openly at me or Polly or Patrick.

And though the group must have appeared chummy to anyone on the outside, it seemed to me a silent war was being waged.

Gunner made increasingly hostile jokes and slapped Theo on the back with more vigor than was necessary. Patrick waited with interminable patience, but not without tension, and Polly and I were silent, like children about to be punished. We traded glances. We were sitting on a ticking time bomb.

Pints kept arriving at the table. Every now and then, I drank one to dull the hostility in the air. I had now shifted myself out of Patrick’s reach completely. It seemed Theodore marked my every move.

Donny was the only salve. He nattered incessantly with one anecdote or another, the stories growing more grandiose with the liquor.

“… and then, to that man I said, ‘I’ll challenge you to a game of darts. If you win, I’ll pay your tab.

But if I win, I get to take your mother upstairs with me.

’ Now, I ain’t ever seen his mother of course—”

“Lucky for him, you ain’t ever seen a fuckin’ bullseye, either,” Otto yawned.

“I can throw darts as good as any,” Donny slurred. “Just point me at the board.”

Otto shook his head. “No way. I ain’t makin’ any bets with you tonight.”

“Ah, come on. What about Gunner then?”

Gunner chuckled darkly. “Not a chance.”

Donny pouted. “Teddy will throw darts with me, won’t you, Teddy?”

Theodore’s eyes were riddled red, his head wobbled on his neck as he turned to the call of his name. “What are we playing for?”

“How about this,” Donny said, growing more animated. “If I win, you go wipe that fuckin’ scowl off your face, save the rest of us from it. I can’t even see, and I know it’s there.”

Otto and Gunner chortled into their drinks.

“All right,” Theo said. “And if I win, I’ll take your mother up to my room with me. How about it, Donny?”

A taut silence abruptly descended, and I thought the pint in Gunner’s hand might splinter. His knuckles had turned white along the handle. The other men traded dark glances, their eyes swiveling back and forth between the Colson brothers. Patrick’s stare, however, had solidified.

Donny, by contrast, was overjoyed. He bounced with excitement. “Ah, he’s got spirit, Pat! See, I told you he didn’t have a stick up his arse.”

Theo’s jaw ticked.

“Come on, then,” Donny cajoled, standing in place. “Someone turn me round the right way.”

Moments later, Donny was facing a corkboard tacked to the barn wall, his fist full of darts. The patrons had made a path, and those closest seemed strangely unconcerned, despite the drunken blind man holding sharp missiles he intended to throw.

The first three, shockingly, landed on the board, albeit with mediocre scores. “Let’s have it then, Teddy,” Donny said, and Theodore stepped forward.

His gait was very obviously unsteady. I’d lost count of the drinks he’d consumed.

He didn’t look at Donny as he readied himself before the dartboard.

He stared at me, who stood against a beam to better see, and at Patrick, who hadn’t bothered to stand at all.

“I look forward to knowing Mrs. Colson a lot better,” he said, and the whole barn held its collective breath, awaiting a rebuttal.

I stepped in. “Theo, stop it.”

But he held up a silencing finger in my direction. “Just a friendly match between men, Nina.”

Patrick said nothing. He picked up his drink, gestured for Theo to get on with it. “Throw your darts, Teddy.”

Theodore’s eyes flashed. He threw with violence. Two darts hit a twenty. One missed the board.

“How’d he do?” Donny questioned. “Someone tell me the score.”

“Forty to twenty-one,” a gruff voice called. “The swank leads.”

The game continued, Theo throwing with middling results but Donny throwing worse. Twice he missed the board completely and once struck the wall an inch from someone’s head.

“Sorry, sorry!” Donny hollered at the shriek of yet another woman. “Teddy! Do your worst.”

Theodore took the darts from the board, but instead of taking his shot, he sauntered over to where I watched, the lip of his shoes dragging. “Blow on these for me, would you, Nina?” he asked, the words laced in poison. “For luck.”

Well-versed as women often were with men and liquor, I knew better than to prod. Some of them turned into bulls, scoping for red. It was best not to move too quickly, not to say too much. Theo was fraying quickly. I pressed my lips firmly together, begged him silently to stop.

“Go on,” he said, more forcefully now. “Blow.”

And I felt Patrick stand from his seat, the chair scratching a path in the dust.

Quickly, I blew on the darts in Theodore’s palm, a simple action made somehow degrading.

And Theodore gave Patrick a satisfied smile.

He held his stare. See , he seemed to say.

It hurts to watch, doesn’t it? He threw the darts in quick succession.

Triple elevens and a bullseye. The onlookers clapped and caterwauled.

“She’s quite the lucky charm, don’t you think?

” Theo said now, turning back to Patrick.

He picked up another pint from the nearest table.

“Willing, too. Always has been,” he winked at me, but his sights quickly returned to Patrick, who remained standing, his hands in his pockets, face indecipherable.

Except for his eyes, which had turned glacial.

“Has she blown on anything of yours yet, Colson?” Theo continued, ignoring the blood in the air. “You need only ask her to.”

A cold, sick hurt filled me. A thousand gentle touches and soft words from years past, now broken.

A hush followed Theo’s rambling, broken only by the sound of Gunner’s pistol falling heavily onto a tabletop. He regarded Theodore hungrily. “Just say the word, Pat.”

But Patrick’s head was tilted to me. His eyes trickled down to my hands—fisted and aching. “Take your turn, brother,” he said evenly to Donny. He didn’t spare Theo a glance. “One hundred and eighty to win it.”

Theo grinned his drunken grin, but beneath it was a landscape of boiling anger. He barely paid attention to Donny’s smirk, the way the man stumbled toward the dartboard, the lazy lift of his arm.

One, two, three, the darts flew, landing precisely where they needed to. Perfect triple twenties splitting the cork. A miraculous win.

The spectators cheered, slapping Donny’s back.

Patrick collected a pint. He stalked casually toward Theo, who backed away several steps, mouth agape.

Patrick pushed the glass into Theo’s chest. I did not miss the vigor with which it was done, or the way half the liquor slopped over Theo’s clean shirt.

“Have another,” he told Theo. “It’ll take the sting out of it. ”

“Fuck you,” Theodore spat, so filled with unspent rage I feared he might implode. His fists shook. He breathed heavily through his teeth.

“Yeah,” Patrick said slowly. “It’d feel good, wouldn’t it? To take a swing? Don’t ever seem to find the courage, though, do you, Teddy?”

Patrick set the glass on the table and leaned down to speak into Theo’s ear. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll give you a free shot, right here in front of her. Show her you’re a big man. Get it out of your system. But I don’t promise to be in control of what happens after that.”

The moment hung there, free for the taking, but it seemed Theo had finally had enough.

With one last furious glare, he left with his tongue tucked into one cheek, with red ears and smoke fuming from his nostrils.

He pushed through the crowd. I could just barely make out his dark hair quickly receding into the night.

And I followed.

I had to run to catch him. He kept up a frenetic pace down the lane. “Theo!” I called. And if he heard me he didn’t show it. He passed the tea shop and turned a corner. “Theo, wait .”

I caught his shoulder, and he turned so abruptly that I flinched.

“ What? ” he asked, swaying where he stood. “What do you want from me, Clarke?”

“ Harrow ,” I said in frustration, breath collecting in short, sharp gusts.

“Ah, yes, the girl from Scurry.” His eyes dragged over my sullied clothes and smudged face. He shook his head and said. “I barely recognize you.”

“And I, you.”

We stared at each other for a long time, both of us trying to piece back together a version of the other that had only existed before the world made us mean and full of fault.

“ You left me ,” I told him, my voice heavy with old pain. “ You broke us. And you may have come to regret it, but I do not owe you sympathy for whatever pain you feel now.” I did not cry for him. I had purged him from my heart years ago. “If you want to hurt me, then—”

“Do you love him?” Theo asked, his voice quaked. “I heard you, in the tunnel. Have you honestly fallen in love with him?”

“I—I have a job to do,” I said. “That’s all.”

But whatever Theo saw on my face told him otherwise. He nodded, laughed dryly, trembled. “He’ll kill you, Nina,” he told me. “And when the barrel of his pistol is pressed between your eyes, you’ll wish you’d listened to me. You’ll wish you’d never discarded what we had.”

I remembered those last weeks in the Artisan school, clutching desperately to his fading promises while he did his best to ignore me. “We were only children, Theo. I hardly remember what we had.” Blood pulsed in my ears. “But I bet you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to forget.”

I watched Theo’s eyes bulge, watched a delicate puce climb his neck and mottle his face. I watched him kick a dustbin as he passed it and stalk away into the dark. I watched him until he became dim and distant.

I exhaled in a gust. Clutched my sides.

“Don’t think any man could ever recover from that,” said a voice, and I turned to find Patrick in his coat.

He leaned against brick render, his arms crossed at the chest. “Might as well’ve run him through with a blade.

” It was said casually, but his eyes were assessing.

I could feel them peeling back my layers.

My stomach fluttered. “You were listening?”

“Only to the finale,” he said slowly. “I promise.” He came toward me slowly, hiding his hands in his pockets. “You all right, Scurry girl?”

I nodded, somewhat weakly, and closed my eyes. “Will you take me back to Colson’s?” Tears choked the column of my throat.

“Whatever you want, darlin’,” he said. He lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles. “Always.”