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Patrick was gone before I woke again. There was a note on the nightstand that proclaimed I’d earned a day’s rest.

Stay in bed , it said. I’ll return before sundown.

A tempting offer, but despite the soreness of my muscles and the reluctance of my eyelids, I needed to find Polly and Theo.

Polly answered on the first knock and hurried me inside her room. Identical, for the most part, to mine, only with wallpaper of holly and thistle.

There was a frenzied look about her. I suspected she, too, had managed little sleep in the night.

“What did you find?” she asked in a hushed whisper. Her nails bit into my hands.

“We should fetch Theo first,” I said, looking back at the door.

“He’s already out. I knocked on his door not a minute ago, and he didn’t answer. Tell me, what did you find?”

“Bluff,” I said quietly. My eyes flickered to the walls as though they were made of paper, and could fall to expose us at any moment. “Stores of it. They must be bringing it in from Dunnitch.”

Polly exhaled in a gust, released my hands.

She glowed with relief. “Thank God,” she breathed, wiping sweat from her forehead.

“I just received this.” From her pocket she pulled a freshly folded sheet of parchment and handed it to me.

On it, a neat line of ink said Attack imminent.

Provide safest route urgently, as ordered by the House.

“They’re growing impatient,” Polly breathed. “Nina, I must reply. If I don’t, they’ll assume I’m dead, or a traitor. That’s the deal. I always reply.”

“Tell them we have a lead on Domelius Becker,” I said, hands shaking, the ink smudged beneath my fingers. “They’ll wait.”

Polly shook her head. “It would buy us a day or two. And it isn’t true, is it? How do you plan to find him?”

I wrung my hands together. “What Scribbler crannies do you write to in Dunnitch?” I asked. “Is there anyone there that Patrick corresponds with regularly? Think. ”

Polly screwed her eyes shut; she pushed her fists against them. “There are several,” she groaned. “You cannot possibly search each address there.”

“What else do you propose?” I asked, my own voice swelling.

Polly’s lip quivered. “I—I can forge a scribble,” though she seemed ill at the thought of even suggesting it. “I’ll send a message to Patrick saying there’s been some sort of trouble with the Alchemist, and that he should come. Then we can watch him.”

I shook my head. “I can’t just follow him. He’d notice.”

“I don’t see what other choice you have,” she said. “I admit, it might not work.”

“And if he leaves Kenton Hill without telling me? Or sends someone else?”

Polly sighed. “He’ll ask me to send a scribble ahead of time, naming the time of the arrival and who should be arriving. I won’t know who I’m sending it to, obviously, but if he intends to dispatch someone else, I’ll know.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then you and I are out of luck,” Polly said quietly. “Along with the rest of the parish.”

We stood there staring at each other, then at the sheet of parchment in her hand. “This is our last chance, Nina.”

Panic swarmed in my chest. “Polly, it’ll be all right.”

She shook her head. “There are a million ways for this to go wrong,” she mumbled, fear splitting the words. “This is suicidal.”

I caught her hand to cease her pacing. “The House wants idium, Polly, that’s all. We need only tell them where Becker is, and we’ll have saved the entire town.”

“And what, exactly, do we intend to do if the Colsons figure us out?” Tears rolled down Polly’s cheeks, spilled over her lip. “Even if we run, we’ll be hunted.”

I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and felt her hang on to me. For a moment we stood there again, just like we had before the war began. “There’s a way out of this,” I said for the both of us. We who had found ourselves the playthings in a man’s war game. “I promise you.”

“And if there’s not?”

And herein lay the truest test. “Then you’ll need to choose your next course.” I told her. “But I think I’ve had enough running for one lifetime.”

She nodded, then went to a small rickety desk. She took a piece of parchment and shoved it into the pocket of my skirt. “Keep this hidden,” she said. “And listen for my scribble.”

“When will you write to Patrick?”

Polly grimaced. “He has a Scribbler’s cranny in his mother’s kitchen, but he won’t check it until day’s end. I’ll wait until then.”

I nodded.

“What of Theo?” Polly asked then, hands wringing. “I expect he’ll burst through my door any moment, and demand that I give Tanner the route here.”

I turned to the door in question. “I’ll deal with Theo.”

In the pub, Briggs and Scottie were swallowing coffee at an alarming rate, and Theo was nowhere to be seen. Their miner’s overalls told me where they were headed.

“Is Theo visiting Margarite with us today?” I asked them.

“I bloody well hope so,” Briggs asked, donning his cap. “We’ll break under the Gyser River soon, and I don’t much feel like drownin’ in a hole.”

“He isn’t in his room.” I frowned. “I thought I might find him here.”

Scottie scowled. “Well, he must be waitin’ with Margarite, then.”

But Theodore wasn’t waiting for them in the square, or inside the shop, or down the shaft.

“If Gunner finds that kid shirkin’, he’ll wring the poor bastard’s neck,” Briggs grunted when the lift doors clanged open.

“Perhaps he didn’t hear you knockin’ at his door, Nina,” Scottie mused. “Must have one hell of a sore head this mornin’.”

“That makes us a pair,” Briggs grumbled.

I scowled down at the gaping darkness of the tunnel. I pictured Theo as he had been the night before, stumbling away into the night.

“Ain’t much point in havin’ you down here today, Nina,” Scottie said. “We can’t go no farther without hitting the edge of the Gyser. And we can’t burrow beneath without Teddy to control the water.”

“Go rest like Patty asked you to,” Briggs suggested, loading the mining cart with timber logs. “And if you see Theo, give him a clip round the head.”

I hurried alone back to Colson’s, the route now memorized, slow-moving dread bubbling in my chest. I intended to knock on the door of number thirteen again, perhaps kick it in.

But his expression from the previous night loomed in my mind, and I became sure I wouldn’t find him there.

I was suddenly horribly certain that I wouldn’t find him anywhere.

Only feet from the stoop of Colson & Sons, I halted on the cobblestones. In the dim of the nearest alley, a shadow moved. A man stubbed a cigarette out under his boot, then shifted ever so slightly into the daylight.

“Theo?” I threw a panicked glance over my shoulder, but Kenton thrummed on as normal. The trolley rattled past, and amid the clamor, I hurried into the recess between buildings where he stood.

“Where have you been?” I hissed.

He looked wretched. His face had somehow elongated in the night. He was unshaven, drawn, eyes bloodshot.

“Are you all right?”

He scoffed weakly. “Just grand.”

I glanced over my shoulder once more. We’d be easily seen here, without the cover of night. “Someone might see us.”

“Then I won’t keep you. Except to tell you goodbye.”

The dread bubbled to its peak. “Theo—”

“In truth, I should have left last night,” he continued. “But I’ve been delaying myself. I suppose I wanted to see you one last time.”

A lingering tendril of guilt swirled in my stomach.

“I can’t stand another day here, Nina.” He closed his eyes briefly. “And they’re coming for this place.”

“Theo, I’m sorry,” I blithered, snatching his sleeve when he tried to turn. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t choose—”

“Don’t,” he interjected, his voice a gavel. And I saw that bright burning pain beneath the surface. “I do want to tell you that I’m sorry for what I did last night. The way I spoke about you.”

I tried to take his hand, but he pulled it free. “Theo, you can’t leave now. We’ve found the Alchemist. He’s in Dunnitch .”

He froze, and I thought I saw a spark, the cogs behind his eyes turning again. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.” A lie, but one that would buy me time. “Polly and I will have his precise whereabouts within a matter of hours.”

“And then what?” Theo asked. “You’ll confront Tanner? Barter the Alchemist for your mother?”

“ Yes ,” I said abruptly. “He’ll make the trade, Patrick. There is nothing he cares about more than idium.”

Theo nodded skeptically. “You might be right.”

“I am.”

“And then he’ll send his soldiers into Dunnitch, and once they find Domelius Becker, the fire Charmers will leave it burning.

” Theo watched my expression carefully, saw the places where color bled away.

“But that’s better, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Something you’re more comfortable with, I suppose. Better Dunnitch than Kenton Hill.”

Bile slipped up my throat. He was right.

I’d been counting on the hope that another answer existed. Now, it seemed there was none that didn’t end in bloodshed.

“You’re slipping, Nina,” Theo shook his head. “You should have seen this coming.”

“These people don’t deserve to die, Theo,” I said weakly. “Tanner should be stopped.”

“Why shouldn’t it be the Miners Union instead?” Theo countered. “Or have you washed Patrick’s hands clean of all that blood?”

“And how many have died in the mines?” I said, my temper sparking.

“Did you ever know anyone who lost one of their limbs in a factory, Theo? Or ended up starving on the street? You never saw that toll before the strikes began.” My voice was getting louder, the fire in my chest swarming.

“You were in the city, always safe and fed. And I joined you up there in that ivory tower, in that fucking school.”

But Theo seemed to brush me off. “So, Patrick truly managed it, then,” he muttered. “And in record time.”

“Managed what ?” I hissed.

“To make a rebellion out of you” came the answer. “I wonder if it would’ve been different, if we could have been different, if I’d taken better care of you.”

“We’d have ended just the same,” I said. Because he was his father’s son, and I was forged in the brink long before he knew me.

He did not answer. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets and looked out into Main Street. “Would you do me one last favor? And before you say no, just remember I’ve spent the last two years in this place, all for the promise of seeing you again.”

I bit my tongue. “What’s the favor?”

“Encourage the Colsons not to come looking for me,” he said. “You’re quite impressive when it comes to persuading them.”

“How will you get out? It’s dangerous, Theo.”

“There’s a tunnel that runs northeast,” he said. “It’s short, and the Colsons rarely travel it. It will get me far enough that I can find a boat.”

“You… you won’t—?”

“Alert the House that you’ve abandoned your duty?” he asked. “No, Nina. I won’t get your mother killed. I’m not a monster.”

Tears collected in the corners of my eyes as I nodded. “The tide of this war is turning,” I warned. “Tanner can’t hold the House for much longer.”

“All the more reason for me to make myself scarce,” Theo said dryly. “Can you guess who will take Tanner’s place if he dies?”

Ice tripped down my spine, and he nodded his confirmation. “Lord Shop,” he uttered with a cold, dead acceptance. “So I’d best return.”

“Theo—”

“You think you know what you’re doing,” he said, already retreating down the alley. “But there will come a time, Nina, when you find yourself backed into a corner.” He looked over his shoulder at me one last time. “And I’ll be the only person left to free you.”