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The bangs and blasts wrenched me from unconsciousness.

My neck tilted at an uncomfortable angle. A splintering pain pulsed behind my right eye. My back reclined over something solid and unforgiving—ration sacks. The confines of the bunker began to free themselves from the dark.

I was underground again. Beneath a grate, most likely.

I forced my reluctant hands to search along the gritty floor, forced my knees to crawl until I found a wall. My hands searched each crevice of mortar until they found a lantern. I pulled its cord and blinked against the sudden relief of light.

I was alone. And trapped. The bunker cover above was firmly in place. When I tried to push it away, it did not budge.

And beyond it, the fighting raged on. It shook the brickwork, shook the lantern in its sconce. And at every shot, I pictured Otto, Scottie, Briggs, Donny. I pictured Gunner. Patrick. They could all be dead. How long had I been unconscious?

With a grunt of frustration, I hit the timber that fortified the ceiling and was surprised when it shuddered in response.

The bunker cover turned an inch, and the timber shuddered some more.

I backed away in time for the cover to lift away completely, and the faces of two strangers hovered above, their eyes frenzied.

One of them had blood dribbling from his lip. Both wore the Artisan military insignia on their lapels.

“It’s the earth Charmer!” one said. He had a Western accent, clipped and precise.

“Thank Idia,” said the other. He even smiled.

And though I despised myself, I covered my ears against the noise and said, “Help me, please. My name is Nina Clarke.”

The town square had turned into a smoldering mess. I blinked at the walls of smoke, tried to grasp the movement all around. It seemed the entire world was churning. Thousands of bodies colliding and melding and separating.

“Keep moving,” commanded the soldier, voice at my ear. “We’ll have you safely away into the tunnel, Miss Clarke. Keep your head down.”

Death was everywhere. Another body hit the pavement every second. Bayonets sprouted through backs and necks and stomachs. A spray of bullets weaved through the navy uniforms.

I saw it unfolding in horrific slowness. Through the smoke, rooftops gave way.

The Crafters were losing.

“Hurry, miss!”

What use were shells and pistols and ticking mines against thousands of soldiers?

Kenton Hill couldn’t win. It was plain to see. Somewhere in the chaos, I saw Gunner’s arm swing wildly, a blade in his grasp. His eyes were deadened, his teeth gritted. I realized that he must have discerned, surely, that it was all hopeless.

But they would all keep fighting. The Miners Union would bleed themselves dry into the square to keep the Lords’ Army from filtering outward for as long they could.

They would place themselves in the way of these soldiers and their families, their neighbors, and give them time to run.

Many would make it to the tunnels, to safety.

That was all they could hope for now.

I saw Gunner’s head descend below the fray and let loose a sob. I prayed that Patrick was still in Baymouth, far away.

The doors to Margarite’s materialized through the smoke, its windows shattered, the strange wooden mannequins riddled through.

“Get inside, miss,” said the soldier at my back, his breath saturated in fear. In urgency. A stray bullet hit the last remaining window at our side.

But a different sound was growing. Something that quelled the booms and bangs of the square. It was enough to halt the scream of the artillery. I turned abruptly, as did every pair of eyes, and they each settled on a glinting wall of glass.

No, not glass. Water.

It grew and morphed into a monstrous mass above. Swallowing the rooftops to the south. Smothering the flames. Coursing closer at a tremendous speed.

And the men began to run. They ran to the perimeter of the square and curled their bodies like snails or else bashed at the confines that imprisoned them beneath this wave. It skirted the southern rooftops.

And I closed my eyes before the water hammered down.

For several manic moments, the only sound was a violent rush of water.

It ripped the hand from my shoulder, knocked limbs in every direction.

I was being carried, rolled, spun head over heel.

I felt my bones strain against that which they collided with.

And I only had enough sense to hold my breath. To shut my eyes.

I was discarded onto the cobbles. Limp, bruised, panting. The water dispersing supernaturally, as quickly as it had arrived.

I coughed among the cacophony of a thousand coughs, tried to make sense of that which had become senseless.

I was dizzy. Displaced. There was a man lying across my stomach who I feared was dead.

He did not flinch as I crawled out from under him.

All around, soldiers and Crafters lifted their heads, peeled themselves off shop fronts and away from broken glass.

Through the square’s brick arch, three figures emerged.

I could have distinguished them in less favorable conditions. Even in the night, amid the haze of steam, I knew these men.

Patrick. Theodore. Donny.

Theodore walked forward on legs that looked unwilling, exhausted, but it was Patrick that I watched. He stalked to the middle of the square, his shoulder blooming red. And he stood alone.

Then, horrifyingly, he held a pistol to his own head.

There was sudden movement from my left, a man standing. Gunner. “Patty,” he called brokenly. Gunner held on to his stomach, where a wound bled profusely. He stumbled. “Patty, what’re you—”

Patrick looked once to Gunner, and his face crumpled slightly, but he looked quickly away. With a thunderous voice, he bellowed, “I am Patrick Colson, the last remainin’ Alchemist,” and he pulled from his pocket a black rock, no bigger than his palm.

More men stirred. Many in navy uniform stood unsteadily. They raised their weapons.

But the terranium rock was instantly recognizable. So coveted in recent months. It stayed them. Patrick let the rock rise from his fingertips, let it float high above them all, and pulverized it. It turned to powder and fell to Patrick’s feet.

The Lords’ infantry seemed to pause collectively. Barrel ends wavered. Soldiers looked warily to one another.

Patrick did not lower the pistol from his head.

“If you leave this town now, with no further fight, I will go with you willingly.” His hand around the pistol tightened.

“But if another bullet is fired at any man or woman of Kenton Hill, I will pull this trigger, and the water Charmer behind me will fill this entire square.”

“No,” I muttered, though I could not seem to fish oxygen from the air. I tried to rise to my feet, but there was a long cut on my thigh. It burned fiercely, and I stumbled. “NO!” I yelled.

And he heard it. He found me in that mess of bodies, fallen and battered. His eyes welled. His jaw pulsed.

And he shifted his eyes away again. “ Leave now ,” he said again. “And my soldiers will lay down their guns—”

“No, Pat!” Gunner shouted, blood seeping through his fingers.

“—and they will vacate this square.”

“PATRICK!” I shouted.

“They will not try to stop you from taking me.” His hand shook. His chest quaked. “But hear this! I will gladly shoot myself now if another of my own is struck down. Don’t think I won’t use this second to do it. Stand down.”

There was confusion from soldier and Crafter both.

“STAND DOWN!” called Patrick, and he cocked the hammer.

A general with ranking stripes on his uniform moved forward slowly. He held his bayonet in one hand, its barrel skyward. His other hand was raised, placating. His eyes were pinned to Patrick. “Easy,” he said, and then over his shoulder. “Hold your fire.”

It seemed unnecessary. Every fighter was washed up. Half the ones still standing had lost their weapon or seemed unsure whether to point it at a man with a gun to his own head.

Otto had risen from the lot. He hobbled to Gunner’s side, tried to pull him back.

“Direct your men to retreat,” said the general to Patrick. “And I’ll do the same.”

My eyes were glued to that pistol at Patrick’s temple. I felt suddenly, horribly sure that he meant what he said. That he’d rather shoot himself here than see the rest of Kenton Hill burn.

He’d rather give himself in to the Artisans.

“No,” I whispered. Standing. Falling.

“All miners,” Patrick called, and his voice wavered. He closed his eyes but kept the gun poised. “To the hills. To your families. Now.”

It happened in painful increments. The surviving fighters of Kenton Hill rose. Some hoisted injured comrades over their shoulders. Others ran without looking back.

“GO!” Patrick bellowed to those more stubborn. “NOW!”

And perhaps they saw the desperation in his face.

Perhaps they saw, then, this last gift Patrick had granted them.

A thread of victory, the smallest of consolations.

Patrick held the pistol steadfast. “Tell your men to get back into the fuckin’ hole they came from,” Patrick seethed.

“Or you’ll be tellin’ Tanner it was all for naught. ”

The general gestured to his soldiers, a silent command.

Slowly, they slunk back through the doors of Margarite’s, their boots crunching over the glass.

Warily, each retreated, miner and soldier, with red-rimmed eyes and blood on their hands.

They took the wounded with them, and the square emptied.

The Lords’ Army dwindled to a small legion.

And I saw Theodore slink away, back into the shadows of the alley he’d come from, his eyes to the ground, as though he could not bear to meet anyone’s gaze.

But Gunner refused to move. Otto remained at his side and was joined by Scottie, his eyebrow split, and Briggs, whose ear hung in bloody tatters, and Donny, who touched his forehead to Gunner’s.

Scottie laid down his weapon first. Then the rest. They peeled the rifle from Gunner’s unwilling fingers, and the man let out a gut-wrenching yell.

I rose from the ground, then ran across the cobbles, unbalanced on my injured leg, past the general and all the way to Patrick, who did not react when I crushed myself to him, closing my arms around his middle.

I clutched him as a drowning person clutches a raft. I shook and shivered and dug my fingers in. I sobbed and thought they’d need a knife to cut me away.

I thought, At least they’ll take us both.

But when I looked up into Patrick’s face, he did not look back. He looked over me, away from me. The pistol remained at his temple and when he spoke, his voice was ice-cold. “Run,” he said, and then, more brokenly. “Now.”

And I didn’t understand it, at first. Didn’t recognize the hurt, the hatred. Not until his fingers curled over mine and ripped them harshly from his coat. He pushed me away. “Go,” he said once more. “Theo will find you.”

There was a resolve in his face, the one a convicted man wears as the noose pinches tight.

But I shook my head. “No,” I said.

And I heard him curse as I turned my back. Heard him call to me as I took a step toward the general. “My name is Nina Clarke,” I said loudly, and I watched recognition dawn as he took in the sight of me. “The earth Charmer.”

“Traitor!” Gunner thundered, his eyes streaming. Scottie and Otto held him back at either side.

But the general nodded. Two soldiers came toward me. They grasped my upper arms.

“Lower the gun now, boy,” the general called to Patrick. “Throw it to the ground.”

I looked over my shoulder in time to see Patrick lift the pistol off his temple, only to point it directly at the general.

Several things happened at once.

The remaining soldiers raised their weapons.

A blade flashed in Gunner’s hand.

And Patrick said, very clearly. “You’ll take me alone and let the earth Charmer go.”

The general looked from Patrick to me, his hands still raised. “We’ve orders to bring her back to the House of Lords,” he said. “Alive.”

“Then you’ll be breaking those orders,” Patrick said. “Now, tell your men to let her go.”

The general seemed to deliberate for a long moment. Then, he sighed, and said, “I’ll at least thank you for removing that pistol from your head.”

And the gun was wrenched from Patrick’s hand, as though something invisible pulled it. It fired once as Patrick tried to keep his grasp around its trigger, but the bullet only shattered a far-off window.

The pistol flew into the general’s hand. He smiled at it. “We’ll be taking you both,” he said.

“No!” Gunner roared, and he made to lunge at the officer, but the blade in his hand turned on him, and the wound it made buckled him in half.

“Gunner!” Patrick shouted.

“Tell your men not to be foolish,” the Smith said. “The fight’s over.”