Chapter Twenty-Three
“You all smell like you’ve been dragged through horse shit and left out in the sun,” Nikola told us once we’d gone through her pamphlets together, gaining a better understanding of her vision for a world where no one owned Progress.
“Let’s get you cleaned up and sorted out.
We have a lot of work to do tomorrow to prepare for the exposition. ”
“We couldn’t impose,” Julian began. I wanted to wring his neck. We absolutely needed to impose, or I was going to walk into the Sterling River.
“It’s safest here, and all three of you look half dead.” Nikola, drawn to her full height, did not invite argument. “Bathe and rest so you can think straight. You first,” she said to me.
Considering the type of establishment below Nikola’s attic laboratory, it shouldn’t have surprised me to find such a well-appointed washroom. Nevertheless, I squealed when I saw the claw-foot tub.
Nikola let out a deep chuckle. “Has Julian taught you how to heat water?”
“He didn’t need to teach me; I knew how.” Even before my first official lesson, I’d taught myself on cold winter nights at the House when I’d seen other girls soaking in steaming tubs.
“Good. Because you’ll find it quite cold otherwise.”
Remembering the hot springs Ezra had taken me to, I smiled and dipped my fingers into the water. When I closed my eyes, it was easier to feel the volume of the water, the way it pressed back at me with a chill. I eased radiance through it. “Careful not to come too close,” I cautioned in a whisper.
“Of course. Water is a conductive material.” Nikola had come closer.
I opened my eyes to see her watching, her eyes glinting with curiosity. Pale blue light shimmered through the water in pulses. I’d never considered how beautiful it was.
“I imagine if I touched the bathwater right now, your concentrated radiance would stop my heart.”
“Likely,” I said, cringing at the very notion. My eyes widened as I recalled how often we were told not to heat water for tea or boiling potatoes. “Oh. It’s only now occurring to me why we’re cautioned against cooking with radiance.”
“Incredible,” Nikola said. “At least someone considered the fact that illness from consuming radiance-laden food would be much more obvious than the slow spread of the wasting.”
Before the water became uncomfortably hot, I drew my hand and my radiance out.
“Perfect,” I exclaimed, already shucking my travel-worn clothes.
We’d bathed together for years at the House, and I had no shame being unclothed in front of another girl.
Even if this particular girl was nearly too pretty to look at.
Nikola eyed the pile of clothes I’d left on the floor. “I’d lend you something to wear tomorrow, but I’ve got nothing that will fit you. I’ll have these washed, and Julian can dry them.”
“Thank you. The drying, I haven’t quite figured out. I’d likely end up setting my trousers on fire.”
“Keep practicing. You’re capable,” Nikola said easily, as if she had no cause for doubt.
“Why do you do that?” I asked, as I sank into the water with a hiss. It lapped at my skin as I eased myself down. Every inch of my body was far sorer than I wanted to admit. I kept my healing blisters above the water as long as I could and grimaced when the water touched the raw, sore places.
“Do what?” Nikola asked absently as she rummaged through a cabinet beside the bath.
“You believe I can do things when you don’t even know me,” I said.
Nikola tipped a little vial of oil into the water. The scent of roses filled the washroom. “What reason have you given me not to believe you can, as you say, ‘do things’?”
I blinked as the steam curled up at my face. When I swirled the water, beads of oil danced along the surface. “None, I suppose. But I haven’t proven myself to you.”
She took a brush from the little table beside the tub and ran it through her long hair, paying close attention to the ends. “Regardless, my sentiments shouldn’t matter.”
“They do,” I admitted. Keen to avoid any response to that, I dipped my hair under the water and surfaced sputtering.
Nikola handed me a sliver of soap. “Don’t wait for people to believe in you, or you’ll die waiting.”
Working the soap into my unruly hair gratefully, I considered her words.
I wanted to matter. I wanted to be trusted, admired, believed in.
I always had, whether I’d been able to admit it to myself or not.
But those urges had made it easy for the House of Industry to control me and influence my way of thinking.
I’d fought so hard to follow the rules and prove myself worthy.
But the alternative—simply believing in myself—sounded lonely. And impossible. Especially when the greatest strength I seemed to have was channeling my anger into violence.
“I see you frowning. It isn’t an equation; it’s a process.
You won’t sort it out tonight.” Nikola stood.
“I’m going to tell the boys to carry fresh hot water up for their turn.
When you’re finished, you can wear this to bed,” she said, draping a long-sleeved cotton gown over the chair beside the tub.
When she left me alone, I spent a bit longer in the water, reheating it in increments as I used the soap to scour every bit of my body.
I hadn’t felt entirely clean since leaving Sterling City, and on our journey from Cascade, I’d felt positively filthy.
My skin glowed a harassed shade of pink when I finally toweled off and pulled on the long nightgown.
The hem trailed on the ground and followed me like a bridal train when I left the washroom.
I’d already become so accustomed to the goings-on in the gambling hall that, at first glance, I didn’t pay any mind to the boy kissing another boy frantically against the wall.
Then I recognized the shape of the boys.
Ezra’s hands mapping the tense lines of Julian’s back, Julian’s long fingers in Ezra’s hair, pinning him in place.
Heart racing, I held my breath, feeling warmer than I had in the bath.
I’d never watched anyone kiss before. I wondered if I looked like that—wild and hungry and a little frightened.
When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I sucked in a small gasp, and they both froze before springing apart. I had the decency to look down at the scuffed wooden floor as they sorted themselves out, smoothing down their clothes and whatever else had grown unruly.
“You’ll need to fetch fresh water.” I found myself babbling, too flustered to dart away gracefully. “Ezra, I wish you could heat it over and over like we can. It feels like the hot spring.”
“You took her to the hot spring,” Julian intoned.
“It’s scenic,” Ezra said, laughing—and a little breathless.
I tried to make my escape, sliding by them in a hurry, but Ezra took my billowing sleeve.
When I stopped, questioning with a glance, he pressed his lips to my cheek.
It wasn’t quite a kiss, but it wasn’t … not a kiss either.
“You smell good,” he murmured, breathing on my skin, before humming my name ever so softly.
When he let me go, I tried not to trip over my nightgown.
My face tingled absurdly where his mouth had touched me.
“Come on. Let’s get you some hot water,” Julian said, tugging Ezra down the hall. “Though I think you ought to have a cold bath.”
When I glanced up, worried Julian was cross with us, I saw him failing to hide a small smile.
Relief washed over me. Though none of us had discussed the way we’d braided ourselves together, it made sense in my heart.
And seeing Julian’s fond amusement, I had a feeling it was starting to make sense to him, too.
Feeling feverish myself, I ducked into the room where we’d be sleeping.
Needing suspiciously little convincing from Nikola, a cheerful brunette named Columbia agreed to stay in Nikola’s bed to give the three of us space to rest. Her room was small, but the bed was big.
She’d stripped the sheets and replaced them with one large clean blanket.
After our days and nights traveling, I’d never seen anything as welcoming.
Even with all the swaths of fussy lace hanging from the walls and ceilings and the strong scent of perfume that lingered on everything, it felt cozy.
Taking advantage of the time by myself, I leaped onto the mattress and spread my arms and legs wide.
I filled as much of the bed as I could, my gaze on the circular water stains on the slatted ceiling above.
It was no mystery to me what people usually did on this bed, and the notion made my heart race.
Abruptly, I recalled the way Julian and Ezra had looked in the hallway.
Shivering, I tentatively ran my hands down the front of my nightgown the way Ezra’s fingers had stroked Julian’s back.
My touch felt like radiance, but there was no magic to this.
Only the simmering heat they’d left in me.
I chased that heat, curling onto my side and around my busy hand until my breath came fast and I had to press my face against the pillow to muffle the sounds I made.
When I was done, I rolled onto my back and drifted in a floaty daze, delighted to have learned an entirely new skill.
I was sprawled like that, my eyes having drifted shut of their own accord, when the door opened and Julian startled me awake.
“One bed,” he observed dryly.
I sat up, snapping my mouth shut to stop myself from laughing at the sight of Julian in a nightgown that certainly did not fit him. The thin white fabric stretched across his chest. He glowered.
“It’s a big bed,” I said, strained. At least he didn’t know how I’d passed the time waiting for them. “We can sleep head to feet if you prefer.”
“Why would I prefer that?” he asked in a way that did not invite me to answer. He crawled into the bed and took the edge, turning his back to me.
Flickering candlelight made the room feel quieter. I curled toward him, keeping my arms tucked against my chest. Daring to close the distance between us, I pressed my face against his back. It made me feel warm inside in a different way than touching Ezra did. “Julian.”
The muscles of his back twitched, but he didn’t inch away. “What?”
“Do you really believe what you and Nikola are creating can make the House of Industry obsolete?”
He nodded silently.
I’d sleep easy, then, with a better future on the horizon.
For that to come to be, their knowledge—their electricity—had to be shared far and wide, had to become a power in its own right.
And I believed that it would. I believed in Julian’s stubborn determination and the fierce resolve in Nikola’s eyes.
I was falling asleep again, my face close to the heat of Julian’s skin, when Ezra slipped into the room and blew the candles out, bathing us in darkness.
Watery orange light shone through a narrow window from the gaslights outside.
Ezra moved against my back, pressing his body close to mine and tucking his arm around me.
He found my hands with his own, so close that his knuckles brushed against Julian’s back.
When Julian’s breath caught, I shook my head slowly—a cautious nuzzle.
He relaxed in increments, until, with a soft sigh, he rolled to face me and tangled his fingers with ours.
I could feel his slow, steady breathing against my hair.
We said nothing, but now I was certain I could feel the strange warm buzz again—as if something within each of us wanted to communicate. To connect.
I was too exhausted to sort it out. For now we were safe. And we were together.