Chapter Four Nina
I was confined to a servants’ quarters, with yellow walls, a cot, and a neatly folded blanket. If there was ever any other furniture in the room, it had since been removed.
I stared for long hours at a map of Belavere Trench—all the provinces stitched together in a great tapestry. I wondered how long it had taken the Artisan to weave it, all for it to lay on this floor like any common rug, in a room that seemed a wardrobe.
The Gyser River ran down the map’s middle from wall to wall, splitting the richer provinces from the rest like Idia herself had meant it a blockade.
I raised my hand, the wound along my forearm now heavily bandaged, and traced in midair the path from Scurry to the city.
Down the belly of the Trench where I thought the train line went, around the farming towns, the black-brick factories, across the Gyser, and into pasture.
I did not look to Kenton Hill, a pinprick in the far northeast corner of the brink.
The door to the room was locked twice on the outside and opened three times a day for the purposes of keeping me fed, and, I presume, to ascertain I had not found a way to jump four stories to the courtyard below.
I counted three days since I’d arrived. I did not feel a scratch of idium left in my veins. Every so often I pounded on the door, frustration spilling over. Was it truly their intention to keep me locked away in this room until they had use of me?
I thought of Ma and Patrick and Gunner and Theo and Polly as though they spun on a carousel, blurring into soup. Sleep was no remedy—their faces hounded me there, too.
Where was my mother? What was Patrick doing this very moment? What of Theo? Had Gunner survived that knife between his ribs?
Where was Polly? For surely it was her who’d given away Margarite’s tunnel.
My finger was tracing the outskirts of Sommerland when the door rattled again, someone on the other side snicking the locks. The timber resisted as it opened.
This time, there was no maid or guard with a dish.
It was Theo.
There was a soldier behind him, baton already in hand, knees prepped as though he might lunge. Theo, contrastingly, looked ready to make a quick retreat.
I sat upright, not bothering to straighten my blouse or flatten my hair. I noted that there were no more binds around Theo’s wrists, that the guard’s eyes were trained on me and not him. I noted the Artisan blue Theo wore, the lapels as sharp as ever. His hair looked clean and freshly combed.
And I think he sensed my blood lashing hot. He stalked in, eyes averted.
“Hello,” he said, and then, in a ramble, “I came to see you yesterday, but you were sleeping.” He gestured to the bandage around my forearm, as though wishing to grasp at any topic to stave the silence.
“Have they changed your bandages today? Mine were redressed when I woke, but if no one has come yet—”
On he continued, hands clenched behind his back and voice warbling. I barely heard what he said, too absorbed I was by the high shine of his shoes, the crisp whiteness of his shirt, the emblem on his navy breast.
“—they haven’t much bluff on hand, but I could send for a tonic if—”
“You’re wearing Ministers’ robes,” I interrupted. My voice sharp, jolting.
His mouth opened and shut wordlessly, his ears reddening. I watched his throat bob, and he turned to address the guard instead of me. “Leave us, please.”
“Can’t do that,” the man said, jutting his chin in a manner of self-import. “Lord Shop said I was to stand by.”
“Then you can do so three paces from the door,” Theo said firmly. “And allow me some privacy.”
The guard seemed to contemplate, but in the end, straightened, replaced his baton at his belt. “Yes, my lord.” He walked out of sight.
I held Theo’s gaze, thought I saw contrition there. Shame. He seemed inches shorter. “My lord,” I repeated softly, and then my eyes swept to the window, the city beyond it. “So, you’ve returned to their side. Just like that?”
He sighed as though hollowing himself. He stepped one pace closer, looked where I looked, out to those enveloping rooftops. I wondered if they’d lost their luster for him as well. What had once appeared to me as beautiful now seemed blandly uniform. Generic.
We might have been contemplating the view in companionable silence if not for all the injury weeping between us.
He said, “I was always on this side, Nina.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “You saved them.” I closed my eyes and saw the collapsing walls of water putting out Kenton’s fires. “You came back when you could have kept going. You came back for Kenton, for all those people.”
“I came back,” he said, “for you.”
I swallowed.
“I—God… I left a note for Patrick after I spoke to you that day, in the alley. I told him you were looking to uncover the Alchemist.”
I turned to stare at him. A shiver of violence ran through me. “You exposed me?”
He paled, then nodded. “I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I… I was trying to hurt him.”
I gasped, turning my body from him so that he couldn’t see me crumble. Hadn’t he known the danger of implicating me? Had he really been so angry with me that he wished me harm?
Was I anything but a possession lobbed back and forth and scrapped over?
“For all you knew, I could have been executed.”
“That’s why I had to return. In the tunnel I had time to think, to come to my senses, and I realized what I’d done, what Patrick might do—”
I slapped him. My body whirled as I did so, my good arm hitting him with all my might.
He stumbled back, more shocked than injured, eyes welling.
The guard rushed in through the door, but Theo held up a hand to ward him off. “Go,” he said, and after a moment of hesitation, the guard disappeared.
Theo had the good sense to look down at his feet. “I’m so sorry, Nina,” he said. “Truly. I had to say it, even if you’ll never forgive me. I just wanted you to know that I came back for you, and when I saw the flames… all those people dying. I kept thinking you might be stuck in the cross fire.”
“You saved them because it was right,” I spat.
I saw the way he tried to glaze his mind in excuses.
But this wasn’t about me or him—there were things of greater significance.
“You can try to deny it and say you’re still on their side, but what you did for those Crafters was only what was moral and decent, and you know it.
” My hands shook. I twisted my fingers together and swallowed some emotion.
Desperation, perhaps. “You were prepared to die for them. That can’t have changed so quickly. ”
But here he stood in that blue three-piece suit and navy robe, and I felt, though I couldn’t explain it, that I was losing yet another critical piece of Theo, the one I knew to be good.
Theo’s tongue rolled around his mouth, as though testing the words to explain himself. “My grandfather was a Charmer of fire,” he offered. “Did I ever tell you that? And his father before him was a Mason. Quite a renowned one, actually.”
I said nothing. My eyes began to film over.
“But my father,” he said it with gravity, “is a mere Cutter of emerald.”
I looked up. Had I known that? Had I ever asked?
It seemed impossible, a mistake. Lord Terrence Shop was one of the most formidable persons I’d ever met.
I imagined someone of such persuasion to be of a higher rank.
But a Cutter? Cutters were novelties. They sold pretty jewels to wealthy gentlemen and ladies.
The made a nice living in useless remits.
“He was expected to do nothing great. The way he tells it, he was practically cast aside by his parents and professors. And yet, he graduated with high order, was ordained a few short years later as a minister for the House, the greatest honor any of our name had ever received, and all of it for a Cutter.” Theo’s shoulders rose and fell as he spoke, as though he were barreling toward something.
“And then it was my turn to siphon, and I was terrified. Terrified I’d be nothing, the dead end in a long succession of Artisanal distinction.
You cannot imagine my relief when I was named a Charmer, of all things. ”
“I was there,” I said then, seeing again a dark-haired boy in high attire, tipping water from a quivering glass.
Theo continued as though he hadn’t heard me speak.
“I thought I might stop being scared then, that my Charmer status alone might be enough to satisfy my family name. But my father had been made a Lord of the House without the advantage of a high-ranking medium, and if he could do that, then what might I, the Charmer, achieve?” Theo looked at me, and he was colorless.
“I was always going to end up here, Nina,” he said, as certain as death.
“My own wishes were never of any consequence.”
Tears fell freely now. Down my cheeks, over my lips. “Perhaps you didn’t hold much love for Kenton, or it for you—”
Theo scoffed. It was brittle.
“But for a moment, however brief, you wavered. Somewhere inside of you, you know the truth. This House, it’s a farce. Its lords serve themselves before all others and call it religion.”
“And the Miners Union kill and thieve and blow up buildings—”
“—to feed their parishes. To take back what’s owed to them.
” I stood, my hands itching to shake him, scratch him, to find the boy I knew beneath.
“You once had enough heart to admit that the scale was never even. Not all of us were born in this city. You had the advantage of waltzing through your childhood. Most of us crawled through it kicking and screaming.”
Theo looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. I wondered what he saw.
The silence extended.
“My father is expecting me,” he said. He looked to the door, then fervently at me.
“I’ve come to convince you—no, to beg you—to denounce the Miners Union.
Pledge yourself to Tanner.” His lip trembled at this last, his fists balled behind his back as though to stop them from reaching for me.
He looked out the window, Belavere spiraling out beneath us.
“Please,” he said, a tear shaking free of his lashes.
“Please, Nina. There isn’t another choice. ”
My hand lifted of its own accord. It brushed the droplet from his cheek.
“Even if you must… if you must pretend.” It became a mere whisper.
“Pretend to be repentant. Tanner needs you. He’ll forgive quickly.
The terranium stores are near empty. He won’t have you killed, but that doesn’t mean you won’t suffer, Nina.
I’m pleading with you. Do what must now be done.
” He took my wrist, leaned into the cradle of my hand, and closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “More sorry than you could know.” And he pressed his lips to the soft flesh of my palm.
Beneath the cuff of his robe I could see the white bandages, so similar to my own. The skin around his eye had turned a sickly yellow from its battering. Was he only pretending?
“Who sent you?” I asked him. I did not deliver it harshly, but took back my hand and stepped out of his reach. “Was it Tanner himself?” I asked. “Or another minister?”
He sagged slightly, shoulders rounding.
“Was there a deal made?” I pressed. “Will Tanner pardon your lapse if you set me straight?”
“I don’t need a pardon. My father is the second in command. He invented some excuse for my… lapse.” I watched cords pulsate from jaw to collar as he turned away. “You think so little of me now,” he said, and it was quiet, sad. “I can barely stand it.”
I couldn’t deny it. Couldn’t suddenly strip myself of the damage wrought.
He turned back then, eyes downcast, and from his pocket he took a piece of parchment, folded imprecisely. He tucked it into my hand and held on an extra second, squeezing my knuckles. “From your mother” was all he said. And then he quickly made for the door.
“Theo,” I called before he could close me in again. “Please. Who sent you?”
He grimaced. “No one,” he said. “I came because I wanted to.” He glanced down at his wrist, where his brand still hid beneath the dressings. “You have to take care of yourself now, Nina. Remember that.”
And then he was gone. The locks snatched closed in his wake.
I looked down at the parchment and saw that it was torn on one side. I unfolded it slowly.
The ink bled outward from every letter like the legs of an insect. Not a scribble, but a handwrought message in trembling cursive:
Hide, hide the witches,
The Stewards, they hid three