Chapter Seven Patrick
Theodore came in first, his father after him.
The two were both alike and not. Theo’s father was taller, more severe, his face cast in shadows.
Beside him, Theo looked hopelessly young.
A boy. They shared the same grave expression, the same posture, but years in Kenton saw Theo with broader shoulders, calloused hands, bronzed skin. It made him strange in his navy robes.
They found Patrick alone where he’d been left in the dusty room of shelves. John had been collected and led away long ago. The only thing left of him was a clot of drying blood by the door.
The terranium on the table remained untouched.
Theo brought food. Potatoes, judging by the smell. Green beans. Bread. Gravy. Patrick’s stomach volleyed painfully.
Terrence Shop introduced himself in his affected way.
“What do you want?” grunted Patrick.
But the lord shook his head. “A meal, first, Mr. Colson,” he said. “Then we shall speak like humans.”
Patrick needed no further persuasion; he went to the counter as though a separate force compelled him, wolfed down the food with his fingers as utensils. He drained a jug of water, thought seriously about throwing up.
To his credit, the lord’s nose did not wrinkle in response. He simply waited patiently, his hands clasped behind his back. A soldier by the door looked in with his baton extended.
Theo watched Patrick solemnly, his expression bleak, as though he’d come to impart terrible news.
Patrick froze at the thought. “Is… is she—”
“She’s fine,” Theo said quietly. Then he looked away.
So did Patrick, neither man able to separate feeling from business.
Terrence Shop cleared his throat as Patrick wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.
“Mr. Colson, I’d much rather have this discussion in private, but the guard behind me will fret on the other side of this door, unable to see if you decide to pummel me with that terranium.
You should know that he is a fire Charmer and a little quick on the trigger.
It’d be best if you didn’t give me cause to shout for his assistance. ”
Patrick gave the guard a cursory glance. “A fire Charmer, you say?”
Lord Shop nodded once.
“Bullshit.”
Shop’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “I assure you—”
“Ain’t ever seen a fire Charmer with burn marks on their hands,” Patrick said.
He looked back at the guard, who only scowled.
The hand around the baton clenched, knuckled white where the scars stretched over bone.
“Either you’re the poorest Charmer in the Trench, or you’re an iron worker, and the lord here is lyin’ to me. ”
Terrence Shop did not react.
So then, he was a careful man.
“To have an iron worker pose for you must mean your own medium is somethin’ piss-poor. Are you a Scribbler, maybe? A Cutter?”
The lord’s jaw flexed, just slightly.
“A Cutter,” Patrick whistled. “Well, hope you don’t bury me in fuckin’ jewels.”
“I didn’t come to threaten you, Mr. Colson. But if it must be said, my son is a Charmer—”
“You didn’t promise to drown me though, did you?” Patrick continued. He looked at Theo. “And I know him capable of it. He drowned a whole lot of men recently. Did he tell you? Fire Charmers and all.”
The lord was quiet again. Contemplative. “Nevertheless, if you choose to be foolish, Mr. Colson, it will end quite badly for you. I came to speak, that is all.”
“Pat,” Theo said, voice like gravel. “Just listen. Please.”
Patrick looked at him. In Theodore he saw two separate men. He couldn’t trust even half of him. “Ain’t got a damn thing else to do, Teddy. I’m all ears.”
Lord Shop nodded to the guard, who backed out of the room willingly enough, closing the door behind him.
Patrick took stock of the lord and found him difficult to read. But not impossible.
“Mr. Colson, the matter on which we speak is delicate.”
Patrick laughed again. “The matter of treason? Yeah, I’d say it’s pretty fuckin’ delicate.”
The lord’s face darkened. He seemed to evaluate Patrick where he stood, his eyes skirting over every part of him.
Eventually he said, “I asked my son to relay to me his time in your employ. He told me you shot men who defied you, or else beat them. He described you as a man who uses brutality to get what he wants. It was all rather unimpressive to me.”
Lord Shop took a step toward the sack of terranium and eyed it curiously. “I’ve known a hundred men who have governed the way you govern, Mr. Colson. With fear and might. I find it base. Uninspired. Wolves scrapping for kill.”
“And what’re you?” Patrick asked. “The fox in the trees?”
Lord Shop smiled. “I am taking the den while the animals fight.”
Theo shifted uncomfortably. His father grasped his shoulder as he passed, a warning.
“Lord Tanner is a wolf,” Shop continued. “He’s grown preoccupied by the blood. It has distracted him from more important business.”
“Findin’ ink,” Patrick murmured, a headache brewing.
“Indeed. Even with the earth Charmer finally in his grasp, he thought it prudent to send her out into the brink, rather than use her where she is most needed: unearthing new terranium.”
“Swanks think of people as nothin’ but tools,” Patrick said.
“She was a tool for you, too,” Theo parried.
As he was for her. “So, you’ll use Nina to dig, and me to siphon the ink, and in return you’ll offer us what? Nice accommodations?”
Lord Shop turned grave. “A truce,” he said, and it seemed a difficult word to utter. It was reluctant to escape his lips. “The terms of which can be negotiated by your father and you.”
Theo looked at his feet.
Patrick marked it.
“I would agree to a new order of Belavere Trench,” Shop continued.
“Where a quota of children from each parish would siphon idium and be trained into the fellowship of their mediums. More Artisan schools could be built outside of Belavere City, a larger workforce of Smiths and Masons and Charmers in the next generation available to aid the brink towns. Bluff would be controlled. No premiums. It would mean less hawkers, less bad bluff on the streets—”
“Utopia,” Patrick said darkly.
“As close to it as we can manage.”
“You must’ve started shittin’ terranium ore, or he has,” Patrick nodded to Theo.
Lord Shop was undeterred. “This continent is rich in terranium yet.”
Patrick shook his head. The continent was barren, it seemed. The mines empty. “And you plan on workin’ Nina to the bone to find it, is that right? Will you have her move every mountain in the Trench till she keels over?”
“You think like a wolf, Mr. Colson,” Shop seemed suddenly impatient, as though waiting for a realization to dawn on Patrick. “Not everything needs to be gained by force.”
Patrick’s head tilted. It seemed the lord was on the cusp of something, some gloat he would not say aloud and undignify himself. A man like this did not prance about with ideas of treason if there were not a clear path to success, if the terranium he spoke of were not already guaranteed.
“You’ve found a seam,” Patrick guessed. He thought the lord’s eyes flashed. He appeared to Patrick suddenly ravenous.
“Not yet,” he said. “But I have found the surety that one exists.”
Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where?”
“Those answers will come in time Mr. Col—”
“Then you don’t know,” Patrick pushed away from the counter, paced into the center of the room and gave the lord his back. “You’re makin’ hollow promises.”
“I assure you, a seam exists.”
“One seam, when what you need is a dozen.”
“Not if that one seam is greater than any the continent has unearthed before,” Lord Shop made his voice low.
And Patrick turned on his heel. In Lord Shop’s face, he saw no deception. Only fire. “Idia’s Seam,” Patrick uttered. It felt strange to say it. A fable. A forgotten myth. “Bullshit.”
Shop presented his hands, a magician indicating no trickery was at play. “What else would I risk my life for, I ask you? Nothing less, Mr. Colson. Nothing less than magic for the next five generations.”
Nothing less than idium, which meant everything. “It’s a kids’ tale.”
The lord tsked. “Yes. No matter how hard history tries to bury the truth, it tends to find its way into stories.”
“And if the story is accurate, Idia’s Seam is damn near the earth’s fuckin’ mantle.”
Theodore shifted nervously again.
“Then it is lucky we have Nina, if indeed she can be persuaded to help us.”
Patrick swallowed. Inside him was a hound, lifting its muzzle to a scent. He could not pretend that his fingers did not itch, that his spine did not quiver. “I need proof,” he said. “If you believe Idia’s Seam to be real, then you must’ve found somethin’.”
“A detailed account of its existence, in fact,” Lord Shop nodded. “It will be shown to you in time.”
“I’ll agree to nothin’ until then.”
Lord Shop stepped forward, spoke so lowly Patrick had to watch his lips to decode him. “There’s an order to everything,” he said, then patted Patrick once on the shoulder. “First, the wolves fight, then I’ll give you what you need.”
“And in the meantime?” Patrick asked, an insistent warning knocking at his skull.
“In the meantime, I’ll need a favor from you,” he said. “If indeed I am to remove our Head of House, I’ll need the means to do so, and it must be subtle.”
So, then, he was to be Lord Shop’s wolf. He’d happily rip Tanner limb from limb.
“I’ll do it,” Patrick said, fists curling.
“No,” Lord Shop said sharply. “No need. Though you can grant someone else the ability.”
Gooseflesh trailed Patrick’s neck. “Who?”
“Someone who won’t let the opportunity pass them by.”
“My father?” Patrick grimaced. “I’d have it be me instead.”
Lord Shop’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”
“Because it would scratch an itch,” Patrick said. “And because I’m guessin’ you’d moniker my father an assassin and have him hung for it.”
Shop was silent. He let loose a sigh. “I need allies, Mr. Colson. Particularly in the brink towns. I have no intention of severing my alliance with your father. He has been… most instrumental.”
“Then I’ll do it myself, and he needn’t be implicated at all.”
“No, he needn’t. And he won’t. Nor will anyone.
From the outside, it will appear Tanner suffered a failed heart, or some other episode.
” Lord Shop grasped his son lightly on the shoulder.
“My son is quite the accomplished Charmer. He can bend water at the molecular level—even water in the blood, in a person’s very pores.
He can draw it back into a person’s lungs, if he so chooses. ”
Theo met Patrick’s eyes and thought he saw a hint of panic there.
“My son has much to make up for,” Lord Shop said, and though he squeezed Theo’s shoulder gently, the boy still flinched. “Produce the idium. Just a single dose. Theodore will do the rest.”
Patrick spent long minutes considering. He’d made enough deals with bad men to know Lord Shop was the worst kind.
He thought it likely the lord would renege his offer of truce or underhand the negotiations. But Patrick was the last Alchemist, and there was power in that, at least.
There was little choice.
Patrick wished he could speak to Theo alone. He wanted, badly, to ensure that he could see this plan through. Not all men could kill in cold blood.
“When will it happen?”
Shop shook his head. “In good time.”
“I want to see it myself,” Patrick said. Hunger in him reared up, teeth gnashing.
Lord Shop, discerning as he was, saw that, too. “You shall.”
With that, Partick siphoned a single dose of idium into one of the many vials.
It dribbled like oil into the glass base, and he thought only of sweet crimson blood and stained navy.
Two sightless gray eyes staring straight to the depths of hell.
He pressed it into Theo’s palm and watched him stow it safely in his robe.
“Remember what he did to her,” Patrick said to Theodore. “And what he did to you.”
He nodded.
Lord Shop departed, but Theo lingered. His mouth opened and shut like he was drowning. He followed his father out the door without saying another word, chasing his robes.
Patrick did not sleep that night.
He closed his eyes, and for the first time since he was a boy, he prayed.
He prayed that his father, always surer than he was right, wasn’t one of Shop’s wolves.
He prayed that he wasn’t walking from one cage into another.
He prayed that Nina, whose face circled his mind every minute, would cease this relentless haunting.