We’d been children on that dock in Frostbrook. We’d never be children again.
Ezra brushed his thumbs across my cheeks. “You’re not going to stop me from coming along?”
I touched his jaw, my fingertips fluttering, my body too distressed to hold still. “I love you too much to do that,” I whispered. We couldn’t control each other. That was the most frightening part of loving someone.
“All right,” Ezra said, kissing my forehead once, his hand curling around the back of my neck like he didn’t want to let go. “Let’s steal a boat.”
It was surprisingly easy to find a small raft moored to a dock downriver from the train bridge. Muttering about how he had no idea how to operate a pistol and that it was asinine that Nikola had given him one, Ezra deftly untied the raft and offered me his hand. Before I could reach for him, he waved me off and tilted his head.
“You’re glowing a little, Apprentice. Care to hold back until we get to the House?”
“Oh,” I said, staring at my hands. They were scratched and stained with other people’s blood. And my skin had a faint blue cast to it, radiance moving along the lines on my palms. The dried blood gave off the smell of burning flesh, and I grimaced. “Sorry. One moment.”
I breathed in slowly, promising my radiance that all this helpless rage would soon have an outlet.
“That’s better,” Ezra said, helping me onto the raft. He shoved off immediately and used the large paddle to keep us drifting close to the bank.
“We’ll pass under two bridges.” I squinted at the shape of the House in the distance. “And then it’ll be on the right.”
The Sterling River’s current wasn’t as powerful as the Dry Bone’s, but it would carry us to the back side of the House of Industry—an imposing wall directly on the water, with one small loading dock.
With nothing to do but wait, I crouched at the edge of the raft and washed my hands and face and neck in the river water. It wasn’t particularly clean, but it was better than the grime and stink of fear on my skin. “Did I hurt you when my hands were glowing?”
Grunting with effort, Ezra worked the paddle. “No, it only startled me for a moment. I’ve become quite accustomed to your company. It’s like my magic knows yours.”
I no longer resisted calling radiancemagic.There was no sense in distinguishing the power within me from his. “What an honor,” I said, meaning it. Cupping some water in my hands, I wet the back of his neck to cool him off.
“Thank you, dear,” he said with a flourished bow, as if we were a couple embarking on a sightseeing cruise.
On either side of the river, the industrial yards and warehouses were eerily quiet. Every so often, I spotted a face in a window, but all work had halted. The river ferries weren’t even running. We drifted by thenewspaper building, and I wondered if the journalists had made their way there yet—if the massive steam-powered presses would soon be fired up.
“We were always told to keep the curtains pulled tight when we traveled to assignments in the city,” I told Ezra. “I thought it was for our safety. But they clearly wanted to keep us from seeing what resistors were really saying.”
“I can’t imagine the effort it took to keep you in line,” Ezra said.
A hysterical little laugh bubbled out of me. “Truly. You have no idea.”
I had to keep talking. I had to keep studying the buildings on either side of the river. I had to keep my mind off wondering what was happening to Julian. I had to.
“Hey,” Ezra said, watching me. “I know.”
The water around the raft rippled strangely, not moving in the direction of the wind. We were moving faster than we ought to be. “You’re doing that,” I realized aloud.
“Trying to.” Ezra scrunched his nose. “Making this up as I go.”
“Julian’s going to be excited about this development.”
Looking skyward, Ezra seemed to struggle to catch his breath. “What if they’ve already done it?”
“Then they’ll pay,” I said shakily.
There was no precedence for the House executing one of their own. Even the unruliest Children of Industry were made into servants so that their gifts were not entirely wasted. But until today there’d been no precedence for the House murdering dozens of peaceful demonstrators. I hoped, desperately, that Julian was still alive. Not only for him and for us, but for everyone who would lose their lives in the explosion of my grief.
As we rounded the final river bend, the House of Industry’s back wall appeared. It was smooth and high with no windows until the thirdstory. I’d never seen it from the water, only from the loading dock. From here, I could read the script set into the wall with smooth black stone.
Industry Is Inevitable
“Blech,” I said eloquently.
