“I remain surprised they didn’t make you a Transistor,” Julian said, taking my elbow to lead me up creaking stairs that sagged like they might collapse under our weight.
We passed two figures done up in lace and frippery, her brown skin lit with gold cream and his white cheeks reddened with rouge. I skirted around them, face heating as I realized they were harlots. The girl gave me a wink that left my breath stuttering. I could see quite a lot of her bosoms. The boy laughed musically and swatted at Ezra’s bottom.
“Where are we going?” I hissed at Julian.
We reached a landing with a balcony that overlooked on the gambling den, and up here there were others lounging on velvet settees, displayed in all manners of dress—and undress.
“There’s only one thing people pay attention to in a gambling den’s loft,” Julian was saying.
A low, amused voice finished the thought for him. “And it certainly isn’t science.”
Julian stopped short, his grip on my sleeve tightening until he nearly ripped the fabric. I followed his stare to the sight of a woman with thick black bangs and hair that fell unbound to her waist like a curtain of night. Her skin was richly tan and her lips full. She wore baggy men’s trousers held up by leather braces, and a tailored black vest over a crisp gray shirt.
She was nearly as tall as Julian. And she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I resisted a strange and strong urge to bow asJulian smiled and let go of my sleeve to clasp her hand in both of his, cradling it like a treasure. He looked back at me and Ezra, eyes shining. I saw the boy who had held Maggie fiercely, the boy who had cried in my arms. “This is Nikola. Nikola, these are my friends.”
“You have friends?” she asked, one brow rising in an arch like a fine brushstroke. “We must have a lot to talk about.”
“Why is she in a place like this?” I asked Julian in a whisper as I dodged gauzy lace, acutely aware of the tittering laughter that followed us down a narrow hallway and up another set of stairs that groaned beneath our feet.
“It’s my father’s building,” Nikola said, unlocking the door with a ring of keys fastened to her hip. She gave me a quick look that dared me to object to what she had to say next. “He’s in a debtor’s prison. No one has bothered to sell the place off and get him released.”
“Oh,” I said, slowly making sense of her words. Julian had said that her early life in the city had not been ideal. No wonder she didn’t sound troubled by her father’s circumstances.
Ezra followed behind me, ducking his head as we entered an attic loft with tall, narrow windows. Several gas lamps lit the room full of bookshelves and long tables and one narrow cot in the corner.
When Julian spotted an unlit lamp with the seal of the House of Industry wrought into the iron, he lit it with an effortless touch of radiance, and a brighter glow filled the room.
“That’s much better,” Nikola said, picking up a pair of spectacles from the table and sliding them on.
Ezra and I shared a confused look, before I dared to ask, “I thought you were opposed to using radiance?”
“That’s an oversimplification. Radianceistoxic, but we have the power to control exposure to it and use it ethically and responsibly. Thewasting is rooted in excessive use.” Nikola sat on a stool at the high table, watching me as if gauging whether I was capable of following along. “My theory is that very young Children of Industry have no control and emit a constant low dose of radiance that accelerates the wasting in their caretakers. Typically their parents. That’s what you were going to ask, correct?”
“Well,” I said weakly, “perhaps not immediately.” It’s what I’d assumed, though not with such stark clarity. In a way, it was a dark comfort. I had control now. More control than a little child, at any rate. That meant I wasn’t hurting Ezra simply by being near him.
Nikola turned to Julian, who continued to fidget uncharacteristically with the lamp. “Why aren’t you in Cascade with my grandparents?” she asked.
All the air left my lungs. Maybe it left the room, too. Left the sky above us.
In the strangeness of this encounter, I’d briefly forgotten why we were here. I should have stayed outside, downstairs. Stayed with Ezra and left Julian to this terrible private errand.
Yes, even as the thought struck me, I knew I wouldn’t have left him alone to bear this.
Julian’s hand stilled. He straightened and turned to face her, his posture too stiff. For a moment, he was the Senior of Frostbrook’s Mission again, cold and haughty.
“Don’t do that.” Nikola stood, the stool wobbling with the swiftness of the motion. But she did not approach him. “Don’t.”
I wasn’t sure if she meant the artifice of his sudden formality or the words she feared would come.
“Two Transistors went to Cascade and attacked Maggie and the others.” Julian spoke plainly, his gaze on the floorboards between them. “They burned down the laboratories. And everything else.”
With trembling fingers, Nikola removed her spectacles. She set them down with a clumsy clatter. “Did anyone escape?”
“They did not.”
Slowly, Nikola nodded. I could hear her breath coarsening, but she did not cry. She placed her palm on the table, fingers splayed widely, and leaned against it as if she would not allow herself to crumble. I wanted to scream at Julian to go to her, but at the same time, I recognized the chasm between them, plain as the cold light from the lamp. No matter how many letters they’d exchanged, this was the first time they’d seen each other face-to-face.
“The House will surely be hunting for you,” Julian finally said. “We must continue our work in great secrecy.”
