“Are you going to do anything about it?”
“Not currently.”
“Why’s that?”
“A host of reasons. She’s a duke’s daughter.”
“Illegitimate,” Temple said. “She won’t be expected to make an exalted match.”
“Still. Her brother is a duke, a strong transcendent.”
“And you’re the best silver alchemist of this age.”
Nico grinned. “You’re not wrong. But?—”
“Intermarriage is not illegal. It is simply rare.”
“We make goodfriends.” And they would make even better lovers. One single, slight kiss had taught him that. “But I’m in no place to take a wife.” He shifted to the other foot. “My annuity is too small for that, and the lands around Bowen Hall have been sold off. I own a house too big for me, a closed shop in London, and the clothes on my back. I wouldn’t bring a wife into my chaotic, pitiful life.”
“Reopen the shop.”
Something dark pinched at Nico’s insides, and he held still to keep from squirming. “I have no desire to sell guns. Besides, I have other, more pressing matters. Do you remember what I told you about last Christmas?”
Temple groaned. “You could have been arrested.”
“I was not. And I’m doing it again.”
“Have you tried helping the children in an, oh, I don’t know”—Temple rubbed his forehead as if smoothing away a headache—“legal way?”
“Yes. The duke refuses anything that would go directly to the children. Accepts only money donations, and those, I’m positive, go straight into his pocket. And the secretary, Jameson, is too scared of the duke to accept…undocumenteddonations of any sort.”
Temple turned to look up at the hospital, his brow furrowed. He’d not rid himself of that headache after all. “It’s glamoured, I see. So well Ialmostcannot see the truth that lies beneath.”
“But you can see it?” Temple possessed the rare ability to see past glamours. All iron alchemists did.
Temple nodded. “Limestone chunks missing at the corners, yellow paint peeling. Windows dusty. Some of the iron so badly rusted even the most unskilled alchemist could manipulate it.”
Metals were set with a final layer of setting liquid that kept them from being tampered with, but rust offered a pathwayinside it. Any rusted or unset metal could be melted away or reshaped for deadly purpose with nothing more than an alchemist’s touch.
Nico couldn’t see rust or decay in the hospital though. All he could see was exactly what Morington wanted everyone to see—a jolly place, bright and beautiful and well kept. Even the children’s coats and cloaks looked sumptuous, thick velvets and braided gold. But they shivered, and when he’d flung one of them up in the air earlier, his finger had caught on a hole in the armpit of the girl’s coat.
“Not much I can do out in the open,” Nico said. “They won’t allow it.”
Temple made noise halfway between a growl and a snort. “Be careful, then.”
“That’s the point. I’m not sure how to be. Miss Dean has just told me her brother is sending in guards for Christmas Eve. It seems I personally offended Morington with my gifts to the children last year.”
“Guards?”
“Armed.”
“Hell.”
“Precisely.”
“You see now that you must abandon your plans.” Temple skewered Nico with a gaze hard as the iron he tamed so effortlessly.
“I see no such thing.”
