PETRA CREPT TOWARD Farringdon Crescent under the protection of the rain, keeping the collar of Norris’s coat turned up against spying eyes. The moment the alert went out for her arrest, every gossiping lady and duty-bound gentleman would be on the search. She could not afford to be noticed, not even by a door boy. She passed clusters of shoppers, huddled beneath shop awnings and umbrellas. The trolley-lift whizzed overhead, its wheels pushing water from the guide rails into the street. Men bolstered their umbrellas like shields against the torrent, and women lifted their heavy, sodden skirts above their ankles. No one glanced her way, all too preoccupied with the rain to care about a boy wandering down the street. Petra realized she should have kept her wet clothes on. She was again soaked to the bone, Norris’s coat doing little to buffer the rain.
She found the address, a quaint little town house set in the middle of Farringdon Crescent—white-washed brick, wrought-iron accents, and an impressive bay window to the left of the royal blue door. There were no bobbies in sight.
The dining room beyond the rain-streaked glass hosted a number of people. Emmerich’s father sat at the head of the table, surly and glowering. A woman she guessed was Mrs. Goss sat at his right, her back ramrod straight and porcelain hands poised daintily above her plate. Next to her was a young lady Petra did not recognize, and next to her sat Emmerich, looking rather bored. He shared a polite smile when the girl next to him laughed, but the smile did not reach his eyes. On the other side of the table sat a young gentleman, and two other young ladies Petra didn’t recognize.
Petra watched Emmerich from outside, hardly noticing the rain splattering against her face. She admired the dimple in his cheek when he spoke and the way his hair fell around his eyes. The girl next to him placed her hand on his wrist—a light, deliberate touch—and she demurely batted her eyes at him, a triumphant grin playing on her lips.
A sudden swell of anger rose within Petra’s chest, and she glared at the girl. “Don’t you dare touch my Emmerich,” she muttered. The sound of her own voice surprised her.
Emmerich casually drew his arm away, clasping his hands beneath his chin. The girl visibly pouted before engaging the young gentleman across from her in conversation. Emmerich’s eyes wandered to the window, and even through the rain, his eyes were as fiery as ever, blazing with the warmth of molten copper. Whether or not he could see her through the gray mask of rain, Petra did not know. How she wished to be close to him, to be in his arms again, gazing into those beautiful eyes.
She lifted her hand, a half wave in his direction. Emmerich stood up so fast he knocked his wineglass across the table, its contents spilling liberally onto the floor. He appeared not to hear his mother’s chiding or the shrieks of the girl next to him as she pointed out a maroon stain seeping into her vest. Petra lowered her arm, and Emmerich came to his senses and sat back down, apologizing to the girl as she dabbed at her clothes.
She could probably leave now that he knew she was all right, but he needed to know where to find her in case Solomon hadn’t told him the address. She wanted to speak with him face-to-face; she wanted him to explain everything he couldn’t put in his letter, everything that had made her doubt him since the trial.
Petra sloshed toward the front door, stomping up the stairs in her oversized shoes. She rapped three times on the door. Chairs scraped across the floor—one of them Emmerich’s, she guessed. She hoped he would be the one to answer the door. Should anyone else find her standing there, she would be shunted away or detained until the police arrived. She began to regret her haste.
Mrs. Goss’s voice rang out in a thick, throaty accent—French, from what Petra could tell. “Sit down, the both of you. We have maids for a reason. Kristiane, fetch the door.”
Petra exhaled a sigh of relief and waited for the door to open. Emmerich had said she could trust Kristiane. The door opened a crack and an older woman appeared, wearing a crisp black dress with white cuffs, her graying hair pulled tightly into a bun. With the door open, Petra could hear the dinner conversation amidst the clamor of forks and knives.
“I say, Victoria, have you found yourself a beau yet?” asked one of the young women.
“She is just thirteen,” said Emmerich’s mother. “Hardly old enough to have any admirers. I should expect to have a grandchild by Emmerich before young Victoria begins thinking of husbands.”
Both Victoria and Emmerich cried at once, “Mother!”
Marriage. Children. Petra hadn’t really considered either before. Always, her mind had been on machines, and as Tolly often told her, no man wanted to marry an engineer—they wanted a wife—and she had always assumed that she couldn’t have both a husband and a career. That was the way of things. But Emmerich could marry and start a family and still be an engineer. Why could she not have the same? Her heart thudded thickly in her throat. Could they not both get what they wanted?
Kristiane’s voice carried over the dinner conversation, snapping Petra’s attention back to the housekeeper standing in the doorway. “As I said, I’m sorry, sir, but the family is busy right now. Why don’t you come back another time?”
“Kristiane,” she said. “I—uh—I know we haven’t met, but—” She lowered her voice. “Emmerich said to contact you once I was safe.” She lifted the hat from her eyes and brushed her drenched hair aside. “I’m Petra.”
The housekeeper’s eyes widened, her eyebrows shooting up. “Oh goodness me. No wonder Master Emmerich is acting so unusual. Come. Get out of the rain.”
Kristiane opened the door wider and gestured for Petra to enter. She hesitated. Mr. Goss was a member of the Guild council. If he were to step out of the dining room and see her . . . She might as well have walked straight to the police house. Before she could communicate to Kristiane that she was fine standing on the landing, the woman ushered her inside. She grabbed towels from a hall closet and began dabbing Petra’s clothes. “Should I fetch Master Emmerich, Miss Wade?”
“Yes—erm—tell him it’s someone else, anyone else.”
Kristiane shuffled toward the dining room doors, and Petra listened to the conversation beyond.
“Now Emmerich, we all know your parents wish you to marry a woman of high social standing,” said one of the young women. “She makes no secret of that, nor do any of our parents. And, of course, who wouldn’t wish to see their daughter on the arm of esteemed Guild engineer Emmerich Goss?”
“You are quite blunt, Charlotte, if you don’t mind me saying so,” said Emmerich, saying her given name without the slightest hint of hesitation. Petra could almost see the smile on his lips as he spoke.
“Honesty is a virtue,” she replied. “I see no reason to disguise the truth, especially not in the company of friends. Because we are friends, are we not, dear Emmerich?”
At that moment Kristiane disappeared into the dining room.
“What is it?” snapped Mr. Goss.
“A Mr. Roland, sir, to see Master Emmerich.”
A chair scraped across the floor.
“Oh, sit down,” said Mrs. Goss. “Kristiane, we are having dinner. Do tell Mr. Roland to come back another time.”
“I am sure it will only take a moment,” said Emmerich.
“And be deprived of your company?” said Charlotte. “I think not.”
“Sit,” said Emmerich’s father firmly.
“Perhaps I should take a message?” asked Kristiane.
“That would be kind of you,” said Emmerich, scooting his chair back toward the table. “Thank you.”
Kristiane returned to the foyer, her mouth contorted into a frown. “What is it you would like me to tell him, Miss Wade?”
“Perhaps I could write it down,” said Petra.
Kristiane fetched a pad of paper and a pen from the desk and placed them in Petra’s hands. She began to scribble her message, though she had no need to write anything down. She only wanted to stay a moment longer, to hear Emmerich’s voice again, perhaps catch a glimpse of him, see his smile.
Emmerich spoke. “Charlotte, if I may, let me be a bit frank as well.”
“Oh, please do.”
“As the purpose of this dinner seems to be in the interest of procuring spouses, I must be honest with you and say that I have no interest in marrying either of you, and I mean that with the utmost deference to your character.”
“Chéri, how can you say such a thing?” asked his mother. “Miss Bordeaux and Miss Louis would make fine wives.”
“I have no doubt they will make fine wives for someone, but not me, Mother,” said Emmerich. “I did not mean to offend. I only meant that neither of them encompass the kind of woman I wish to commit myself to.”
Petra stared at the pen and paper in her hands, her heart racing. He must know she stood in the foyer, dripping water onto the floor, listening to his words.
“Are you spoken for?” asked the other young gentleman.
“A secret lover, brother?” said Victoria. “How scandalous.”
“Do tell us her name, Emmerich.”
“Enough,” said Mr. Goss, slamming his hands on the table. “This conversation is over. We will continue our dinner without such familiar chatter. Miss Bordeaux, Miss Louis, I apologize to you both on behalf of my son’s indiscretion. He should know better.”
Silence followed his voice, like the opposite of an echo.
Petra remembered the note and looked down at her short message:
I am safe. Staying with a friend, Kristiane knows the address. We need to talk.
She tore the page from the pad, folded it in half, and handed the note to Kristiane. “When Emmerich wishes to speak with me, you take his message to Norris Holland, fifteen Tilling Close, the north side of the fourth quadrant. I’ll be there.”
A racket of scooting chairs rose from the dining room.
“Emmerich, if you will join me in the parlor,” said Mr. Goss.
“You should go, miss. I will deliver the message,” said Kristiane, clutching the folded note to her chest. She opened the door and shoved Petra out.
Petra glimpsed back into the foyer. The French doors to the dining room swung open and Emmerich stepped into the hall, followed by the other gentleman. She could not help but smile at the sight of him—a tall, muscular figure, with his sharp jaw and dark hair, a striking profile in the light of the wall sconces. He glanced toward the door and their eyes met. He ran his fingers through his hair, a grin playing on his lips as his eyes took in the sight of her, drowning in her oversized clothing, soaked through with rainwater. His companion, admiring a painting on the wall, did not see her.
Petra smiled in return. Just one moment with him, a brief embrace, a tiny exchange of words—she yearned to be near him, if for only a second. She wished to trace the dimple in his cheek, twist his long hair through her fingers, bury her face in his warm chest and hear him say that everything would be all right.
The heavy footfalls of his father’s steps nearing the foyer interrupted the gaze between them. Happiness left Emmerich’s face and his eyes turned stern. Though he did not speak, she received the message.
She stepped onto the landing and Kristiane shut the door quickly behind her.
The rain had stopped. Warm sunshine replaced the torrent, heating the puddles of stagnant water into muggy vapors. Petra shed the heavy coat. It smelled of wet, mildewed canvas, a trace of cigar smoke on the cuffs. She folded the coat over her arm and descended the stairs. The sunlight teased her. Only luck would keep her hidden as she made the cross-city trek back to the Holland house.
Chroniker City was rarely a quiet place, always an endless flow of hustle and bustle through the streets—rickshaws and bundles of tourists clogging the thoroughfares, shoppers dawdling at shop doors and windows, and vagrants sitting on curbs, shaking tins of loose change. Not even the damp air and water-slicked streets quelled the surge of pedestrians. The rain kept ladies and gentlemen huddled beneath awnings and umbrellas, but the moment the clouds parted and the sun peeped out, people once again swarmed the streets.
She arrived at the edge of the University square hot, wet, and with blistered feet. The ebb and flow of foot traffic was lighter in the center of the city, most people’s business being in the first and second quadrants, but here, she could no longer hide in their throngs. She was out in the open now.
Several groups of students and Guild members milled in front of the University, deep in conversation with their peers or buried in books and papers. Petra kept her head down, pulling the brim of her sodden hat over her eyes. Every person enrolled at the University or in the employ of the Guild likely knew who she was now. Nearly everyone had seen her the day she and Emmerich tried to escape the University. They would know her face, know she had been arrested, tried, and sentenced. If someone recognized her—
Petra knocked into a middle-aged man mumbling about valve gears and equidistant curves. Keeping her eyes averted, she quickly sidestepped the man and circled around him while he muttered a mathematical formula to himself.
Her heart racing, she turned toward the fourth quadrant, but a firm hand gripped her by the shoulder. She spun around, expecting the engineer or a policeman, but instead she faced Tolly Monfore, his eyebrows drawn and mouth pressed into a frown.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?”
Petra wrenched her arm free. “It’s not your business, Tolly.”
“You think I don’t know what’s going on?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You were arrested, Pet—for treason. And I don’t expect they let you out by choice.” He grabbed her by the sleeve and dragged her through the square toward Medlock.
Petra dropped Norris’s coat and tried prying Tolly’s fingers from her sleeve, his knuckles white from the grip. “Tolly, let go.” Exasperated, she brought her fist down on his elbow, buckling his arm and breaking his grasp. Released from his grip, she staggered backward into a lamppost, and her hat fell from her head, her unruly tresses coming loose from her bun and tumbling down over her shoulders.
“I’m trying to help you,” he hissed, drawing close. “Petra, what if you’re caught? Come with me. I can keep you safe.”
“Stay away from me,” she said, shoving him away. She leaned over to fetch her hat and stiffened, her heartbeat quickening as she realized a handful of students stood nearby, staring at her. Her hair. She snatched the hat off the ground and wound her hair into a twist, hiding it away beneath the hat, but it was too late. They had recognized her.
“It’s you,” said the nearest one, stepping forward. “You’re that girl.”
“The spy,” said another.
Petra backed away, her breath caught in her throat. She felt her hands tremble.
“Find the constable,” said the student. “I’ll hold her until you get back.”
“The hell you will,” said Tolly, rolling up his sleeves as he stepped in their way.
One of the students shouted for help, and Tolly jumped him. But by then, a Guild copper—wearing the stark black suit of the militia—spotted them wrestling across the square and started toward them, drawing his baton.
Someone grabbed Petra’s arm and yanked her forward, waving to the copper. “Oi! Here’s the one you want. It’s her—the spy.”
Tolly tumbled free of the fistfight and landed a punch on the one holding her, breaking his grip on her arm. “Run,” he said, shoving Petra toward the square. “Go!”
With one last look at Tolly, she turned and ran.
She heard the shouts of the students behind her, the sound of the Guild copper calling for help, and she felt the eyes of everyone in the square upon her. Blood rushed in her ears, her pulse hammering like a hundred pistons. She slipped past the brink of the square and delved into the fourth quadrant. Sprinting through the alleys, she kept off Medlock, hoping to lose anyone who followed in the narrow, dead-end streets. She made it halfway down Tilling Street when the thought struck her to lead the coppers and bobbies off before going back to Norris’s house. But before she could make a decision, someone grabbed her, clamping a coarse hand over her mouth before she could yell out.
Her captor pulled her into the shadows of an alley and into a dark room. A door closed, blocking out the late afternoon light, and she struggled against whoever held her, breathing hard. But her captor was much larger than she was, and resilient. He held her close, hardly allowing her to breathe, much less make a sound.
“Quiet,” he hissed, his breath thick with the smell of tobacco. “Or they’ll hear you.”
Petra stilled. She recognized that voice—hoarse and weary—a voice she had heard most recently from the prison cell, when Solomon came to her with the screwdriver. She steadied her breathing and waited.
Footsteps echoed in the alley, and voices.
“I think she went this way.”
“Blast it! I thought they had her in the city prison.”
“No, we got the word an hour ago. She got out somehow.”
There was a disgruntled groan. “Why did no one fire up the alarms?”
Then they were gone, their footsteps trailing away into silence.
Finally, Petra’s captor released her. She whirled away and faced him, trying to see his face in the darkness of the room, but the shadows were deep, obscuring his features. She could just make out his familiar tattered clothing and scruffy beard—this was the man who had been following her. “Who are you?” she whispered. “Why have you been watching me? Why are you helping me?”
The man raised his hands in surrender. “I only do as I’m told, miss.”
Petra narrowed her eyes. He had helped Solomon with her escape, and now he had helped her evade the Guild coppers. But all those weeks of watching her, of lurking in the shadows outside the pawnshop . . . “Who are you working for?”
“Someone with a mind to keep you safe,” he said, his voice low. “Now, you need to get back to Mr. Holland. The coppers know you’re out.” He glared at her then. “You shouldn’t have left to begin with. Now, come on. Let’s get you back.”