As I pulled away from her, she said, “Verity, please don’t be angry.” Her voice was rough with emotion, sounding like she was near tears herself, but I didn’t let myself look back. I wasn’t ready to forgive, and if I saw her cry I might relent.

I caught an uptown bus, but it only traveled a few blocks before stopping. “Looks like a roadblock,” the conductor reported. I craned my neck to look out the front window and saw red-coated soldiers questioning and searching the passengers on vehicles ahead of us—only the horse-drawn ones, of course. Magical carriages were waved forward. I realized with a jolt of horror that I had my book full of notes about the Mechanics and the Mechanics’ insignia in my bag.

Trying to look as casual as I could when my whole body was shaking, I got up and said to the conductor, “I may as well get off here. I don’t have far to walk.”

Once off the bus, I headed up the sidewalk and saw that no one was getting past the roadblock. Even people who looked as respectable as I did were being stopped and searched. I headed down a side street as though that had been my aim all along, then stopped to consider my options. I wondered if I could bluff my way past the roadblock by invoking the name of my employer and acting like a governess on her day out. I feared I was too nervous to manage that.

I appeared to be trapped.

In Which the Fight Moves Uptown

IN WHICH THE FIGHT MOVES UPTOWN

I whirled in surprise and terror when someone called my name. For a moment, I feared my role with the Mechanics had been discovered and the authorities had come after me, but then I recognized Nat running toward me. “Hey, Verity! There you are!”

“Did Lizzie send you?” I snarled.

“Nope. Alec did.”

Had Alec been in on the deception? He hadn’t been there, but had he known? “What does Alec want?” I asked.

“We’re havin’ a big party with the general’s money, and he was afraid you got lost.” His eyes narrowed as he apparently put together the tearstains on my face, the fact that I was fleeing, and my agitated state. “Is something wrong?”

“I—I need to go home,” I stammered, the tears threatening to spill again. “B-but the roadblocks. I’ll never make it through.”