He seemed just as perplexed as she was, following her gaze out of the window to where black plumes were streaming into the darkening sky.
“That’s your cue,” Etta told Sophia. “Any time you want to elaborate on what that terrifying thing in the distance is, that would be great.”
Sophia studied her fingernails.
“Withholding information endangers all of us,” Nicholas reminded her. “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s ahead.”
She dropped her hands back into her lap with a look of exasperation. “Fine. It’s the fire—it’s been burning since this morning. The ‘Great Fire of New York.’ You would know that, if you’d actually paid attention to any of your training.”
“If I’d received any training aside from how not to be killed, how to avoid sharing our secret, and how Julian wanted his cravat tied, I might have been able to retain it,” he fired back.
In the midst of the thunderous charge sparking between them, Etta blinked, trying to remember if she’d ever read or learned about this.
“What caught fire?” she asked. To kick up that much smoke, it would have to be enormous.
“The entire west side of the city,” Sophia said, after another dragging silence. “From what I remember, it broke out this morning—the twenty-first of September. It’s probably burned through the quarter by now.”
Not for the first time, Etta thought about how strange it must be for the Ironwoods to live outside of the normal flow of time, to know everything that came before them and nearly everything that would happen, up to a certain point, after. It must have made it much easier to invest their money, choose their homes, and pick their battles for the benefit of the family. “What started it?”
“It depends on who you ask—the British seem to think it was one of Washington’s spies. That some mongrel set it when the army was forced to flee the city.”
Nearly everything seemed to be made of wood in this time period—all it would take was a single spark. Etta rubbed at her forehead, glancing at Nicholas. He’d untied his neck cloth and let it hang over his shoulders, his shirt parted at the front to reveal a span of warm skin. His clothes were well-worn, rumpled from days of work and travel, and he seemed unbothered by it even as Sophia fussed with her gown and beat the road dust from the skirt. She had patted on more perfume of some kind, but Etta focused on the scent of him—it was cool breezes and sunshine and rum.
While Sophia’s anxiety was manifesting in the way she kept folding and unfolding her hands in her lap, and in the impatient jumping of her legs under her skirt, Nicholas seemed to be retreating inside himself. The worry she’d seen on his face when they’d come ashore felt very different from this; there had been some anger knotted into his exasperation for Ironwood, when he’d warned her. His finger was currently worrying his upper lip; his gaze was cast out over the landscape rolling by, but he didn’t seem to be focusing on any one thing.
Etta thought that Nicholas could likely count the things that unnerved him on one hand, maybe even one finger. He could manage Sophia, and he seemed prepared for Ironwood; so, then, what was left to put such ice in his expression?
Rather than sit in the unbearable silence of not knowing, she asked, “Did you get to see New York before the fire?”
Idiot question. She knew he’d been to New York; that he’d even lived there for a time. Jack had told her as much during her fact-finding mission.
It was amazing how small you could feel when someone wouldn’t so much as look at you. For a second, Etta was sure he wasn’t going to answer at all, just keep his gaze fixed out of the window. Then, she got a single word: “Once.”
“What did you think of it?” Etta pressed, focusing on her irritation, so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge the creeping feeling of being hurt.
“Filthy.”
To her surprise, Sophia said, “The only point on which we agree. They throw the slop and garbage out into the streets hoping the animals and vermin will eat it, and whatever’s left washes out to the rivers with the rain. You can smell the city for miles before it comes into view. Fire smoke will only improve it.”
Here was the truth about the past, as Etta was coming to realize: it was startlingly quiet at times, the pace of life moved slower than a crawl, and the smell of the people and places was actually unbelievable. Her nose still hadn’t adjusted to it.