Page 107 of Alchemised

W HEN K AINE STOPPED CRYING, H ELENA SAT BACK, studying him soberly.

His expression turned guarded and embittered, as if he’d wept out all his softness and once again only his venom remained.

She had him, she could feel it. She’d followed orders, done what she’d been instructed to do, but she still didn’t know how to prove that. The right way to leverage it into demonstrable loyalty.

Ilva would not lend any credence to a feeling Helena had. Caring about Helena didn’t make Kaine a dog she could command.

“If you really want the Eternal Flame to win, why keep climbing rank? What are you doing?” she asked.

His eyes shone like mirrors. She could almost see herself in their reflection. His mouth twisted into a mocking smile. If his face weren’t still wet, she’d never have known he’d been crying.

“It was obvious that my offer was only accepted out of desperation. The Eternal Flame may claim to be honourable, but Crowther is a snake. Ilva Holdfast can promise whatever she wants; she’s only a steward, and a Lapse at that.

She knows full well that if they win, the Eternal Flame will pick and choose which of her actions were legitimate.

Anything Holdfast doesn’t like will vanish like smoke.

I assumed that once I’d outlived my usefulness, you’d blow my cover to take advantage of the instability it would cause.

So.” His teeth flashed. “I tried to position myself to maximise that fallout.”

Helena furrowed her eyebrows, studying him. That seemed a bit too selfless for him. He might want to avenge his mother, but he had no fondness for the Eternal Flame. They were merely a means to an end.

“Why kiss me?” he abruptly asked. “What was the point—in all this?”

She looked down, not sure she had an answer. “I didn’t know you were supposed to die after we retook the ports. Apparently it was obvious, but I didn’t realise.”

Kaine gave a deadened laugh.

She couldn’t meet his eyes as she spoke. “They expected you to die from the array, and they were—waiting for that. When they realised you’ve been climbing rank, they assumed you’ve been playing the two sides against each other, so you’ll be the one who comes out on top in the end.”

“Did you think that?” he asked softly.

She swallowed hard, still not meeting his eyes. “No, but it doesn’t really matter what I think. They said just before solstice that I had a month to”—her voice dropped, lower than a whisper—“ make you crawl or kill you, or they’d let Morrough do it instead.”

He laughed again. “One more meeting to go, then. So this was a goodbye fuck? Final payment for services rendered?”

A tremor ran through Helena. “No. I—I just—”

Her throat closed. She leaned forward, gripping his shirt, wanting to shake him. She hated the way he’d switch, one moment vulnerable and the next so bitterly cruel.

“I just have to prove that you’ll do what I ask. If I can—they won’t kill you.” She studied his face desperately.

His eyebrows rose mockingly. “Really? Is that all? Just servitude and I’ll get to continue this delightful existence of mine so long as I’m more useful alive than dead? That’s so generous. How could I possibly refuse?”

Her grip loosened, and she gave a disbelieving laugh.

He didn’t want to be saved. Her efforts had only made things worse. All because Ilva and Crowther hadn’t told her, they’d made her believe it was all real, but it didn’t matter—it had never mattered whether she believed it—because Kaine had always known.

She drew a slow breath trying to reorient herself, but her mind wouldn’t comprehend it.

It couldn’t end like this. She’d done what she’d been told to do. She’d followed orders. She wasn’t supposed to have to make this choice.

“I—I have to follow orders. I can’t choose you. There’s too many people at stake,” she said, her voice shaking.

“I know.”

Her mouth opened and closed, but there was nothing else to say.

“All right,” she finally managed, her voice far away. She felt as though she’d been knifed, reality cold as tempered steel driven into her heart.

“Do you—” Her voice broke. “Do you want it to be me? Or does it—not matter?”

She knew Ilva probably wanted the Stone back if it could be recovered, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

He scoffed. “You lost your chance.”

Her throat worked several times before she could speak. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t reply. There was not even a flicker of remorse in his eyes. He looked cruelly satisfied.

There was no air in the room. She kept trying to breathe, but there wasn’t any oxygen. A dull ringing filled her ears. She looked blindly for her satchel, trying to remember where she’d left it. She knelt, wavering, willing her mind to function.

“So, what happens to you now?”

Helena blinked. “Me?”

“Yes.” He leaned forward and caught her chin, tilting her face so that the light from the windows fell across it, a pale slice of winter. “What happens to you?”

“When you’re—gone?”

He gave a short nod.

“I don’t know,” she said with a short hysterical laugh. She pulled away. “Like you said, I’ve always been expendable, so maybe they’ll offer me to the next spy.”

“Don’t joke. I want a real answer.” There was a sharp undercurrent to his voice.

She met his eyes then. “I promised I was yours. You made me swear it. I didn’t make plans.”

Anger darkened his face. “Surely there’s something you’re looking forward to now.”

She reached out, her fingers brushing over his heart. “No. I’m—spent.”

As she stood, she thought of Luc standing on the top of the Alchemy Tower, so close to the edge.

She hadn’t understood why he’d gone there.

How she and everyone else who needed him weren’t enough to hold him back, but now that edge called her, the abyss that would open once she’d split across the marble.

The air swam, her eyes struggling to focus because all she could hear was the drumbeat of her heart inside her skull.

Everyone who touches you dies.

“What do they want?” His voice was almost a whisper.

She looked back. “What?”

“Is it—actual crawling? Or was there something more constructive Ilva had in mind?”

Her throat closed. “I—I’d have to ask.”

“Find out. I’ll do it.” He looked exhausted, but now there was an edge of something seething in him.

“Are you really offering?” she asked, certain it was a trick.

He gave no response.

“ Why are you offering?” Her voice rose, a note of hysteria in it.

He looked up at her a moment. “I realised just now that I’d miscalculated something. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d made you marketable.”

The words thudded against her chest. “Oh.”

Apparently, Crowther was right after all. The Ferrons were possessive enough to eat themselves alive before they’d let go of anything they considered theirs.

“I’ll bring an answer back,” she said.

He gave a short nod and looked away from her, saying nothing else as she went and pulled on her cloak, using it to hide her ripped clothes. She slung her satchel over her shoulder.

His hand twitched as she reached the door, but when she glanced back one last time, he’d looked away, still leaning against the wall, staring across the room, so pale he could have been a ghost.

She walked out of the tenement into a downpour of rain. She stood beneath it, trying to gain her bearings, drawing rapid breaths. She was on a precipice; she could still feel that edge, the plunge if she misstepped.

She kept her hood pulled up at the checkpoint, but she was familiar enough that they waved her through without being thorough. A security failure, but she was grateful for it. She split from her usual route, heading to the drop point. She couldn’t show up at Headquarters like this.

As she neared it, signs of the war began to appear, as they did in every part of the city below Headquarters. The walls were scorched and distorted from combat.

The drop-point safe house was little more than a sub-basement storage room.

Her hands were stiff and trembling as she shoved the door closed. She focused first on lighting a fire in the portable stove using the discarded pile of kindling and old newspapers.

She was struggling to coax the fire to life, wishing her knowledge of pyromancy extended beyond the theoretical, when the door opened. She turned quickly, hoping it wasn’t Ivy, although a stranger might be worse.

It was Crowther who entered. He stopped short, irritation pinching his face.

Helena looked back to the fire.

“Are you injured?”

She shook her head. He nudged her out of the way.

With the snap of his fingers, there was fire, the wood igniting with a crackling roar.

Helena held her hands out towards the flames, saying nothing.

He went into the next room and returned with a towel.

She took it wordlessly, scrubbing until water stopped trickling from her hair. She could feel him scrutinising her.

“Is it done, then?” he asked when she lowered it to her lap and reached towards the fire again.

Her throat caught. After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. “Yes, I did it.”

He released a soft breath of relief, and his right hand briefly patted her shoulder. “You can give the talisman to Ilva.”

She kept staring at the fire. “He was being honest when he said he wanted to avenge his mother.”

Crowther sighed, but Helena kept speaking.

“Back when Atreus was arrested, Kaine was safe at the Institute, but his mother wasn’t.

You know vivimancy for torture doesn’t always leave evidence behind.

Kaine killed Principate Apollo because it was the only way to save her.

But she never recovered from it. Certain kinds of stress for too long can damage the heart. ”

There was a tense pause, and she could feel Crowther’s doubt permeating the air.

Helena didn’t look away from the fire. The heat singed her hands, but she didn’t draw them away. If her hands were scorched, maybe she wouldn’t feel the rest of her body.