Page 142 of Alchemised

She flinched. “No.”

“Well.” He met her eyes. “I don’t see you that way, either.

You’re mine.” He let go of her wrist and lifted his hand, the fingertips tracing the scarring until it was covered by his palm, warm against her bare skin, then sliding up to curve around her neck.

“You are. It doesn’t matter what happens to you, you will still be mine. ”

H ELENA SAW ONLY BITS OF the house. Spirefell.

They took walks through the dim hallways as she tried to adapt to the way her chest ached when she moved.

Breathing deeply made it feel like her sternum would snap.

The house was an old, heavy style long abandoned in the city.

Everywhere was detailed in dark wrought iron, even the floors run through with it. There was a melancholy beauty to it.

In the foyer, an intricate mosaic of the ouroboros dragon was inlaid in the marble floor. Meticulously rendered in both grandeur and savagery. She studied it from the landing above.

The Ferrons must have been so proud when the house was built. They must have thought they’d defeated god.

That night, she pulled Kaine into the bed. He’d slept in the chair beside it every night, her hand in his, ignoring her arguments that surely there were other beds in his house.

Now he finally gave in to her.

She curled against him, having missed the warmth and comfort of his body.

A few more days and she would go back. She’d convalesced there longer than she’d meant to, but the return trip would be hard, and she’d be no use at Headquarters if she wasn’t recovered.

Everything would be different. The bombing had decimated the Resistance, wiped out their supplies.

Everything they’d gained in the last year, gone, and now Morrough knew there was a spy.

The Undying were looking for Kaine, trying to lure him out, but that would not stop Ilva or Crowther from coercing him into doing whatever they deemed necessary.

She had to go back.

She held him, her heart beating so hard it made her whole chest throb.

She pulled him closer, tilting her head back, and kissed him. His hand rose up to caress her cheek, but he began to draw away. She knew he was going to say she was still recovering. She was so sick of her convalescence. Of having so little time and never getting to spend it in the ways she wanted.

“It’ll be fine if we’re careful,” she said, not letting go. “Please. I want you before I go.”

He was careful. Slow and gentle. He touched her as though she were glass.

He pushed into her and she caught his face in her hands, pulling him close so that their noses and foreheads brushed, her fingers trembling.

I love you.

It was right at the tip of her tongue, but she hesitated, biting the words back.

There was a part of her that felt she might doom them if she said it. If there were important things left unspoken, tomorrow would come.

She kissed him instead.

I love you. She told him in the way she held him close; in the way her mouth met his; in how her hands trailed across his skin, mapping him, memorising every detail of what it was to be with him, his scars under her fingers.

I love you.

I love you.

She told him in the way she let go of herself and held on to him instead. With every beat of her heart. I love you. I will always love you. I will always take care of you.

I T WAS DUSK WHEN SHE left. She stepped outside for the first time. Spirefell was a sprawling house which curved in, connecting with the other buildings to form a large courtyard with an overgrown garden in the centre.

Amaris was there, waiting restlessly. Her wings fanned out and fluttering.

Kaine lifted Helena carefully, the chest brace absorbing the pressure of her weight.

As he swung up behind her, she looked towards the house.

In the summer gloaming, it looked almost like an immense slumbering dragon itself, curling inwards, the spires like spines.

It was covered in vining roses which crept all the way up the front, nearly covering it.

Davies and an old male servant, possibly a butler, stood at the top of the wide flight of stone steps, watching.

When Amaris launched herself into the air, it was like being punched in the ribs. Helena doubled over, gasping from pain, and she felt Kaine tense and nearly turn Amaris back.

She gripped his leg. “I’m all right.”

They were airborne for longer than Helena had ever been before.

Amaris flew towards the mountains, trying to beat the moonrise. It was close enough to the Abeyance that Lumithia was a crescent, not too bright as she rose. They landed on the top of a building dangerously close to Headquarters. When Helena looked south, she saw why.

A wall had been erected, marking off Resistance territory. It was more than halfway up the island. Beyond, she could see the gash bisecting the city where the bomb had gone off, the buildings fallen. The centre of the island was cratered.

“We lost that much?”

“No, but you don’t have the forces to hold more,” Kaine said grimly, swinging down and helping her carefully off Amaris’s back.

She was nauseated with pain, fighting hard to breathe as she squeezed Kaine’s hand, but she couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye. She had a growing fear of anything final. She could feel it all coming to an end.

“Be careful,” was all she said.

“Helena, please—” His voice broke, stopping her in her tracks.

She turned back, and he gripped her shoulders.

She knew what he wanted to ask her, could see it in his eyes. Run away and don’t come back.

But he knew she wouldn’t. He swallowed, not meeting her eyes. “Don’t get hurt again,” he said instead. “Don’t—”

She rose up on her toes and cut him off with a kiss.

“Be careful,” she whispered. “Don’t die.”

W HEN H ELENA APPEARED AT THE gates in boys’ clothes, struggling to breathe, her reception was one of far more suspicion than joy. She was placed in a holding cell for an hour before Crowther appeared to have her let out.

“You sure?” the guard said to him. “She’s been listed among the dead for almost a month.”

“Yes, she was found by one of the splinter factions,” Crowther said. “I knew they’d send her back eventually. Let her out.”

Helena didn’t know if the splinter factions of Resistance fighters existed at all, or if they were an invention to cover up all of Crowther’s illicit activities. A great deal of Kaine’s intelligence and activities were attributed to these alleged groups.

Crowther looked as if he had not slept in weeks. His face was haggard, his eyes bloodshot, and he appeared mostly angry about having to go out of his way to get Helena released.

Helena wanted to know what had happened while she’d been gone, but before the door of the holding cell was unlocked, he was already walking away.

“Go to the hospital. The matron’s on shift. I’ll deal with you tomorrow,” he said over his shoulder.

Matron Pace wept at the sight of her. “You’re alive! I should have gone. When I heard they sent you—I—”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Helena said. She was exhausted from the flight and journey back. There was a grinding pain in her chest. She pressed her hand gingerly against her sternum, trying to relieve the pressure.

Pace ushered her into a space enclosed by curtains. “How did you survive?”

Helena stuck with the vagaries of Crowther’s excuse. “I don’t really remember. We were in the hospital and there was another explosion. When I woke, I’m not sure where I was. I’d had an operation, and I was mostly left to recover.”

“Let me see.”

If she were Pace, she’d be the same, so she allowed her clothes to be removed and the chest brace carefully unfastened to reveal the scarring down her chest.

“Oh.” Pace’s hand trembled, but then she inspected it more carefully. “This is … good work.”

She’d clearly expected some kind of back-alley surgery utilising twine and kitchen knives. “Whoever their surgeon is, we should try to bring them in.”

“I never saw who it was,” Helena said. “I’m getting better, but my resonance is still unstable.”

Pace attempted a smile, but it was more grimace. “Fortunately, chelator is one of the few things we still have in sufficient supply.”

“How bad are things?” Helena asked.

Pace did not stop moving as she continued to examine Helena and began prepping her arm for an intravenous drip. “I only hear things secondhand.”

“How bad are people saying it is?”

Pace shook her head. “Of our remaining combatants, more than a third are still showing signs of the nullium poisoning. The wind’s shifted, so we’re spared most of the dust now, but even the parts of the island that are still intact are dangerous. At least until there’s rain.”

“I heard that Althorne died.”

“And Ilva.”

“What?” Helena stared at Pace in shock.

“A little more than a week ago. Her heart failed from the stress. Luc is inconsolable. You should go see Lila tomorrow. She was devastated when she learned you were listed among the dead.”

No mention of Luc’s reaction to Helena’s presumed death. Her throat tightened.

“How is she?”

“Progressing. Everything is quite healthy.”

T HE BOMBING HAD DAMAGED THE island’s structural foundation and flood infrastructure, and it was impossible to repair due to the risk of nullium exposure.

The Resistance had also lost almost all their prisoners because the building had collapsed, including Crowther’s, whom he’d moved to keep from Ivy’s grasp.

They were all presumed dead, but it was impossible to verify much of anything within the blast zone.

Even the smuggled aid received from Novis was now difficult to obtain, and the scale of injuries too great to let patients evacuate to Novis. Their monarchical neighbour was beginning to signal a dwindling enthusiasm for both providing resources and absorbing Paladia’s injured.