Page 147 of Alchemised

His expression hardened. “A bomb?”

She gave a tense nod.

“Obsidian?”

“And nullium, so you need to be well clear.”

He nodded and looked at her pointedly. “I hope they’re not building it at Headquarters.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s off-site.”

He exhaled. “Well, the Resistance is taking this final assault seriously at least. The Hevgotian force will cross the western border within the week, but several militocrats and officials will arrive in a day. There’s to be a welcome banquet for them the following evening.

Most of the Undying will be in attendance; even Morrough may be there briefly. ”

She nodded. That would work. “Can you place it without suspicion? And then get away?”

His eyes softened. “No one pays attention to necrothralls the way they should. They assume anyone using them must be on their side. If I rip out the reanimation, I can take over someone else’s and use them to make a delivery. It won’t be easily traced back to me.”

“And you won’t be there? When it goes off.” She was afraid that he was evading the question.

Standing there, the two of them looked worlds apart. He was clean and pristine, in a tailored uniform, wearing a row of intricate medals, while she stood ragged, in male-sized standard-issue clothes washed to threads.

“How far away do I need to be?”

“Far enough not to breathe it in. There will be micro-shards in the air. We don’t know what effect they’ll have. You should be far away.”

“I’ll run an errand around that time. The ambassador enjoys making himself inconvenient. I’m sure I can convince him to want something unreasonable and distant.”

She nodded. “Make it a long errand. I’ll bring it tomorrow evening.”

“No.” His voice cracked like a whip, and all the softness vanished. “Crowther’s not using you to transport a bomb.”

She shook her head. “It won’t be activated until the components are joined, and there’s a countdown. I’m not going to get blown up carrying it,” she said. “You can’t put it together on your own if you don’t know how to join the pieces.”

“I don’t care. Tell Crowther to figure out another way.” He’d turned bloodlessly pale, that inhuman gleaming rising beneath his skin.

“But if I don’t come,” she said, ready to resort to anything if he’d just cooperate, “that means I won’t see you again until—until after.”

He didn’t waver. “Then I’ll see you after. Send someone else.”

Her breath caught in her lungs. “Kaine …”

He glared at her. “I found you after a bombing. I had to watch them cut you open, trying to get the shrapnel out. You nearly died so many times on the operating table, I lost count. If you’d been an inch closer to the blast, that shrapnel would have gone through your heart.

You want me to set a bomb, I will do it, but you will not touch it. Do you understand?”

She swallowed bitterly, grateful that she hadn’t told him any details that might have revealed her involvement. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”

She turned to go. There was so much she needed to do. Take inventory, finish the bomb, help prep the hospital. She’d been assigned to the casualty ward again.

Kaine pulled her to him. “Come back here in a few hours.”

She shook her head. “Now’s hardly the time.”

He didn’t seem to remember that he was the one who couldn’t linger. He wouldn’t let go. She wished that all of this had begun sooner; there was so much time they’d missed.

“All right,” she said finally, giving in. “But you have to leave now.”

He let go slowly. “I’ll call for you.”

After reporting to Crowther, she headed to the off-site lab where she and Shiseo used their resonance in tandem to assemble the final components. They’d built the bomb to be as compact as possible, but it was still nearly the size of a child. It would need to be placed in the centre of a room.

Bombs themselves were not a new alchemical development, but they’d been banned for almost a hundred years after it was decided they were uncivilised.

Although banning them had done nothing to stop their development; Hevgoss was famously partial to such technology, viewing it as an equaliser against alchemists.

With the right manipulation of the air and flames, Luc held firebombs in his fingertips. A great deal of his homework had involved arrays and technical studies, drilling all the various ways in which fire could be manipulated and weaponised. Helena had utilised much of it.

The trick had been designing something that would cause a powerful explosion without melting their obsidian.

Shiseo had taught her a technique for a combination alloy fusion utilising dual array transmutation. It was complicated and dangerous. Even with all the arrays stabilising their resonance, Helena burned several fingertips nearly to the bone.

“Are you all right?” Shiseo asked as she sat trying to quickly regenerate the tissue.

Her fingertips hurt so much, it was hard to even feel her resonance, but years of practice made it natural to soothe the damaged nerve endings and regenerate them. Later she’d fix the dermal layer so that it wouldn’t be obvious to the eye.

“It’s nothing,” she finally managed to say, blinking hard and staring at her hands, at the lines that ran across her fingers and palm.

Out of habit, she pressed her fingers against her sternum, feeling the faint dip in the bone.

The scar had faded some, but the ache where the bone had split lingered. “Is it done?”

He set the two pieces on the worktable, and she eyed them wearily.

He looked at her. “We’ll finish this tomorrow. Your hands need to recover, and you need rest.”

She gave him a faint smile. “I will tonight.”

S HE STAYED PREOCCUPIED UNTIL LATE into the night, rechecking the medical inventory. Her epinephrine injections were nearly out, but there was no record of who’d taken them. Helena left a brusque note. If Elain was going to run everything, she could at least enforce the rules.

She was rolling a mountain of sterilised bandages into spools when her ring burned.

Amaris barely landed; Kaine swept her off the roof and they were airborne. The instant they were inside, he had her pinned against the wall, his lips ravenous on hers.

She gripped him tightly. Her fingertips were still numb, but she hardly noticed.

His hands slid up until her face was cradled in them. His forehead pressed to hers, breath mingling a moment before he kissed her again, drawing her farther inside. Their every step hurried. They were always running out of time.

Someday, she promised herself, someday I am going to love him in a moment that isn’t stolen.

“Are you all right?” he asked once they were inside, where it was lit enough that he could look at her.

He reached out, and she knew that if he touched her, he’d use his resonance and realise her hands had been recently injured, so she caught his hand in hers, curling his fingers closed and clasping it against her chest.

“Yes.” She nodded. “Now I’m all right.”

He stared at her, and she knew she looked tired, thin, and so sallow from being always indoors with little natural light. The bombing had broken most of the windows, and even the few that survived were boarded up and sealed in case the wind brought the nullium towards Headquarters again.

“I should have called you sooner.” His thumb traced along her cheekbone.

She shook her head. “It wouldn’t have been worth the risk. It’s dangerous for you to fly so near like that. Someone could shoot you with obsidian.” A tremor ran through her just saying it aloud. “We shouldn’t be doing this. It’s stupid to take this risk.”

She was suddenly struggling to breathe. He pulled his hand free and then held her head in both his hands, as if trying to quiet her mind for her.

“We’re safe here,” he said.

For now. For this moment.

But not really. Not ever.

Still she nodded, trying to believe it, not wanting to poison what little time they had left. She rose up on her toes, kissing him, pulling his arms around her.

Don’t let this be the last time.

She didn’t close her eyes. She kept them open and watching him, trying to notice every detail.

She wanted to commit everything to memory, the way he felt under her hands and against her skin, as if sufficient detail could make this secret thing real enough to endure; as if she could write it into the universe so deeply that even a war could not erase it.

Afterwards, he gathered her against his chest, chin resting on the top of her head as his fingers drew patterns across her skin.

I’m going to take care of you. I’m always going to take care of you.

He didn’t say it audibly, but she could hear it in the shifting of the air, the way his jaw moved when he mouthed the words.

She’d hoped to sleep, to experience one last hour of peace, but she was too afraid. When she sat up, Kaine’s quicksilver eyes were instantly guarded. She didn’t say anything for a moment, holding his hand in hers, studying his face, this aspect of him that was hers alone.

She entwined their fingers, trying to find the right words.

“Kaine,” she finally said, “there’s a chance—we’re hoping that this attack will be the end of the war. We don’t—we aren’t sure how much longer we’re going to last if it isn’t.”

His hand twitched.

“If it isn’t—” Her chest jerked, and she gave a tight, half-sobbed laugh. “—well, we’ll just keep fighting, then. But if it is … I—I don’t know what will happen to you. I’m sorry. I tried to find a way”—she looked down—“I couldn’t figure out—”

“It’s fine,” he said.

She shook her head. “Maybe if Morrough’s killed, your soul just goes back to you. We don’t know that it won’t. There’s a chance. Or maybe the Stone would be enough to—”

She was grasping, and they both knew it.

“It could,” she said insistently, squeezing his hand. “So, if that happens, if you’re all right when it’s over, you have to run. All right? Get away as fast as you can. Don’t let yourself be captured.”

His eyes narrowed. “Where will you be?”