Page 165 of Alchemised

She slowly began to realise that he was indulging her. The notes, removing her manacles: It was all an attempt to appease her. It was the library. He was keeping her occupied and motivated to recover her strength, but he had no expectation that it would make any difference. He was managing her.

She stopped talking.

He nodded again, as if agreeing with something she’d said, and stood. “I’ll make sure you have what you need.”

He started for the door, then halted suddenly and turned back. He stood staring at her and the room for a long time before he finally spoke.

“I know we—” He stopped, and his hand curled into a fist, vanishing behind his back. He blinked, staring just past her.

“From what I understand,” he finally said, his voice eerie and removed, “simple methods of abortion are unlikely to be feasible by the time you’ll escape.

There are other methods that can be done by vivimancy or surgery.

When you go, I’ll try to ensure you have the materials necessary to resolve it, but if there’s anything in particular you’ll need, just tell me. I’ll make sure that you have it.”

Before she could respond, he turned and left.

Helena leaned back, pushing the folio away and forcing herself to look at her body.

Hesitantly, reluctantly, she reached down and pressed her fingers against her stomach, just below her navel, finding the slight swell of her uterus. Her hand trembled almost violently as she let her resonance reach in.

She’d seen the resonance screen, but it was different reaching out herself.

It was startling how small it was.

She snatched her hand away, her heart pounding unsteadily.

Helena had never thought about children.

Not until they were something that she couldn’t have and so it didn’t matter what she wanted.

A month ago and she would have killed herself in an instant to prevent a baby, any baby, from falling into Morrough’s hands.

The pregnancy had not existed for her beyond that context.

But if she escaped, if the choice was hers, what would she do?

When Davies arrived that evening with dinner, she brought etching plates and a stylus. Helena held the stylus in silent disbelief at first. If she’d ever found one searching the house, she would have tried to stab herself through the heart with it.

Kaine really had known her too well.

“Is Kaine here?” she asked.

Davies shook her head.

“When he comes back, can you tell him that I want him?”

It was dusk, the light soft when the door opened and Kaine stood there as if he wasn’t even sure he should step over the threshold.

Helena looked up from the folio, hating the space.

“Had I told you I was sterilised?”

He entered then, shutting the door. “No, but I assumed. It was standard practice for the Faith. It was one of my father’s greatest concerns if I were ever found using vivimancy—that they’d cut me and end the family line.”

“Oh.”

She was glad they’d never had that conversation, then.

His jaw clenched. “It hadn’t occurred to me that Stroud could reverse it. I thought you were safe from the program.”

Her hands crept towards her stomach. “I want to talk about what you said earlier, before you left.”

His expression closed.

Helena’s chest tightened. There were too many moments, both past and present, when he’d looked at her like that. She closed her eyes, trying to block them out.

“Can you come closer?” Her mouth had gone dry. “It’s hard to talk when you’re so far away.”

It was clear that he didn’t want to be anywhere near her for this conversation, but she needed him near.

She stared at her hands. “I didn’t realise you expected me to terminate the pregnancy when I escaped. I mean, I understand why you would, but I’m not going to.”

She looked up, trying to gauge his reaction, but he wasn’t looking at her.

“You may change your mind once you’re free,” he said, his voice void of emotion, as if it had nothing to do with him.

She shook her head. “I won’t.”

His jaw ticced, tension growing visible around his eyes. “There’s no reason to make any commitment like this to me.” His voice shook. “Do whatever you want.”

“I am,” she said. “And I want you to know. If I didn’t, I’d wonder about everything.

If our baby would get your eyes or mine.

What kind of resonance they’d have. If they’d have any, or if they’d just get to be ordinary.

” She was speaking quickly, because her throat was growing thick.

“I’d wonder if they’d have hair like mine or if it would be straight like yours.

If I have to go without you—if you—if you die—I’d want to tell them all about you.

” She swallowed hard. “I’ve never gotten to tell anyone about you.

I’d want someone to know what you were like. ”

He looked at her then.

“What I’m like?” he finally said. “What exactly do you think I’m like?” he scoffed, shaking his head. “You have a chance at a new life. Don’t drag my memory with you.”

Helena shook her head, and his expression hardened, everything about him sharpening.

“Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with one of the Undying’s bastards chained to you?

” he asked. “The whole world knows you’re here, who you were sent to.

Do you think they won’t guess who the father was and how it came to be?

No matter what colour eyes it has, or how old it gets, it will be the child of a murderer, conceived because I raped you while you were my prisoner, and everyone will know that. Everyone.”

His face was furious, his fingers curling as if he wanted to shake her, but he turned away, his expression contorting.

“Just leave it behind.” He drew a ragged breath. “You want children? Have them with someone else.”

She stared at him, incredulous. “Is that what you think I’m going to do? Run away and pretend you were a monster I was lucky to escape?”

He glanced at her, empty resignation in his face before he looked away again. “It’s the truth.”

Her chest constricted, crushing her heart.

“Kaine …” She reached towards him. “You’re not a monster. You didn’t have any choice. Neither of us—we were both raped.”

He jerked away, evading her fingers. “Don’t.”

She stepped forward and caught his face in her hands, holding on to him.

“You’re mine,” she said, heart pounding unsteadily against her ribs.

“Did you really think I would still hate you once I remembered?” She shook her head.

“Even before I did, you were the only thing that ever felt safe. I thought I was going mad, but a part of me always knew you. I left a note. Didn’t you get my note? I love you.”

He flinched as if struck and started to shake his head, but she stilled him, forcing him to meet her eyes.

“I do,” she said more firmly, her voice shaking with intensity. “I love you. And I always will. Always.”

She rose up on her toes, pulling him closer, and kissed him.

He stayed frozen when her lips touched his.

“I love you,” she said the words against his mouth, as if breathing them into him.

He was still a moment longer and then shook, his palms cradling her face, fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her closer, his mouth burning as he kissed her.

He kissed her like he was starving. As though he were trying to pour himself into her or consume her.

He’s mine. He is all mine, was all she could think. She wrapped her arms around his neck, meeting every caress of his lips on hers.

He drew back just enough to speak, his palm curved around the nape of her neck, his forehead resting on hers.

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I’m so sorry for everything I did to you,” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “I love you. You left, and I’d never told you.”

H ELENA SPENT HER DAYS SCRIBBLING notes, going through every book and scrap of information she could find, trying to make sense of the piecemeal array concepts that Shiseo had collected. She remembered now about Wagner and her repeated attempts at making sense of his amateur array sketch.

The task of reconstructing it felt impossible, but it was the only thing she could think to do, the only solution she could envision.

Upon request, Kaine provided her with the complete works of Cetus, all the various letters and florilegia, all those centuries of writings dubi ously attributed to him.

She hoped that if she could work out which were legitimate, she might have a better understanding of his alchemy methods.

As she worked, she ignored the nagging fear that it was all pointless, that she was delusional; if she hadn’t been able to find a solution before, what chance did she have of solving it now? She kept working; there simply could not be a future in which she left Kaine behind to die.

She dragged her mind forcefully from where she had constricted and suffocated it in order to accept the empty tedium she’d limited her memories to, but the effort gave her such headaches she could only work for short periods.

She woke one morning to the servants gathering up all her books and research and ferrying them into a room which adjoined hers. The doorway between the two had always been locked in the past. Kaine was standing by the bed.

“Stroud is coming today,” he said. “I have to insert the nullium.”

Helena’s mouth went dry. “Of course,” she said, forcing herself to hold out her hands, and not to flinch as the tubes slid into her wrists, her resonance vanishing. She knew it wasn’t his fault, but a sick sense of betrayal swept through her as she stared down at her hobbled hands.

She curled back into bed, her heart pounding with dread, trying to rub the nauseating dead sensation from her wrists as Kaine left to escort Stroud in.

“Look who’s conscious again,” Stroud said as she entered. “The High Reeve was very concerned about you. I think he expected you to die. Seems you did listen to your father in the end.”

Kaine’s jaw clenched, and he made no attempt to hide his disdain for Stroud. “Perhaps focus on the reason for your visit.”

Stroud sucked her teeth, setting her satchel on the table beside the bed and leaning over Helena, prodding with finger and resonance.

“Well, it seems the sickness has passed. She’s beginning to regain some weight.

” She pressed several fingers against Helena’s forehead but used only the smallest frisson of energy, tsking.

“Her brain is still severely inflamed, though. I wouldn’t depend too much on those memo ries surviving the rest of the pregnancy.

The most severe Toll generally happens at the end, assuming this child is what we hope. ”

Stroud was focused on Helena, or she would have seen Kaine go grey.

“Now that she’s eating, you need to make sure she’s getting outdoors and exercising. The weaker she is, the less likely we’ll achieve viability.”

Stroud let go of Helena and reached into her satchel, pulling out a resonance screen. “Now let’s see how things look.”

She pulled the blankets down and Helena’s clothes up. Kaine turned away.

“Very healthy,” Stroud said with a smug smile, nodding at the vaguely pulsing shape visible in the gas. “It doesn’t appear the coma or fits had any impact on the foetal development. That would be quite unfortunate. I think we’re far enough along that I can …”

Stroud squinted, and the screen morphed, the shape stretching and ballooning. Stroud’s face suddenly fell.

“It’s female.”