Page 170 of Alchemised

H ELENA WAS CORRODING LIKE METAL; DISSOLVING, DECAYING, flecking away into pieces. There was a constant pain in her chest as she felt herself come apart.

There were so many things she wanted to say to Kaine, but she could scarcely think them without her throat beginning to ache and her heart pounding and she would start crying.

She’d never been particularly prone to crying before, but the pregnancy seemed to rip it out of her.

The countdown to her departure was slowly tearing her apart.

One day, instead of crying, she snapped and raged at him.

His plans were stupid and selfish. It wasn’t fair that he got to die and she was left to live with everything.

If he’d let her help rescue Lila, none of this might have happened.

If he’d just trusted her and not been so controlling, if he’d let them work together—everything might have been different. It was all his fault.

He let her say it all, until she was gasping for breath, hand clawing at her chest, trying to force her heart to beat evenly, and when he had to do it for her, she tried to tear his hands off.

When his father called him away, she was left to seethe and realised he was doing this intentionally.

He knew the destructive ways her mind tilted. Since the moment she’d arrived at Spirefell, he’d gone out of his way to needle and antagonise, trying to provoke her. He’d given her a target. When she’d hated him, she’d been less self-destructive.

If she was angry now, it would make leaving easier.

He was managing her. She swallowed her anger, but all her emotions sat like poison inside her.

A LORRY brOUGHT A FRESH batch of prisoners to Spirefell, and Kaine was gone again.

Helena couldn’t help but wonder at the relationship between Kaine and his father.

They were both unveiled in their contempt for each other.

Atreus seemed to find so much in his son to despise, and yet seemed to constantly find reasons to need him.

Kaine blamed his father for the tragedy of his mother, and yet Atreus was among the Undying he’d spared, despite seeming an easy target.

Helena was sitting numb with despair when the door opened.

She looked up, blood running cold as one of the uniformed lorry guards stepped into the room.

He tilted back the cap on his head, and it was Ivy.

Helena stared with deadened surprise as Ivy gave a tentative smile.

“You were hard to get to.”

Helena didn’t move. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to rescue you.”

Ivy had no sooner spoken than there was a scream of metal as the iron around the door warped inwards, barring the door. Ivy whirled and tried the door, finding it completely immobile. She turned and started to move towards Helena.

“Don’t,” Helena said sharply, standing up. “The last time someone came and got too close, he broke almost every bone in their body before he arrived.”

Ivy froze, the look of a caged animal filling her eyes. However difficult Helena had been to reach, this was clearly not a well-plotted rescue.

“Why are you here?” Helena said, staring at the girl. She was a girl. She was so young. “You’ve known I was a prisoner here since last year. Why are you here now?”

Ivy drew back and then moved around Helena in a wide arc, making for the window, rattling it forcefully, and trying to break the panes of glass. The girl had lost her touch, or perhaps been too impulsive, too misguided in what she thought the difficulty of the infiltration would be.

“I thought you were here for interrogation,” Ivy said. “I didn’t know the High Reeve would do—” Her eyes flicked to Helena’s stomach. “—that to you.”

Helena scoffed. “They’re doing the same to plenty of girls in Central. Why do you care about me?”

Ivy stilled. “Sofia liked you. Wanted me to be your friend. She was always telling me that I should be more like you. That I should help people. I never listened.”

“I don’t want to be your friend,” Helena said coldly. “Your sister is dead. You betrayed us all for a corpse.”

“I know!” Ivy’s voice rang with grief as she whirled to face Helena, face pale, eyes bright.

“I know, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t let her be dead.

I thought—” Her face crumpled. “—I told myself she was just hurt, but she would come back. But she doesn’t.

She—can’t. Even if she did, she would never forgive me for all this. Would she?”

Helena felt no sympathy. “You cost us everything. Even if we were always going to lose, there were people who could have run, they could have fled if they’d had time. But you made sure they didn’t.”

As she spoke, the doors warped, metal screaming, and Kaine walked in. The wrought iron peeled itself from the floor, elongating into countless points, all aimed at Ivy. A flick of his hand and Ivy would be run through from every side.

She could try to flee, but she would not make it two steps.

Ivy turned to face him, her face strangely resigned.

“What an unexpected traitor,” Kaine said with complete insincerity. “I have to admit I thought you were too smart to fall into a trap this obvious.”

Ivy gave a bitter smile and shook her head almost sadly. “You don’t remember me, do you? I thought eventually you might.”

Kaine studied her. “I can’t say I do.”

“I was different when we first met. Smaller. Screaming.”

Kaine shook his head, as if that could have been countless people.

“I used to wear two braids. With bows.” Ivy gestured along her shoulders with both hands. “After the Undying killed my parents, they used them to drag me across the floor and put them in your hands. You were younger then, too.”

Recognition slowly dawned in Kaine’s eyes.

Ivy pressed her lips together, inhaling.

“When you ran away, the other Undying went after you. Forgot all about my sister and me. I tried to cut my mother’s head off with the cake knife to make her stop what she was doing to Sofia.

That was when I realised what I could do with my hands.

” She looked down at her fingers. “After we got away, Sofia was still alive but she—it was like she was in a dream. She didn’t move unless I moved her or eat unless I fed her.

We hid in the slums. When she finally woke up, the last thing she remembered was that it had been my birthday.

She didn’t remember any of it. We would have died, if not for you. ”

Kaine’s expression grew contemptuous. “Another reason to regret my actions that day.”

Ivy turned confused until Kaine reached into his coat and drew an obsidian dagger. Then her sharp eyes widened, not with fear but surprise, almost joy. “You’re the killer.”

He smiled. “Yes, and you, in particular, I’ve been looking forward to.”

Ivy turned towards Helena. “And you knew?” She looked between them. “Is this all pretend?”

“In a way,” Helena said. She hadn’t thought she’d mind seeing Ivy killed, but it seemed she was doomed to feel some pity for anyone she understood.

Crowther had mentioned that Ivy had come from the slums and worked for him in exchange for her sister’s protection.

If Sofia had been in a fugue state, it was no wonder Ivy had been able to cling to the fantasy that Sofia was still alive.

“Don’t kill her,” Helena said.

Kaine glanced at her. “You can’t expect me to spare her.”

Helena shook her head. “I don’t think she expects to be spared,” she said, suspecting she was about to make a terrible mistake, but there was so little reason left not to risk everything. She looked towards Ivy. “The Undying are all doomed. You know that, don’t you?”

Ivy nodded. Helena doubted that she had become Undying out of any interest in immortality; more likely it had been a condition of Morrough’s, like Kaine, a leash around a lethal vivimancer’s throat.

“Will you help us?” Helena asked.

Ivy’s sharp eyes jumped between Helena and Kaine, her expression wary and calculating, but she inclined her head.

“No,” Kaine said sharply. “She can’t be trusted.” He turned on Helena, and his resonance hummed ominously, the iron in the room giving a bone-shuddering groan. “She’ll say anything to get out of this room alive, and then she’ll betray you, just like she betrayed everyone else.”

Helena looked at Ivy and back to Kaine. “I think we can. She owes you. She owes you years of her sister’s life. She’ll do this for Sofia.”

“What do you need?” Ivy asked. Her eyes were sharp and curious, that bright look that Helena remembered well.

Helena looked at her. “Kaine’s phylactery. It’s part of the outer bone of Morrough’s right arm.”

Ivy trembled almost imperceptibly. It was clearly more than she’d bargained for. “Why?”

Helena looked at her and then at Kaine. “I need it to save him.”

Ivy nodded slowly. “I’ll try. If there’s a way, I’ll find it.”

“You won’t survive, if you do this,” Helena said, watching Ivy, beginning to doubt herself but unable to stop. Any chance was better than none.

Ivy lifted her chin. “I’m doing this for Sofia. She can’t be hurt anymore. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.” She looked at Kaine. “You were the reason I could save her once. So this will be my thanks for that.”

“I don’t want your thanks,” Kaine said, his lip curling, but Helena clasped his wrist, urging him to lower his arm. He glared at her. “This is not worth it. She’s not even competent.”

Helena rose up and spoke softly so her voice wouldn’t carry. “Tell me, truthfully, would you have been any different if you thought it could save your mother? Say no, and I’ll let you kill her.”

His jaw clenched, and he lowered the knife.

“Get out before I change my mind,” he said.

Ivy hesitated a moment, and Helena nodded, urging her to go. Quick as a flash, she darted across the room, weaving around the iron and out the door. The room slowly reassembled itself, and Kaine stared at Helena, accusation in his eyes.

“After everything, you’ll risk it all on this?” he asked.

“If it saves you, it’s worth it.”

“And if it doesn’t?”