Page 392 of Alchemised

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.