Page 59 of Alchemised

T HE LIAISON POINT SELECTED WAS ON THE factory Outpost north of Headquarters.

The Outpost was a huge satellite structure built in the river just below the hydroelectric dam, erected atop enormous pillars that held it above even the highest storm floods, but near enough to benefit directly from the electricity generated there.

The factories there had been shuttered by the war, and the Outpost decimated by both sides during early attempts to control it for potential weapons manufacturing.

There’d been such massive and extensive destruction, it was eventually rendered virtually defunct.

Once in ruins, it wasn’t strategic enough for either side to prioritise holding it, and since disputing the territory further could have endangered the dam, it was mutually abandoned.

Neither side wanted Paladia without electricity, or waist-deep in water.

Even before the war, Helena had considered the Outpost one of the ugliest things she’d ever seen, a brutal black stain on a picturesque landscape.

In addition to being an eyesore, the Outpost had filled the skies with black smoke, poisoned the water, and left vile bogs of foul sludge throughout the wetlands that flooded into the water slums and low districts during Ascendance.

She’d never gone anywhere near it.

In the late evening on the designated day, she changed out of her uniform, leaving all her possessions carefully packed in her trunk, including the sunstone amulet. She hadn’t worn it since the meeting, the mere sight of it making her feel sick.

She dressed in civilian clothes that were as nondescript as possible.

With her hood pulled up, hiding how dark her hair was, she was hardly memorable.

Just a person trying to stay out of the war’s path.

The Undying didn’t usually bother civilians; they preferred Resistance soldiers as their necrothralls because they came armed and trained to fight.

The route was relatively simple. She only had to walk north from Headquarters and cross the bridge to the mainland.

Because the northern tip of the island was built on the plateau, she didn’t have to navigate through the various levels of the city.

The roadway gate was closed. The guards stationed at the pedestrian door checked the papers and identification Crowther had provided and let her through.

The river swirled below, not even flood season yet, just all the water from the mountain storms.

She reached the mainland and followed the road to the dam, then took a second bridge across the water to the Outpost. She was startled by the number of people there.

Because the facility was abandoned, many of the poorer civilians who weren’t alchemists and were afraid to ally with either side had fled there: The Outpost was the only place removed from the fighting that didn’t require enduring the winter brutality of the mountains.

The Outpost was a combination of a labyrinth and a city.

The huge metal and concrete walls made it claustrophobic.

The factories were heavily sabotaged in ways only possible with alchemy.

Bizarre transmutations and alchemisation used to destroy complex machinery.

The tenements were more intact, and heavily occupied.

The building she’d been directed to find had the alchemical symbol for iron set into its decorative mosaic doorway.

Helena entered, trying not to seem lost.

There’d been a skylight far overhead, but now its glass covered the floor. Only a few of the units had doors. Second floor, to the left, the fourth door. The number beside it was scratched off.

Helena removed her gloves and knocked firmly, trying not to be too loud.

Nothing happened. She waited and checked the map. Perhaps she was too early.

Well, she’d wait. She stood, externally calm while her heart beat her blood into a storm.

The door abruptly swung open, an electric lantern’s light spilling out into the landing. Kaine Ferron stood framed in the doorway.

He looked identical to his portrait in the paper, as if he had not aged a day. Five years and time had not touched him.

He didn’t even look seventeen. There was a coltishness to his build, the kind that boys had just after a growth spurt before filling out. Even his dark hair was combed in the same way he’d worn it at the Institute, as if he’d stepped straight through the years.

He was in a stone-grey uniform that almost matched the hazel-grey of his eyes. It was the uniform of upper-middle-ranked members of the Undying. The higher the rank, the darker the uniform. The generals wore all black.

He stared languidly down at her with his eerily youthful face.

The circumstances were already odious, but somehow what she felt least prepared for was that he’d look so young.

She stood gaping at him until he finally moved, holding the door slightly wider in invitation, creating just enough space for her to squeeze by if she brushed against him.

Her heart caught in her throat when she stepped inside.

As she crossed the threshold, she was torn between wanting to scan the unit and being afraid to take her eyes off Ferron for an instant.

In the split second it took her to pivot, her eyes raced across the room, taking in as much detail as possible.

It was simple and empty. One room with dirty walls and a cracked tile floor, furnished with only a wooden table and two chairs.

No bed, no sofa. She didn’t know if she should be relieved or terrified.

Her body threatened to tremble uncontrollably. She barely heard the door closing over the blood roaring in her ears.

She faced him, trying to mirror his languid indifference, to keep from betraying how scared she was. His fingers barely brushed the surface of the door, but she heard a mechanism shift inside it before the click of the lock, trapping her.

As he turned to face her, she spoke.

“Ferron, I understand you want to help the Resistance.” Her voice came from somewhere far away. Her mind was churning. Racing ahead.

How many people had he killed? He was clearly one of the Undying and had been for years now. How many necrothralls did he control? Why did he ask for her? Why would he want her? If he hurt her, would she be able to heal it all before curfew or would she be trapped there on the Outpost overnight?

The questions were clamouring in her head as dread crawled through her like a parasite. She felt it insinuating in her bones, finding every crack in her resolve to burrow into.

“You understand the terms?” he asked, tilting his head appraisingly. His face might be deceptively young, but his eyes weren’t.

She met them. “A full pardon. And me. In exchange for your information.”

“Now and after the war.” His eyes glittered as he said it.

Helena didn’t let herself react. After years in the hospital, she’d learned to ignore her feelings and do her job.

“Yes,” she said, without emotion. “I’m yours.”

Ferron might own her in body, but her mind and feelings were her own. If he wanted them, he’d have to work harder than that.

Get closer, Ferron. Become so obsessed with finding my vulnerabilities that you don’t notice the ones I’m making in you.

He smirked, and as he did, his true age suddenly showed starkly, not a physical vanishing but a look of spite so unmistakably hardened with time that it temporarily erased the facade of youth.

“Promise?” he asked.

“If you want.”

He flashed a quick grin, the expression slicing like a scythe across his face, more a wound than a real emotion. “Swear it, then. I want to hear you say it as a vow.”

She didn’t let herself pause or think, just pressed a hand over her heart. “I swear it, on the spirits of the five gods and my own soul, Kaine Ferron, I’m yours as long as I live.”

It was only after she’d spoken that she thought about the other vows she’d made in her life. All the contradictory things she’d promised. She’d have to find a way to reconcile them somehow.

At those words, he stepped towards her.

There was a predatory curiosity in his eyes, like a wolf stalking prey.

Before he could touch her, she blurted out, “Until we win, you can’t do anything to me that will interfere with—with my other responsibilities in the Resistance. I have to be able to go back without—without drawing attention.”

He paused, an eyebrow rising. “Right … I’ll have to keep you alive until this is over.” He sighed. “Well, I suppose that gives us something to look forward to.” He leaned towards her, bringing his face close to hers. “We’ll save the real fun for later.”

“I want you to swear it,” she said, and her voice shook.

He laid a hand over the place a heart should be. She wasn’t sure if the Undying had hearts.

“I swear,” he said, exaggeratedly reverent, his breath ghosting across her neck, “on the gods and my sou l ”—he laughed as he said it—“I won’t interfere.”

She craned her head back, eyes narrowed, suspicious of his cooperation. She knew it was an empty vow, but why play along? He had all the leverage, and instead of exploiting it, he was pretending like this was some kind of mutual agreement.

Noticing her scrutiny, he straightened and walked around her, tsking when she tried to keep him in her line of sight. His eyes were aglow with amusement.

“My, but you’re suspicious of me, aren’t you? Let me guess: You think this is all a ploy on my part, and that I’ll change my mind the moment I’ve gotten what I want.”

Helena went violently still.

“Yes, that’s exactly what you think.” He stopped short. “How’s this? As a token of my—sincerity, I won’t touch you. Yet.” His eyes trailed lazily down. “After all, I did specify willing, and you don’t look very willing.”