CHAPTER 25
Februa 1786
THE 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 the river justsecond 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. y memorable.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. rds stationedHe 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 find had theclosing 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 eat her bloodhad 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 façade of youth.
“Promise?” he asked.
“If you want.”
He flashed a quick grin, the expression slicing like a scythe across his face, ne room withmore 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 e able to healforward 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 soul”—he laughed as he said it—“I won’t
nformation.”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 face,down. “After all, I did specify willing, and you don’t look very willing.”
She should have felt relief but instead she was horrified by his proposal.
This wasn’t what she wanted. She was supposed to begin her mission at once; the longer it took to start, the more likely it was that Ferron would lose interest before she had a hold on him. But how was she supposed to say that without making her intentions obvious?
He seemed to notice her discomfort at the offer and gave a slow, wolfish smile. “In the meantime, I’ll let you go running back to your precious Eternal Flame with my information and find other means of enjoying your company.”
The thought of consenting to whatever awful thing he wanted was bad enough, but being forced to remain dreading it was worse.
She slid a hand behind her back, curling it into a tight fist until her nails bit ng attention.”into her palm, the almost healed cuts all throbbing, threatening to split open again.
“That’s—generous of you,” she said in what she hoped was a convincingly meek voice.
“Yes, I am generous. However.” Ferron suddenly looked appraising. “I do think you should give me something, at least.” The smile he flashed was viperine. “After all, I did have to give up some rather precious information to earn you. Surely I deserve something in return, to warm my cold heart.”
Helena’s stomach dropped, her equilibrium vanishing.
“What—what do you want?” she asked in a stiff voice.
She tried to calculate the likely options, but she was already drowning in possibilities. She didn’t like to think about the kinds of things men considered a favour.
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.” He pulled an expression of mock grief, pouting and looking so young that she almost physically recoiled.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked through gritted teeth. “Tell me, and I’ll do it.”
He gave a barking laugh. “My gods, Marino. You are desperate.”
“I’m here. I assumed that was obvious,” she said in a deadened voice, unable to look at him anymore.
“Well, since you’re a void of creativity when it comes to gratitude: Kiss me like you mean it,” he said, and then as if it were an afterthought, he added, “Based on your performance, I’ll decide how much information I feel inspired to part with.”
A kiss? Just a kiss? That was better than she’d expected, but she still didn’t want to go anywhere near him. ssion at once;He was goading her. That was obvious. From the moment she’d knocked on that door, everything he’d done was intended to keep her on edge.
This kiss was intended to compound that. To seal her sense of humiliation and cement her resentment towards him, the belief that she was only being spared further shame through his leniency. He expected her to hate him, to be cious Eternalso distracted by her emotions that she was easy to manipulate into fuelling her own misery.
It was a game. None of this was real. She was a toy, something he’d thrown into his list of demands as a diversion tactic. She wasn’t a part of his real plan. l her nails bitShe had to remember that.
She stepped towards him.
Ferron was meticulously composed, from his smoothly manicured nails to convincinglyhis ageless face, all hiding the monster that lurked beneath his skin.
His pupils were contracted, his eyes flat with disinterest.
She gathered her resonance until she could feel its hum in her fingertips and tempered it faint as spider silk. formation toShe wouldn’t manipulate him yet—it was much too early—but the kiss was an opportunity to touch him, to discover what he felt like. And what he felt for her. It would give her a starting point.
She slid her arms around his neck, not letting her bare hands touch his skin en consideredyet. Her fingers skimmed across the fine dark wool of his coat, pulling him forward.
He smirked as he leaned in, like it was fun.
When their lips were almost touching, she hesitated, almost expecting him to shove his hand straight into her chest and rip her heart out, the way he’d
killed Luc’s father.
She trembled, and she knew he felt it.
His breath smelled like juniper: peppery, sharp, and fresh-cut.
His eyes were languid again, lashes low as he met her eyes. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her.
Murderers are still men, she told herself. And he was merely a boy.
So she gave him a slow, sweet kiss, the way she could imagine herself kissing someone she was keen on. She didn’t try to make it enticing or he still didn’tseductive. She let it be tentative. A first kiss, because it was her first kiss.
As she kissed him, she let her fingertips brush the back of his neck, fingers sliding up through his hair, following the curvature of his skull, and then she let a whisper of her resonance slip beneath his skin.
Ferron was not human.
She knew that the Undying were unnatural, but she hadn’t been prepared te him, to befor how unnatural he would feel.
She could sense him, map him as she might anyone else, the beat of his heart, his nerves, veins, the currents of energy, all the interconnected facets of a body, but it felt wrong. Like trying to touch a mirror’s reflection rather than a person.
Ferron was there, physically. And he was alive, technically. But he was immutable in a way that her mind simply refused to comprehend.
She couldn’t let herself focus on it. She had to pay attention to what she was supposed to be doing, which was kissing him. Yet she found his physiology far more interesting than his mouth.
She let one of her hands slide down, palm pressed against his face, giving herself more direct contact, pulling him closer. She was losing focus, but his body fascinated her.
How was this possible? She couldn’t help but press a little closer.
The tempo of his heartbeat altered and then altered again.
Her mind abruptly recalled the physical reality of what she was doing: Her arm was around his neck, one hand on his face, body arched against his to
ouch his skincounter the height disparity.
He jerked away from her.
It startled her, but she dropped her hands immediately, trying not to breathe hard or seem as disoriented as she felt. Had he noticed her resonance?
She searched for signs of suspicion or anger in his expression.
His eyes were darker, and he looked significantly less composed with his hair rumpled and falling over his face.
“Well.” He blinked and shook his head. “That was certainly—something.”
He ran a gloved thumb across his mouth.
“You are full of surprises,” he added after a moment, voice lower than before.
Helena wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she just said the first thing that popped into her head. “Do you say that to every girl?”
He huffed a laugh and ran his hand through his hair to brush it off his face.
“No, I can’t say I do.” neck, fingersThere was a pause.
He’d probably been expecting her to bite him.
Heat rose across her face. She wished she had, but his physiology was so interesting. She couldn’t just encounter something like that and ignore it.
He cleared his throat. “I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket and tossed an object to her.
She caught it reflexively, studying it. It was a tarnished silver ring; she cted facets ofknew it by both sight and resonance, although her silver resonance was n rather thanminimal, not high enough for her repertoire to be considered noble. However, this ring was hand-forged rather than transmutationally crafted; she could see the hammer marks that had beaten a scaled, almost geometric pattern onto it.
A bizarre thing for an iron alchemist to have.
“A symbol of our relationship,” Ferron said, and when she looked up sharply, he raised his right hand to indicate a matching band on his index finger. “There’s a mirrored entanglement in them. If I do anything to mine, you’ll feel it. I’ll transmute it to warm briefly if I need to meet. Twice if it’s urgent. I’d advise coming very quickly if it ever burns twice.”
She inspected the ring. Mirrored entanglement was the way her call bracelet from the hospital worked. It was a form of transmutation that was incredibly rare. Few alchemists had the ability to manage it. It made the pieces very valuable, but they were only useful as long as the entangled pieces were accounted for.
The Eternal Flame kept a strict tally of everyone who carried one.
She tried slipping it on the forefinger of her left hand since it was her non- dominant transmutation hand but found it too small. She resigned herself, er resonance?sliding it down her left ring finger.
“My resonance for silver is only passable, but I think I can manage a temperature shift. Do I call you the same way?” she asked.
“No,” he said sharply, his voice startlingly vehement. “You don’t ever summon me. You burn me, ever, and this deal is off. I’m not a fucking dog. If you want me, you can come here and wait or leave a note, and I’ll get around to it when I have time.”
The viciousness was startling after all his mocking calm. Crowther was right: Ferron didn’t want to be ruled by anyone. It was power he craved.
“Well, I can’t always come immediately,” she said. “It could be noticed if off his face.I’m going out at odd times. Barring emergencies, it’d be better if we stick to a
schedule.”
“Fine.”
“Every Saturnis and Martiday I go out for medical supplies just before daybreak. No one will notice if I come back a little later. Would that work for you? I could do different days, if you’d rather.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s fine. If I can’t make it for some reason, come back again in the evening.”
“What if I can’t?” Helena asked, not understanding why he was so averse to using the rings for more than basic signalling. The trek to the Outpost was le. However,hardly short enough to be worth making unnecessarily. he could see“I’m sure I can figure it out,” he said, lip curling as he looked at her. Then he reached into his coat and pulled out two envelopes, selecting one.
“My first instalment, then,” he said as he held it out.
She took it from him. It was addressed to an Aurelia Ingram.
“Crowther has the cipher already,” Ferron said as she stood, studying the address. “I trust he has the sense not to use everything at once.”
“Your service will be one of the Resistance’s most carefully protected secrets. We’re not going to do anything that might risk compromising you.”
He gave a vague nod. “Then I’ll see you on Martiday. Now get out, and make sure you take a different route when you leave.”
ucking dog. If
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