CHAPTER 64
Augustus 1787
HELENA LEFT SEBASTIAN WITH LUC, PULLING FREE the reanimation and leaving
the two of them hidden in the alley.
Her only thoughts were of Lila.
The air was thick with smoke and blood. She could hear fighting as she moved through the city, trying to stay out of sight. She couldn’t save
everyone. Anyone.
She had to reach Lila.
She neared the last wall that was intended to mark Resistance territory.
There were necrothralls guarding it. Familiar faces. The field commander from Luc’s unit with a gash in his skull that showed brain tissue underneath.
Kaine had said no one paid close attention to whose necrothralls were whose. A necrothrall was presumed to belong to one of the Undying. If she pulled the reanimation from a few, she could use them to escort her into Headquarters as a prisoner, but these were too well armed.
She needed easier targets. She turned and fled, hiding in buildings, climbing and descending old stairs and evacuation ladders, trying to find a way back to Headquarters. The combatants all had harnesses that they used to swing and rappel through the streets, navigating the levels of the city easily, but she had to find a route on foot.
The necrothralls kept tailing her. She could tell she was being herded, hunted with persistent predation. She could not out-endure the dead.
She hid, crouching behind a pillar half covered in rubble, trying to catch her breath.
Footsteps came nearer. Her heartbeat was a drum. She drew a gasping breath and jumped up, fleeing her hiding spot. She ran straight into one of the Undying, all in black.
Before she could react, a large hand gripped her head, and everything went dark.
HELENA WOKE WITH A PANICKED gasp. Kaine was leaning over her, his fingers at the base of her head. She jerked away, eyes roaming, not recognising
where she was. Her head was swimming.
“It’s all right. You’re safe,” he said.
She stared up at him in confusion, trying to remember how she’d gotten there.
Everything came rushing back. Luc. Luc was dead.
She’d killed him.
The memory was like being punched in the throat.
“What—what happened?” Her mouth was dry. She looked dazedly around, trying to pinpoint their location.
Kaine’s fingers slipped away from the back of her head. His expression was calm, but his eyes were furious.
“The war is over,” he said. “The Undying have taken the city, including your Headquarters. The remaining Resistance factions are cornered; if they don’t surrender, they’ll be buried in rubble by the day’s end.”
She pushed herself up, too dazed to think clearly. She’d been trying to reach Lila … and then? She couldn’t remember anymore.
Kaine began pacing around the room.
“How did this even happen? What kind of plan was stretching yourselves across the entire city and leaving your Headquarters unguarded? And where the fuck is Holdfast?” they used toHelena flinched. “He’s dead.”
Kaine froze and turned sharply. “What do you mean?”
Helena stared down at her hands. She was in the same clothes. Luc’s blood was among the stains, but she couldn’t pick out which ones belonged to him.
She couldn’t bring herself to speak.
“How?” Kaine asked.
She swallowed. “It was—an accident.”
She told him everything. What she’d realised, and who it had been, and to one of theeverything over the months. That Luc had tricked her, and she’d reacted, and then it was too late.
rything went“I tried to heal him …” she said, her voice shaking. “But it was like there wasn’t enough of him left to hold on. He was unravelling and I couldn’t—”
Her chest seized, threatening to crack. “I was supposed to save him—” The words came out a whisper.
Her throat contracted and her whole body shook and she couldn’t make herself speak. Kaine was silent until she managed to compose herself again.
“Morrough must be so old,” she said. “Paladia’s more than five hundred years old.”
“This whole war was just two brothers fighting over who gets to play god?” Kaine gave a disbelieving, bitter laugh. “You think you’re picking a side, and you’re just on the opposite end of the same fucking coin.”
Helena didn’t speak, gripping the blankets draped over her until her knuckles turned white. She had to get up, but she felt like glass a breath away zedly around,from shattering. “I have to get Lila.”
“The war is over, Helena.”
She flinched at the way he said her name. That he’d used it to say that.
“I know,” she said, going hot and cold all over. “You don’t need to tell me.
I know we’ve lost!”
She pressed her lips together, grinding the heels of her hands against her eyes as she tried to control herself.
“I’m not saying it’s not over.” Her voice still shook. “But we have the obsidian now, we can both make it, and if we’re more covert—we could still bleed him dry by killing off the Undying.”
“There is no ‘we’ anymore,” Kaine said. “You’re leaving Paladia.”
She looked up sharply. He stood over her, arms crossed.
“I’ll kill them, but you’re done. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame is gone. It’s time for you to go.”
She shook her head. “I can’t leave you here.”
Luc’s bloodHis expression was hard as stone. “I don’t want you here. It’ll be easier for me to work if Morrough assumes a complete victory.”
Helena’s jaw tensed. “Fine,” she finally said in a tight voice. “I’ll collaborate long-distance initially, if you think that’ll make things easier.”
“Good.” He stepped back, turning away. “I’ll have everything arranged.”
She watched him warily, not sure she believed him. Reasonable as it was, she knew he’d already wanted her out of Paladia. There were no other choices, though. She had to get Lila to safety. Until Lila was secure, Helena had no room to negotiate.
“I’m only going if Lila’s with me,” she said.
Kaine rocked back. “No chance. If she goes missing, they’ll hunt her across the continent. She’s not worth it.”
Helena stood. “I’m not asking. I have to take her. If she’s not with me, I won’t leave. I promised Luc I’d take care of her. She’s been under quarantine at the top of the Alchemy Tower. They might not have found her yet. The sooner we go, the better our chances are of getting her without being noticed.
We could—we can find a body and I’ll use vivimancy, disguise it, so it looks like her. No one will know she’s gone.”
Something about Kaine suddenly shifted, a tension around his mouth.
“You can take me as a prisoner, use that as an excuse to go inside. It’s only
been a few hours—” breath away“Helena …”
He said her name slowly, a note of warning but also a plea in the way he said it. His eyes flicked around the room, pausing briefly on the curtains. Her voice died. Half in a daze, she stood up and walked forward, pushing the ed to tell me.curtain back. It was dark outside.
It was night.
But how could it be night? It had been dawn; the sun was just rising when Luc died.
“How … how long did you keep me unconscious?” Her voice shook.
“How—how long has it been?”
He gave no reply.
She turned and lunged for the door, but he caught her, dragging her back.
“I can explain—”
She struggled, trying to rip herself free. “What did you do?” Her voice rose. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Listen.” He shook her, and there was a wildness to his eyes. “After the be easier forbomb went off, when the Resistance began to attack, Morrough had everyone remaining fall back. They knew your numbers, how many combatants you had left. It was obvious that Headquarters would be vulnerable. They expected an attack before Hevgoss arrived—they were waiting for it. They had someone on the inside. Once your forces had been lured onto the West Island, they sent us to infiltrate. When I got there, you were missing. No one knew where you’d gone. I abandoned my post to find you. Once I had you safe, I had to go back.”
“So you—left me here for how long? A day?” Her voice was raw with
betrayal.
“I came back as soon as I could.”
She started to tremble, her body going into shock. “I was going to get Lila. er quarantineThat’s where I was headed, but I kept getting cut off—and—” She flinched.
“That was you, wasn’t it? You knocked me out. You didn’t even—” eing noticed.All those necrothralls tailing her. He’d killed those soldiers, set them up, all watching and waiting for her. There was so much blood on his hands.
He cradled her face with them. “What did you expect me to do? Let you walk back into that massacre? The orders were to kill anyone who tried to ide. It’s onlyresist.”
“Are they all—?” She couldn’t even finish the question. It didn’t matter. “I won’t leave without Lila. You can help me or I’ll go alone, but I’m going back for her.”
Kaine was unmoved. “If you want Morrough defeated, there’s no rescuing anyone.”
“We won’t defeat him if we don’t rescue Lila. She’s pregnant. Morrough needs another Holdfast, and Lila’s the one carrying it. I promised Luc I’d get her out—it was the last thing I told him before he died. It was all that mattered to him.”
“Why should I care about what Holdfast wanted?” he said, his voice implacable.
He was not going to do this. Not even for her.
Her chest tightened. She could feel her ribs curved around her heart like a
cage.
You always lose.
Everyone you love dies.
“Because if you do, I’ll stop—everything,” she said. “I’ll leave, and I had everyonewon’t come back. Just like you want, if you’ll help me get Lila Bayard.
Whatever you want. Anything you ask. I’ll do it, I swear.”
Her fingers shook as she reached out for him.
“Please.”
He’d gone very still. “Will you?”
She nodded. “Yes …” Her voice struggled and failed. “Yes, I promise.”
He studied her, eyes narrowed and calculating. “Those are your terms? The Bayard girl, and then you’ll do anything I ask?”
Her throat closed. “Yes. Anything you ask. I swear.”
He nodded slowly. “All right. If those are your terms, I’ll get her for you.”
Helena gave a shuddering gasp of relief. “Thank you.”
He just nodded, but he seemed distracted. She waited to hear how they’d g to get Lila.do it, but he was silent, just studying her.
“What do you need me to do?” she finally asked.
Irritation instantly flashed across his face. “Stay here.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “But I could help. I can—”
“I don’t need help.”
When she opened her mouth to argue, he looked her up and down. “You’re too memorable. It’ll be easier for me to look for her alone. If you want me to get her out, stay here and let me work in peace without succumbing to your n’t matter. “Idesperate need to insert yourself into everything I do.”
She tried to protest, and he raised a finger, pointing it at her face.
“If you leave this suite while I’m gone, if I have even the slightest inkling that you’re trying to help me in any way, I will come back and the deal will be off. Do you understand? Stay here.”
Her jaw tensed, throat tightening, but she nodded.
“There’s food in the cupboard. Keep the curtains closed. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“Where is this?” she asked, looking around.
He sighed. “This was the suite of the Hevgotian ambassador, who
tragically died in a recent explosion.”
“The one you were—?”
He nodded and left without another word.
Helena waited. Kaine had recovered her satchel when he’d apprehended her, and she took inventory of her remaining supplies. She was out of most things beyond what she kept for Kaine. She went through it carefully, hoping he wouldn’t need any of it when he got back with Lila.
There was a good chance Lila would be injured. She wouldn’t let herself be taken without a fight. How would Kaine convince her to cooperate?
Helena stood and went to the door but refrained from touching it. Surely he had a plan.
She went back to inventorying. Kaine had put her knives back into the outer pocket. ur terms? TheShe tried to keep herself busy, because if she stopped to think, her grief and guilt would crush her to death. Luc. It was all her fault. She could have
saved him if she’d only noticed. Now she was leaving everyone behind, knowing what was likely to happen to them.
All her worst fears coming true and there was nothing she could do.
You can’t save everyone. You never could.
This was the only way.
Once Lila was safely away, if Kaine could slowly kill off the Undying, eventually the nightmare would end.
Time seemed to crawl past. Helena showered, washing away the blood and own. “You’regrime from the city. Luc’s blood. Sebastian’s blood.
She found clothes in the wardrobe. Hevgotian traditional clothing, which involved an unexpected number of tassels. In the cupboard was bread and very strong, hard cheese, which she forced herself to eat even though everything tasted like chalk in her mouth.
She was about to ignore Kaine’s orders and go looking for him anyway when the door abruptly swung open and Kaine walked in, Lila hanging limp in his arms. Her prosthetic was gone, and there were metal bands locked around both her wrists.
Helena flung herself across the room as he laid Lila on the bed.
Helena searched for any signs of injury, but Lila was not injured at all beyond a few bruises. As Helena searched her, her resonance failed at Lila’s wrists, and she realised they were alchemy-suppressing cuffs.
They were crudely made; she would only need a few tools to get them off.
“Was she still in the Tower?” she asked as she pushed an eyelid open, trying to pinpoint whether Lila had been physically knocked out or sedated.
“No,” Kaine said. “They’d already transported her when I got there.”
The alchemy suppression was external, and since the effects were at Lila’s hands, Helena could still use her resonance everywhere else.
“Where was she?” she asked, checking for the baby’s heartbeat.
“They’d taken her to Bennet’s lab, but I was able to retrieve her. We need to move quickly now. You both need to be out of the city before dawn.” g it. Surely heHelena was so panicked over Lila that she didn’t immediately notice that there was something unnerving about Kaine’s voice. She looked up. He was staring at her with a look that was almost starved; she’d never seen him look that way before.
Reaching out, she took his hand, feeling for any sign of injury. He wasn’t hurt, though. His pale hair was smoke-stained, but he looked unscathed. And yet there was something off about his expression.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, standing up, forgetting Lila.
The corner of his mouth curved into a wistful smile, and he inhaled.
“Kaine?” She searched his face. “What happened?”
He stared at the floor a moment before finally meeting her eyes. “I blew my cover getting the Bayard girl for you.”
The world stopped spinning. Time stalling as the air froze, and it was just them, and nothing else existed. he blood and“What?” She tried again, shaking her head. “You—you what?”
She was certain she was misunderstanding him, but it was there in his eyes.
He was saying goodbye to her.
She shook her head again. “No.”
He said nothing. Her protest vanished into the silence replaced by a horrible, waiting stillness, like the space between slowing heartbeats, when a heart finally stops. The sound of ending.
“No,” she said, her voice straining, breaking the quiet again, refusing to believe him.
“There wasn’t any other way,” he said gently, catching her by the arm as she swayed.
Her heart had started to beat again, and now it was beating faster and faster. She kept shaking her head, backing away from him, her eyes going for the door, looking for an escape, a way out. This was not happening.
He caught her, held her by the shoulders. “You know they’ve been looking for the spy. There were counter-espionage measures in place at the lab, and there wasn’t time to find a way past them. To get to Bayard, there are entry records indicating that I was there, that I entered a laboratory with highly controlled access. I couldn’t burn down the building and fight my way out carrying an unconscious, pregnant woman. When the next security shift begins tomorrow, the lab will be found and the records will show that I was the only one who left alive.”
She shook her head again, twisting free. “No. No, we can go back.” She turned to get her satchel. “There must be a way to destroy the records—I can —”
He jerked her back, his expression set. “You’re leaving, remember? That was the deal you made, Marino. I met the terms.”
Helena gave a low, pained sound as she shrank away from him.
His eyes were aglow, as if he was willing her to understand. His gaze flickered across her face as if trying to take it in, memorising her, because
this was the end. The last time he’d ever see her.
She might have forgiven him for that, but the adoration in his eyes was tempered by a sharp-edged triumph. The satisfaction of getting his way.
“Anything I wanted if I went and got Bayard for you; those were your terms.”
He would have hurt her less if he’d reached in and ripped her heart out.
“You gave your word,” he said, when she refused to reply, his voice
hardening. e in his eyes.“No—” Her voice broke.
His expression softened as she stopped struggling. “We had a good run, but we were never going to last.” His fingers slipped a loose curl behind her ear before his hand drifted down to rest briefly at the base of her throat. “You knew that.”
“Kaine, please, let me—” she started, her voice shaking.
His expression turned cold again. “Anything I wanted. It was your deal.”
Her lungs were beginning to burn. She tried again to pull away, but she couldn’t breathe. The crisp edges of him were blurring. He was speaking, but the words were growing rounded.
Kaine pulled her closer, and the cold determination on his face was shifting
yes going forinto worry.
“Helena—breathe.” been lookingHer vision tunnelled, all darkness except him.
He shook her. “Helena—don’t—come on—breathe—Helena, please …”
Her fingers grasped at him as she fought to speak.
“No—” Her voice was broken. “—don’t do this to me.”
The devastation swallowed her like a tidal wave, and he vanished.
WHEN SHE REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS, KAINE was leaning over her once again.
She stared at him. Her left arm hurt as if there was a deep bruise just below the shoulder. Her body felt wrong. Numb. Her mind sluggish.
She blinked, and even that took effort and concentration. Then everything came back with almost violent anguish.
She struggled to focus. The pain in her arm was likely some kind of injected sedative. Kaine had drugged her, but there was also a mineral salt aftertaste on her tongue that she recognised as her tablets. He’d used them to
erase the panicked surge of adrenaline, to set her heart at a slow, steady rhythm. He’d made her calm and malleable.
She glared up at him, trying to find words.
“I’m never going to forgive you for this,” she finally managed. The words came out slurred, giving them an irregular lilt.
Kaine’s lips tightened into a flat line, but then he nodded. “I know you won’t, but you’ll be alive and away from the war. Those were always my terms.”
Helena went silent, trying to think despite being transmuted to the verge of incoherence.
There was a well of rage seething through her that she couldn’t quite reach, throat. “Youas if it were just beyond her fingertips.
She had to think slowly, laboriously, struggling to keep her focus razor- sharp because when she let it falter, her thoughts turned nebulous. She was surreptitious as she curled her fingers against her palm, just enough to send her resonance through her own body, trying to reverse Kaine’s tampering, but peaking, butit had settled.
“If you die, who’s going to stop Morrough?” Her voice was dull. e was shiftingHis expression turned cold. “He can have Paladia for all I care. If the Eternal Flame wanted to win, they should have made better choices. They all knew the risks, but that was never enough incentive for them. They refused to pay the price that victory demands, and I am sick of watching you try to pay it for them.”
He tried to take her hand, but she recoiled from him. Hurt flashed in his
eyes, but he swallowed, his jaw set.
“It’s time to go,” he said.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed and grew flintlike. “You gave your word.”
Helena inhaled through clenched teeth. “I know. And I will go, per your demands, but I need to speak with—Shiseo. If I can teach him how to use the obsidian I have left, he can pass on the information to the survivors, and then
at least they’ll have a chance—”
“You gave your word.”
Helena met his eyes. “You know I will always choose the Eternal Flame first.”
He stared at her, eyes widening as if she’d struck him. His mouth pressed into a hard line, and his gaze dropped. She watched his throat dip, and she
kept talking.
“If you force me to leave without speaking to Shiseo, the last thing you will ever do is betray me and everyone I love. A traitor is all you’ll be to me, but if you let me do this, maybe—someday I’ll be able to forgive you.”
Hurt shone from his eyes, an empty look of despair, but she glared back.
Too drugged to show more emotion.
“Fine.” His voice was raw with bitterness, and he didn’t look at her again.
She sat up laboriously and drew a map that showed which part of the city the verge ofthe off-site lab was in, hoping that it had escaped notice. She added a vaguely termed list of things she wanted Shiseo to bring. “He should be there if no t quite reach,one’s found him. I’ll need him to bring all this so I can explain how it works.”
Kaine stared at the map and list, his eyes narrowing. “Who is he exactly?”
“An Easterner. He helps here and there.”
“And you trust him?” mpering, but“More than I can trust you,” she said.
Kaine turned white, but he crumpled the list into his pocket. “Don’t leave,” he said.
She turned away from him. Lila lay beside her, still unconscious.
The instant he was gone, Helena pushed herself and began ransacking the ey refused tosuite, finding and prying free every piece of metal she could. She was indiscriminate in her destruction; anything that was not immediately visible, she ripped out, and then identified its components and transmuted it down into compact bars of various alloys and metals, pausing every few minutes to clear her head of the drug.
She was certain that Kaine would take her and Lila into Novis first. It was in range. He’d use Amaris to get across the river without dealing with checkpoints or the paperwork of commandeering a boat. However, large as Amaris was, Helena doubted the chimaera could carry three. The river was ow to use thewide in the basin. Two riders would be enough to wind Amaris and require her to rest before returning.
Helena didn’t trust Novis with Lila, not now with Luc dead. In the hands of Novis, with Falcon Matias circling him, Luc’s son would be little more than a pawn, a Principate raised with the same lies and manipulation that had
haunted Luc.
Lila would have to be hidden.
Kaine had somewhere already in mind, but travel arrangements would not be quick. Even if he had money on hand, obtaining safe and discreet passage would be complicated.
She went to the window, peeking out, trying to gauge how high she was, and found a street only a few storeys below. The suite was in one of the higher parts of the city, far removed from the violence, but there was a large skybridge connected to all the nearby buildings, with a plaza and gardens overlooking the lower parts of the city. ed a vaguelyThere was also a fire escape just outside the window. Not a functional one, but a decorative sort of balcony made of wrought iron.
She heard footsteps sooner than she’d expected and rushed back to the bed, trying to look dazed when the door opened and Kaine entered, Shiseo behind him.
She pushed herself up, rubbing her eyes. “You found him.”
“Give him your information so he can go.”
Helena slurred her reply. “He’s just an assistant. I’m going to have to go Don’t leave,”over everything.”
Shiseo blinked at Helena, and she was grateful then for how unreadable he was.
Kaine gave a hiss between his teeth, hands clenching into fists. “Fine.”
She was interfering with his timeline. She could feel his desperate impatience.
“You’ll use Amaris, right? To take us across the river?” she asked.
Kaine’s eyes flicked to Shiseo, but he gave a faint nod.
“Can she carry all of us that far?”
His jaw went tense. “It’ll have to be two trips.”
She nodded vaguely and went to him, noticing the way he leaned towards her without seeming to be aware of it.
She stopped short and lowered her voice. “You should take Lila, before
she wakes.”
He drew up. “You want me to go?”
Her expression twisted bitterly. “Well, there’s no point in teaching you any of this, is there?” She lifted a shoulder. “I just thought—if you took her first, maybe we’ll have some time to say goodbye when it’s my turn. But maybe that doesn’t matter.”
She turned away, grateful that she was so drugged, she could finally lie without effort. She could feel Kaine’s eyes on her as she found a stack of
thick, high-quality paper in the desk drawer and searched for a pen.
Helena’s heart was pounding, a slow drumbeat of dread as she sat and began to write, slowly and methodically, not looking at him again.
“When I get back, you’ll go, whether or not you’re ready.”
Helena’s heart was in her throat. It took a moment to speak.
“Fine.” She didn’t dare look up.
She watched from the corner of her eye as he went over and hauled Lila up. nctional one,He stopped at the doorway and looked back at her. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t leave this room.” ck to the bed,Helena’s throat tightened. She looked over, and her lips parted, to say— To say— She looked back down to the paper in front of her. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
The door shut and she didn’t move, expecting it to burst open again. There was a long silence before she finally looked up.
“How did he bring you here?” she asked Shiseo, pressing her hand against the side of her neck and trying to alleviate all the tampering in her body enough to think coherently.
“There was a motorcar. He took it underground. He had a special card that let us through, and we came up in a long lift.”
She turned and went over the box of supplies Shiseo had brought, sorting them as quickly as she could, laying them all out in the small kitchen. She had to work in rushed spurts to stay ahead of the sedative. Taking an etching sheet, she hastily began sketching an array to stabilise her component construction.
“He said you needed me,” Shiseo said after several minutes.
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” Helena said, her fingers quickly shaping the various metal bars into a multitude of spheres. “I just needed an excuse so he’d leave and bring me these supplies. I imagine he told you, we lost. Luc’s dead. You should get to Novis, you’ll be safe there.” hing you anyShiseo seemed unconcerned. “What are you doing?”
She paused. “I’m building a bomb. I need to blow up a laboratory.”
There was a long silence. “We used the Athanor components already.”
Helena twitched one shoulder as she began divvying up materials, calculating how much she had. Not enough. She scrounged through the kitchen cupboards and found a bag of flour.
“This is going to be a different kind of bomb,” she said. “It’ll still use some obsidian, but I’m using a different pyromancy principle for this. Luc’s books always warned about using pyromancy in enclosed spaces, because if the flames consume all the oxygen, it creates a vacuum. Obviously, I’m not a pyromancer, but when I was little, there was a mill fire. The flour in the air caught fire, and it burned down the entire building.”
She paused, using her resonance to stall the effects of the sedative again before measuring carbon disulfide into sealed spheres, careful to keep from inhaling any.
Her hands had to be steady, her focus razor-sharp.
“You will burn down a lab?”
She nodded. “The West Port Lab. Do you remember Vanya Gettlich? The woman with nullium in her blood? That was West Port’s doing. If I burn it down, they won’t realise that Kaine rescued Lila. If they think she died in a fire, they won’t look for her. And it’ll be—” She swallowed hard. “It’ll be a quicker death for everyone inside than what will happen to them otherwise.”
She pressed her hand against her head again, clearing it, and then nodded him away. “You should go. You won’t want to be here when Kaine gets back, and if I get any of this wrong, I might blow up this building instead.”
“You will not come back?”
Helena used the mortar and pestle to grind obsidian into micro-shards. “Of course I’m going to come back. I told Kaine I’d be waiting for him. It’s just —”
She paused and blinked back tears. “I made a deal to leave, and I have to keep it.” She swallowed hard. “He’ll be—he’ll be alone here. I have to make sure he’s safe before I go.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs made that awful whistling sound, and she doubled over, clutching at her chest, trying to get her fingers under the chest brace.
Shiseo took the mortar and pestle from her.
“Your wrist motion still needs practice,” he said as he ground up the obsidian for her. “Like this, see?”
She watched, the sedative taking effect. Her chest slowly stopped convulsing. She let him finish before straightening with a wince.
When he was done with the obsidian, he helped her transmute metal bars into the various shapes she needed. He was better at delicate transmutation
still use somework than she was; he made beautifully delicate pins that would be removed to allow the carbon disulfide to evaporate and ignite the white phosphorus.
Helena made as many bombs as she could. The Hevgotian ambassador had a very large, sturdy rucksack that Helena filled with them, hoping that all the spheres were even and wouldn’t break during the journey. She took her knives from her satchel, shoving them into the pockets of a tasselled jacket, along with the few remaining supplies from her emergency kit, and pulled a cap down low to hide her face and dark hair.
After hesitating, she lay one of the obsidian knives on top of the note she’d written. Kaine should have one, if he didn’t already.
She slung the rucksack onto her back, careful not to jostle it, and then went over and unlatched the window, leaning out. There was a red haze rising from the north end of the city, but the beacon of the Eternal Flame, which had burned for centuries, visible for miles, was gone. Extinguished.
She was about to climb out the window when Shiseo spoke up.
“Wait.”
n nodded himShe looked at him. ets back, and“You will come back?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded, slipping one leg over the sill.
“Wait,” Shiseo said again. He drew a deep breath. “I am not in the habit of holding on to—things. People.” He shook his head. “I was very young when my father regretted his marriage. I was a disappointment. My mother’s family did not rise as expected, so he put us aside and began again. When my half brother became Emperor, I was seen as a threat, but he sent me to oversee the imperial mines, and I thought perhaps he did not want to kill me. But when I was accused of stealing imperial metals, I realised I must always wander.”
Helena knew he was trying to communicate something important, but she was too stuck on one point. “Your brother is the Emperor?”
Shiseo waved the question off and seemed very focused on the story he was telling her.
“I always thought it better to let life flow by quietly. For many years, I did.”
Helena was not sure if she was touched or exasperated by his sudden need to tell her this.
“When they said you had died, I—I regretted that I did not know you well.
I do not like to presume. To ask questions. But I—enjoyed our lab.” He smiled at her.
Helena exhaled, smiling back. “Me too. I wish we could have worked on other things.” She slid through the window onto the metal balcony.
bassador had“Wait.”
She tensed with frustration.
He reached after her. “I should go. If I am caught, I will tell them about my brother. They will not kill me. You see?”
He held out his hand for the rucksack, the urgency visible in his face.
Helena looked at him for a moment and then pushed his hand away. “I’m he note she’dgoing to use necromancy to plant the bombs. It has to be me.”
His hand dropped. nd then went“Take care, Shiseo,” she said. She started to turn, then paused. “If I don’t e rising fromcome back—if you ever see Kaine, tell him—tell him that I—”
Her head dropped down, and she quickly brushed her fingertips across her cheeks. She cleared her voice and shook her head. “Never mind. I imagine he knows.”
other’s family
o oversee the
Helena exhaled, smiling back. “Me too. I wish we could have worked on other things.” She slid through the window onto the metal balcony.
“Wait.”
She tensed with frustration.
He reached after her. “I should go. If I am caught, I will tell them about my brother. They will not kill me. You see?”
He held out his hand for the rucksack, the urgency visible in his face.
Helena looked at him for a moment and then pushed his hand away. “I’m going to use necromancy to plant the bombs. It has to be me.”
His hand dropped.
“Take care, Shiseo,” she said. She started to turn, then paused. “If I don’t come back—if you ever see Kaine, tell him—tell him that I—”
Her head dropped down, and she quickly brushed her fingertips across her cheeks. She cleared her voice and shook her head. “Never mind. I imagine he knows.”