Alchemised - 76

Julius 1789

L ILA GAVE A HEAVING, GASPING SOB AND stumbled down the steps. She had a rough prosthetic and a crutch, but it did not stop her from dragging Helena into her arms and hugging her ferociously.

“Hel, Hel. You’re really alive.”

Lila’s hands were running over Helena, touching her face and shoulders as though she couldn’t believe that Helena was real.

Helena stared at Lila in equal disbelief. Even though she’d known Lila was alive, she was so accustomed to the thought of everyone dead that she couldn’t fully take it in even while staring at her.

Lila looked so different. Her blond hair was dyed brown, and there was a haggard weariness about her. The jagged scar still ran down her face, and she was crying as she hugged Helena.

“Lila …” Helena’s heart felt as though it might explode. She’d been unprepared for how viscerally the reunion would remind her of everyone who was gone.

“I thought I’d never see anyone again. Look at you. You’re so thin.”

Her eyes ran down Helena’s body, stopping at her stomach, and she froze.

Helena’s chest clenched. “You know, right? Kaine said he was in contact with you.”

Lila nodded slowly.

Behind them, Kaine dismounted.

Lila’s head snapped up, as if she hadn’t noticed him until that moment. “What are you doing here?”

Without warning Lila lunged towards him.

Helena had to throw herself between them, pushing her back. “We escaped together. Lila, don’t hurt him, he’s not Undying anymore.”

A savage light came into Lila’s blue eyes. “Really?”

“You’re not going to have any more luck killing me now than you have at any point in the past, Bayard,” Kaine said. “Lose any more limbs, and you won’t be much protection for that little Principate of yours.”

Lila gave a snarl like a wildcat, looking ready to tear out Kaine’s eyes.

“Stop, both of you,” said Helena, furious that they’d managed to ruin the reunion in less than a minute.

Lila stopped trying to assault Kaine and simply glared at him. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you weren’t really going to die saving her in the end.”

“Shut up, Lila,” Helena said sharply. “I brought him here. If you want to be angry that he’s still alive, then you’ll have to be angry at me.”

Lila looked at Helena, disbelief and then despairing resignation sweeping across her face as she stepped back. “Fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Put that monster of yours away, Ferron. I don’t want it near Pol.”

“Go on in,” Kaine said to Helena. “Don’t worry. I knew already that Bayard and I weren’t going to be having a joyous reunion.”

He turned to Amaris and led her towards the stable.

Helena watched them disappear inside and then looked back at Lila, feeling suddenly drained. She somehow thought there’d be enough joy to last an evening at least, but it already felt spent.

It wasn’t that she’d expected things to be simple; a sea of loss surrounded them. She couldn’t begin to imagine how Lila felt towards Kaine after all this time. Still, she hadn’t expected to need to legitimise something as intensely personal as her relationship with Kaine so quickly.

“Lila, if you hurt him, I will never forgive you,” she said.

Lila just shook her head. “You could do so much better.”

“No. He’s what I need, and he’s what it took to save you.”

She could see a multitude of objections rising to Lila’s lips.

“Come inside,” Lila said instead, looking away.

It was only when they were in good light that Helena realised that Lila was still wearing manacles. Not the full suppression that Helena had worn, but enough to keep her resonance weakened.

“He never took those off?” Helena said.

Lila looked down with a grimace. “He did for a while, until I nearly ripped out his talisman. When I woke up.” She shook her wrist. “It’s been a long time now.”

Helena looked around. The house was small and visibly lived in. There was a kitchen, a table, and a bed in the far corner, mostly hidden behind a curtain. It seemed so ordinary for Lila. A world away from the Institute and Solis Splendour, the shining paladin armour.

Helena found herself at a loss.

“Have you been here this whole time?” she finally asked.

Lila shook her head. “No. Back when Ferron thought he’d find you soon, we were just across the river in Novis. It was later that he brought me and Pol here.” She gave a wan smile. “He’s sleeping, do you want to see him?”

Helena followed her tentatively, and they both peeked around the curtain, to be met with the sight of a golden-headed little boy, with soft round cheeks, thick dark lashes, and chubby limbs sprawled like a starfish across the bed.

Lila stared at her son, a heavy adoration in her eyes. “He’s going to be so excited to have company,” she said softly. “We don’t go to the village much. It’s just the two of us most of the time.”

“You never ran?”

Lila swallowed. “I couldn’t at the first place. First I was pregnant, and then with an infant. And no leg. By the time we got here … I’d realised I didn’t have anywhere to go. Ferron said that even if I could get some where like the Novis court and they believed who I was, I’d be a disgraced paladin with an illegitimate child. If they decided to treat Pol as Principate, they wouldn’t let someone like me take care of him or protect him. It would have been dangerous to look for my mother’s family. Every time I’d think about leaving, I’d worry that the minute I did, you’d show up and we’d have missed each other.”

Lila pushed the curtain to block the light from falling on Pol, turning away. “Ferron paid off someone in the village to make sure we don’t starve since I’m not much good at farming. We have chickens and these awful ducks. I knit now, just like my mum did, although Pol grows out of everything about as fast as I can make them.”

“You know we’re not staying here,” Helena said. “We’re going to take a ship.”

Lila’s expression tightened, but she nodded. “Yes. Ferron’s mentioned the plan. Although he’s said a lot of things. I learned not to expect much.” She exhaled. “Is he really—is he really coming with us? You’re planning to—play house with him?”

Helena’s shoulders tensed. “Yes. Running away together was always our plan. I added you to it because Luc asked me to make sure you and Pol were safe.”

Lila’s eyes went wide. “You saw Luc before he—?”

Helena’s stomach shrivelled as she realised the lie she was about to begin telling. Could she really do this? Lie to Lila forever?

She started to speak, but Lila looked so desperate for any last pieces of Luc, his final moments. She swallowed.

“I was worried about him that day, so I left Headquarters. We—we reconciled just before his unit headed back to Headquarters. I think somehow he knew things were going wrong—he asked me to promise that I’d take care of you. It was the last thing he said to me.”

Lila gave a strained gasping sound in her throat. “Do you know how he was captured—how they got him?”

Helena’s lips pressed tight as she shook her head.

To the world, to history, Lucien Holdfast had died on the steps of the Alchemy Tower. Lila would have to believe that, too.

The door opened, and Kaine entered. Lila’s visible emotions van ished, the temperature of the room dropping. Kaine paid no attention to her, his eyes for Helena only. He frowned.

“Have you fed her?” He looked at Lila.

“No …” Lila looked at Helena. “Are you hungry?”

“She’s pregnant, and all we had was travel rations, so she’s barely eaten in days,” Kaine said, glaring at Lila.

“You could have mentioned.” Lila went over to a cabinet and rummaged about, bringing over a pitcher of milk and some bread, cheese, and grapes, setting them on the table.

Helena picked at the food because Kaine was watching, but her stomach was still unsettled and she didn’t know if it was from the exhaustion of travel or a general anxiousness worsened by the reunion and realisation that there was no point when things would be easy.

“Before we leave,” she said, “we need to take Lila’s manacles off. And is there some way to get materials so I can make her a prosthetic?”

Lila brightened at this, but Kaine’s jaw set, then he sighed.

“There’s no need,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wire key, tossing it to Lila. With no further explanation, he went back outside. When he returned, he was carrying a metal chest that was covered in dirt as if it had been dug up. There was a lock that came easily open, and inside lay Lila’s prosthetic, wrapped in canvas but looking little worse for wear.

“Has that been here the entire time?” Lila asked after a minute of stunned silence.

“I brought it here before you arrived,” Kaine said. “But I didn’t really trust you not to draw attention to yourself. I was going to tell Helena where to find it. It was in the wreckage from the bombing.

“The Abeyance is in three days,” Kaine said while Helena was tinkering with the prosthetic, making sure the components still worked as she got it fitted for Lila again. “The trade routes have been open for a fortnight, but the sea is calmest now and the ships will be the most crowded, which will serve us well.”

“Where exactly are we going?” Lila asked as Helena was adjusting the balance.

“There’s hundreds of islands running from Etras towards the main land,” Kaine said. “We’re headed for one of the smaller islands near one of the trade cities.”

H ELENA MET A POLLO H OLDFAST THE next day.

Pol was shy, burrowing his face in against Lila’s neck and peering at Helena with dancing eyes as his mother introduced them.

He was a sturdy chap, with more of the Bayard build about him. He would grow up to be very tall, Helena could tell just from looking at him.

“Pol,” Lila said, nuzzling her face in his messy blond hair, “this is your godmother, Helena. Do you remember that I told you about her? She was one of your father’s best friends. She always looked out for him and me, and now—” Lila swallowed. “Now she’s going to help look out for you. Isn’t that nice? She came here with Ferron. You might not remember him, but you met him when you were smaller.”

Pol peered through Lila’s hair at Helena, with Luc’s dancing eyes, and it was like meeting Luc again—the young version of him that she’d watched vanish.

Her throat closed, and she struggled to speak. “Hello, Pol, I’m glad to finally meet you.”

Pol snorted and covered his face with his hand.

“He’ll warm up to you soon,” Lila said. “Never met a living creature he hasn’t wanted to be best friends with.”

“He looks so much like Luc,” was all Helena could think to say. Her heart was beginning to pound, and she couldn’t hear what Lila was saying, something about teething. Kaine’s voice abruptly broke in.

“I think Helena needs to rest.”

Lila’s expression froze, but then she looked more closely at Helena and nodded. “Right. Pol and I need to feed the chickens. Come on, chappy.”

Helena watched them head out the door, Lila moving easily again. She looked at Kaine and almost jumped.

His hair was brown, nearly as dark as it used to be. It made him look starker, given the contrast with his pale skin and eyes. He was dressed in common clothes, brown trousers and a rough-spun shirt. He looked entirely out of place. No one would ever look at him and believe he was a farmer.

“You don’t like it,” he said, touching his hair.

She couldn’t stop staring. “It’s not what I’m used to,” she said, almost wanting to laugh as she reached out, touching it, remembering when it had first started to lose its colour. “I’m going to miss the silver.”

“It’ll wash out. You’ll still see it sometimes.”

He said that, but she didn’t see Kaine much at all. Helena stayed inside the house; when she stepped out, the open and stillness unsettled her. After spending so much time in danger and on the move, the ordinariness of the cottage felt surreal.

Kaine and Lila seemed to alternate who was inside with her. When Lila was with Helena, he went out and would only reappear when Lila took Pol outside.

Helena assumed he was busy making final arrangements until Lila mentioned that he was in the stable. That he was always in the stable.

Hearing it, Helena immediately hurried outside, pausing only a moment before entering the shadowy interior.

Just as Lila had said, he was sitting on the floor in the stable, and Amaris was lying down, her enormous head resting on his lap.

He didn’t look up when she entered; he was rubbing his hand through Amaris’s fur behind her ears.

“I should put her down,” he said softly. “It would be kindest. She won’t understand if I leave her behind.”

Helena’s chest clenched as she came closer.

“You said she can hunt for herself,” she said.

He nodded. “But the transmutations on her will wear off over time. It’ll kill her eventually, like it did all the rest, assuming someone else doesn’t first. And if she’s seen in this area, it could point to us, where we went.”

“Has there been any word?”

“None that’s reached this far south.”

Helena looked down at Amaris. “She’s done growing, isn’t she? Maybe she won’t need help as much anymore. She might be fine on her own.”

He was silent for a long time. “It’s not worth the risk.”

Helena’s throat tightened. “I don’t think it’s fair not to give her a chance. We wouldn’t be here without her.”

“She’s just an animal.”

Helena said nothing, because he wasn’t saying it to her. She could tell this was an argument he’d been spending days making with himself. Amaris lifted her head and gave a low whine and licked across Kaine’s entire face. He grimaced and pushed her nose away.

He sighed, tilting his head back. “I’ve killed so many people,” he finally said. “I never thought I’d get stuck on an animal of all things.”

The morning they left, Kaine got up silently and went out to the stable while Lila was packing up the last few things she wanted to bring. Helena sat tense as he disappeared inside, her stomach twisting into a sick knot.

A minute later he came back out. He stood there, staring up at the sky for so long that her heart began to pound in her chest. When finally he came back inside, he stopped behind her.

“Someday,” he said softly, resting a hand on her shoulder, “your mercy is going to have consequences.”

She held his hand in place. “There’s blood enough on both our hands without adding hers.”

He squeezed her shoulder.

“Bayard,” he said after a minute. “It’s time to go.”

T HE SEA WAS WILD AND roiling even at its lowest and calmest ebb. The port was crowded with people arriving and departing. There were false identity papers waiting for the group at the postal service in the port town.

Helena had forgotten how different the world could be. There was such consistency in fashion and feature in the North, she’d grown accustomed to it, but a port city during the Abeyance was a melting pot with sailors and travellers from every country across the sea, taking advantage of the annual opportunity to travel between the continents in a week rather than months.

There were enough Northerners that Kaine and Lila blended in, while Helena disappeared among the many Etrasians. She hadn’t seen so much dark, curly hair and olive skin since she’d left Etras. It was shocking to hear Etrasian casually spoken, and to realise that it had been so long, she struggled now to follow it.

They descended the cliffs to the boarding wharf, and Helena clung to Kaine’s hand in a near death grip as their papers were approved and tickets stamped.

The deck of the ship was crowded. Lila was so terrified that Pol would be knocked into the sea that they went inside to look out from the windows rather than standing on the bow.

Helena’s heart hammered inside her chest, bracing for someone to recognise one of them. To hear a raised voice calling their names.

Kaine sat tense and wary. She could feel his resonance tracking her heartbeat as his thumb moved in slow circles across her palm, keeping her grounded. Amid the clamour, a loud Northern voice rose from the table beside them.

“Trying to get as much oil across as I can before the new war starts. The liberators will pay out of the nose for it once they hit Paladia.”

Lila whirled. “What war?”

Kaine’s fingers twitched, tightening around Helena’s wrist. Amid the preparations and attempts at keeping the peace, Helena had avoided mentioning what she and Kaine had left behind when fleeing.

A Northerner with a large moustache and sideburns looked at Lila. “You don’t read the papers? That High Reeve of Paladia is finally gone. Novis and the other countries are expected to be moving in any day. It’s been in all the news lately.”

Lila’s face seemed to drain of colour. “Do you have a paper?”

The man reached into the pocket of his frock coat and pulled a pamphlet out. “See? There’ll be a lot of machinery going in, dealing with all those corpses and whatever else those necromancers have cooked up. They’ll need oil. If I get to Khem and back before the Abeyance, I’ll make a fortune, but even if I take the land route, if I get the first order in, it’ll still pay out. You should’ve seen how much opium was going for a few years back.” His moustache rose. “There’s nothing to rival war for money.”

They were all too distracted clustering around the newspaper to reply. It wasn’t a proper paper with full articles but instead a bulletin, the kind popular among businessmen.

At the very top the first bulletin read in bold, HIGH REEVE DEAD , and then in smaller text, The world breathes a sigh of relief at reports that the steel magnate and iron guild heir Kaine Ferron, better known to the world as the High Reeve, was killed in the most recent Resistance attack, crippling the Undying regime.

Helena clutched at Kaine’s hand.

In the next bulletin were the words ETERNAL FLAME BANNERS RISE AGAIN: AS THE COUNTRIES UNITE AGAINST PALADIA, SOME DO SO IN REMEMBRANCE .

Lila finally spoke. “Did you know this was happening?”

Kaine said nothing.

Helena answered quietly, reaching across to squeeze Lila’s now bare wrist. “We knew that there was an alliance developing, but we didn’t know how fast it would move, or if they’d believe news of the death.”

Lila sat back, clutching Pol in her arms, but she was looking out the window, back towards the mainland as the ship horns sounded, signalling cast-off.

Lila kept shaking her head. “I had no idea.”

H ELENA WAS SEASICK FOR MOST of the journey, the pregnancy making what would have been mild symptoms much worse. She still felt green when they arrived on one of the major trade islands. Kaine offered to get a room at an inn and complete the journey the next day, but Helena knew he wanted to leave as little trace of their journey behind as possible. The fewer places they stopped, the fewer people they spoke to, the harder they’d be to track down. They took a bus across the island. It was so different from the North. The city sprawling rather than climbing vertically as Paladia did. Stonework was a world apart from architecture utilising alchemy. They rode in a cart across a sea road leading to their destination.

The sea road was an immense causeway built up and paved smooth to allow crossing to the island during most of the monthly low tides. With the Abeyance dragging the tides away completely, the seabed lay bare, far below the causeway. There were people wandering across it, gathering whatever treasures the tide had left.

Helena and her father used to go down for the tides, searching for shells and treasures, studying the fish trapped in the tide pools. Treasure hunting was popular during Abeyance. There had been countless cities washed away in the Disaster, and even millennia later, their remnants lingered beneath the waves.

She looked over to see Lila’s and Kaine’s reactions to it all. Kaine was impassive, his eyes scanning the horizon. However, Lila looked more frightened than Helena had ever seen her. It took a moment to remember that the sea was regarded as terrifying in the North. Even the coasts were considered fraught with risk, as if it were a suicidal act of bravery for humanity to persevere in such a place. To those inland, the idea of living with the sea was simply too foreign.

“Don’t worry,” she said to Lila. “I’ll teach Pol to be careful of the sea. But he’ll like it. You both will.”

Lila gave a nervous nod.

The residence they arrived at was high up on a cliff. It was a large stone two-storey house with a stable and a few other buildings. The island, Kaine mentioned off-handedly, was privately owned, and the house had belonged to the previous owner, which was why it was so much larger than those in the village they’d passed through.

It came mostly furnished. A woman in the village had been paid to maintain it and unpack the items that had arrived. There were warm stone floors, and raw beams, and sunlight streaming through all the open windows, carrying the strong scent of the sea.

Kaine entered the house first, walking through quickly. Helena could feel the wariness about him, his resonance tingeing the air. She bit her tongue, wanting to remind him to be careful, but his paranoia was ingrained—object and he’d just revert to deception.

“I need to make sure everything’s in order here,” he said, leaving Helena and Lila in the house.

“Well, this is definitely bigger,” Lila said, cradling a sleeping Pol in her arms and looking around. “Shall we find the bedrooms? My arm’s about to fall off.”

They went upstairs, peeking into the various rooms in search of beds.

The first bedroom they managed to find was very large, but it also looked more like a library with a bed in it. Lila took one look at it and scrunched her nose. “I think this one’s supposed to be yours. You should rest—you still look green. Pol and I will find somewhere else. What do you think the odds are that Ferron will let me have a sword if I promise not to use it on him?”

Lila departed, and Helena stepped into the room.

It was not too large; the ceilings were whitewashed with exposed beams overhead that made the space less overwhelming than the dark rooms in Spirefell. There were windows on the far side of the room, where the bed was, looking out over the sea.

She moved carefully along the wall, tracing her fingers over the shelves, noticing the various titles and collections. Alchemy books but also literature and histories, and travel diaries.

There was a desk and chairs, and a sofa, with a soft rug underfoot. She paused at the desk and found papers and pens, and etching plates and styluses, all arranged in the drawers as if waiting for her.

There was enough in this room to keep her busy for a lifetime.

That was what the room was, a life Kaine had tried to set her up with.

She wanted to appreciate the effort it must have required, but it felt all wrong. Too perfect. As if it were all a trap set specifically to lure her in and lull her with a false sense of safety.

Kaine was so vulnerable now.

Lila wasn’t anywhere near fighting form, and even if she were, her priority would always be Pol’s safety. If Helena let herself believe they were safe, let down her guard for an instant, something would go wrong. She was sure it would.

Her life was a perpetual countdown to disasters that she always failed to see coming. She huddled in the corner, between the bed and wall, her right hand gripping her chest, trying to keep her heart steady.

Calm down. She squeezed her eyes shut. Breathe.

Where was Kaine? Outside of Spirefell, he wouldn’t know that she needed him …

Her eyes popped open, and she grasped at her left hand, finding the ring on her numb ring finger. Gripping it tight, she used her resonance to send a quick flare of heat through the silver.

A moment later, warmth pulsed back in response.

She stayed where she was, eyes closed, hand pressed against her heart, until she heard the door open.

“Helena?”

“Here.” Her voice came out thin, wavering.

In an instant, Kaine was there in front of her. “What’s wrong?”

She swallowed several times before she could speak. “I thought I would be glad to get here, but—what if they catch us? What if someone finds us because we’ve stopped running?”

His eyebrows furrowed as he ran his thumb across her cheek. “Do you want to keep running?”

Her stomach threatened to upend at the thought of more ships and new places and never stopping, always looking over her shoulder. “No, but why does everything feel wrong? Like it’s not even real. This is what we wanted.”

He pulled her into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin. “I don’t think that an ordinary life will ever feel real for either of us.”

Exhausted despair tore at her as she realised that he was right. “I think I always saw running away as the destination. I never actually thought about what would be left of me by the time I got here.”

She stayed there, numb at the realisation.

“Do you like the house?” he finally asked.

She looked around the room, trying to rally herself. “I do. How did you manage this?”

“It was mostly by correspondence. You talked about the sea, so I started looking before the war was over. I thought it would be easier for you, if you were going somewhere you liked.”

“Just me. In this big house?” She said it lightly, but she was horrified at the idea.

“Lila was part of the arrangement by then. I came here briefly last summer. It was one of my last trips,” he said quietly. “Before that, I’d just sent things along as I thought of something I thought you’d like.”

She looked around again. All this, while he hadn’t even known if she was alive.

“Come on now. You’ll like it better once you’ve rested.”

He closed the shutters, and Helena collapsed in bed. The linens were soft and airy from the sea breeze, and it was like coming home. Kaine sat beside her, their fingers enlaced, his thumb running along the ridges of her knuckles. There was an odd pause each time he reached the last two, and she couldn’t feel the sweep of his fingers.

She was starting to drift off when he set her hand down.

She watched through her lashes as he walked slowly around the room, kneeling and running his fingers along the floor, then going over to the walls, peering appraisingly up into the corners of the room. He started towards the door, footsteps so light that they made no sound.

“Kaine.”

He froze and turned back.

“Are we safe?”

His fingers spasmed, and he clenched them into a fist. “Yes … There’s a few things I’d like to adjust … but we were careful. I doubt anyone looking could have moved fast enough to beat the tides. You don’t need to worry.”

“Do you need to worry?”

He looked baffled by the question. She held out her hand.

“We’re supposed to get to rest now,” she said. “You and me both. I didn’t bring you here so you’d have to keep soldiering on.”

His eyes flicked around the room, and he suddenly looked boyish and uncertain.

She studied him sadly, realising their difference: He didn’t have any dreams about what he’d do or be after the war. He had never even allowed for the possibility. He had no idea how to do anything but be a soldier.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

“Stay with me,” she said. “You’re supposed to rest now, too.”

He nodded as if he understood the idea conceptually, but he stayed standing by the door. She went to him, taking him by the hand. She found a surprising number of unusual weapons hidden in his plain-looking clothes, and he was wearing body armour beneath them, which she hadn’t even realised he’d brought.

“Did you bring anything else?” she asked teasingly when she made him sit down on the edge of the bed and found an obsidian gimlet knife hidden in his shoe.

He avoided the question.

They lay facing each other, but his eyes kept flickering over to the weapons she’d taken. She touched his chin with her index finger, drawing his attention back.

“What did you want to do, before the war?” she asked.

“I was the iron guild heir—that was all I was allowed to be,” he said. “The only thing I did that I wanted was staying at the Institute after I was certified. My father didn’t think it was necessary, but my mother had wanted to study longer when she’d been there. Her family couldn’t afford it. I had the ranking to qualify, so she convinced my father to let me. But when I returned, Crowther showed up, wanting to know why someone of my class wanted more than a trade education. My father was furious. I doubt I would have returned the next year if he hadn’t been arrested.”

“We’ll have to figure something out now, then,” she said, and pressed her head against his shoulder. He tangled his hand in her hair, holding her close. “Are we really safe?”

“We are.”

She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Good. I’m so tired.”

When she woke, Kaine was asleep. He did not stir, even when she moved. It was as if years of exhaustion had risen up and swallowed him.

He slept for days. He didn’t even twitch when Helena pressed a hand against his chest, her resonance reaching in. His soul finally seemed to begin integrating itself back into him.

Helena slept beside him for the first week. She hadn’t thought she was tired enough to sleep for consecutive days, but it was as if a relentless tension had finally released and this was the first time she’d ever truly rested.

They woke to eat, and Kaine would go out, and she’d watch him walk along the edge of the cliff and survey the island and wander the house, and then he’d come back and pass out again.

But he only slept if Helena stayed near him. When she got up and went to peruse the various shelves to see what kinds of books there were, he immediately sat up.

“I can get up now,” he said.

“No. I’m still tired,” she lied. “I just want to read a little.”

She brought a few books over and laced her fingers with his as she read, and he was asleep again in minutes. When she touched him with her resonance, he’d ceased to feel like something on the verge of unravelling.

He’d been sleeping almost two weeks when the door opened and Lila peeked across the room at them. “Pol’s napping. Can I come in?”

Helena closed her book, nodding. They’d seen each other only in passing since their arrival.

Lila came over and stared at Kaine for a moment before she turned and sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from him. “I wanted to talk to you, but there’s never been time. The people in the village say the tide will be rising past the sea road soon.”

Helena nodded.

Lila inhaled. “You know, when he told me about you two, I didn’t believe him. He said that Luc and everyone else was dead. He brought newspapers to prove it, and he said the only reason I was still alive was because of you. I believed him about most of it, but not what he said about you.” Lila was staring hard at the floor as she spoke. “I couldn’t believe it could have happened—that you wouldn’t ever—but then I thought about how withdrawn you got, right when things started getting better. We used to talk about it, Luc and Soren and I, and none of us could understand why. When Ferron told me when everything started, I realised it was right around that same time. But I was sure you’d tricked Ferron into thinking you cared about him. Thought he was so pathetic for believing it.”

Helena’s fingers, entwined with Kaine’s, spasmed.

“At first, he used to come check on me almost every week. It was like watching someone starve to death, him looking for you. I think he went mad for a while. He started threatening me, saying it was all my fault. If it weren’t for me, you’d be safe, and he started telling me that when he found you, it’d be my job to take care of you for a change. Eventually he stopped saying anything about what would happen once he found you.”

Lila pressed her lips together tightly. “Then I got word that you’d been found, but he said you’d forgotten everything, about him and me and Pol, that they’d try to smuggle you out before the Abeyance, but it had to be just before, because you’d be hunted when you escaped. Then I started hearing rumours about the repopulation program. I didn’t think you’d be part of that—”

“He didn’t have any choice,” Helena said. “If it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else. It was that or kill me.”

Lila drew an unsteady breath. “Well, I am glad that you’re alive,” she finally said. “But I still hate him, and I hate that you’re trapped with him. Because you were right, and no one listened to you; you stayed with us despite knowing the whole time. You didn’t deserve any of this. You shouldn’t have to spend the rest of your life trapped by all the promises that people forced you to make.”

Helena stiffened, and Lila noticed, her mouth tensing. “I don’t just mean Ferron. I mean with me and Pol, too. Luc made you promise, and I know you’d stay with us for the rest of your life without ever complaining, but you don’t have to. You’ve already done more than anyone should have ever asked from you. You deserve to make some choices for yourself. Don’t spend any more of your life chained to old promises. Not for anyone. Not Luc, or me—or Ferron.”

Lila closed her eyes and exhaled. “I just—I had to say that once, before we’re all trapped on this island.”

She stood up and left the room as quietly as she’d come in.

Helena sat in silence for a moment and finally looked down. “You can stop pretending to be asleep.”

Kaine’s silver eyes slid open, and he stared up at her, his expression carefully closed.

Helena raised her eyebrows. “Do you really think I went to all the trouble of saving you just because of an old promise?”

He said nothing, but she knew he did.

She shook her head, throat aching. “That’s not fair. You said that I’m the worst promise keeper you’ve ever met. You can’t have it both ways, you know.”

“Helena …” He said her name gently.

She wouldn’t let him finish.

“We said always, didn’t we?” she asked, her voice strained. “Always. Well, if you don’t want that promise in full any longer, I’ll give it to you in increments.” She clutched his hand tighter. “Every day. I’ll choose you. That way you’ll know it’s still what I want.”

She looked out towards the rising sea. “I’m sure there will be good days and bad days for us. Too much has happened to ever really put it behind us, but if you choose me, and I choose you, I think we’re strong enough to make it.”

A BUNDLE OF OLD NEWSPAPERS from the North had arrived just before the tides cut off the island from the rest of Etras.

A full article had been written about the High Reeve’s death. Spirefell had been burned to the ground. A skeleton of warped iron was all that remained. Countless charred bodies had been recovered from the wreckage. Kaine Ferron, his wife, Aurelia, and Atreus Ferron were listed as dead. The killer had been identified as Ivy Purnell; she’d committed suicide nearby using one of the obsidian weapons developed by the Eternal Flame. Purnell was one of the Undying, but her family had ties with the Eternal Flame prior to the war. She was believed to be responsible for all the assassinations during the last year.

There were also articles about the Liberation Front, a confederation of armies organising against Paladia. It seemed only a matter of time before they attacked, but as Etras was once more cut off from the continents, the declaration of war had still not been made.

On the island, time warped. There was so much of it. Other than the tidal shifts, everything grew nebulous and unhurried.

Alchemy. Paladia. The war. It all barely existed in Etras.

Helena began to forage again, and soon the kitchen was strung with herbs, and she had decoctions and oil infusions, extracts and distillations. It was more medicines than four people would ever need, and so Lila—who was more sociable than Kaine or Helena—would take them to the village.

Kaine disliked the idea. He did not want Helena becoming responsible for a village of strangers, but he relented because having things to do kept Helena’s anxiety from gnawing through her.

Instances of upper-class Northerners fleeing south to escape scandal were apparently relatively common. The previous owners of the house had been a minor Novisian noble family, and the arrival of new Northern strangers was predictably a source of curiosity on the island.

Kaine, Helena, and Lila frequently discussed the risks and the proper balance of keeping to themselves without seeming like they were trying to hide. A few careless rumours escaping the island might be enough to discover them. However, once Helena, an Etrasian herself, proved to be useful, the village grew protective and tight-lipped about their strange neighbours.

Kaine struggled the most to adapt. He was always paranoid, planning for the worst. When he wasn’t with Helena, he was constantly walking the property and going to the village to bring back any news that came from the main islands, watching for signs of newcomers.

Late one evening, Helena sat working on a brace design for her left hand. The purpose was to make her two paralysed fingers bend and open with a transmutational device connected to her other fingers.

A low wind howled, and the shutters rattled. She thought nothing of it at first, until she noticed that Kaine had gone unnaturally still. She looked up as another gusting howl wafted through the house.

Her eyes went wide, and they both bolted to the front door. Running back and forth outside the house, wings outstretched, nose to the ground, was Amaris.

She looked up as Kaine came out the door and immediately dropped to her belly and crawled across the ground to him, wings and tail flapping, whining and whimpering all the way. He pulled her enormous head into his arms.

“You mad thing—how did you get here?” He could barely get the question out, because Amaris was licking his face over and over, her wings sending up a dust storm.

“I guess she couldn’t let you go,” Helena said.

Amaris was set up in the stable, which she was only allowed out of at night. It was the best solution they could come up with given her size and unusual qualities. She didn’t seem to mind. In the evening, she would burst out and run in circles for a little while, and Kaine would take her flying out across the sea.

Helena was glad that he finally had something to do with himself. Until Amaris’s reappearance, he had floated. He would read and keep Helena company, but he didn’t seem to know how to want anything. He’d spent his whole life with a collar around his throat.

As weeks turned into months, the full breadth of his possessiveness began to reassert itself. During the day, he would watch Helena work with an intensity that she could feel in her marrow. When they were alone, she would stop what she was doing and let him consume her. His lips whispering perfect, beautiful, mine with every nip and caress.

“Yours, always,” she’d promise.

It grew steadily apparent that Helena sat at the centre of Kaine’s universe, and now that she was safe, his unrestrained attention had nothing else to obsess over. Everything except Helena was superfluous. She thought at first that it was a phase, but as autumn arrived, and Ascendance came and went, she began to suspect that he had no intention of taking interest in anything else. Lila, Pol, alchemy projects: It was all to indulge her.

Even the baby. Helena’s pregnancy became increasingly an undeniable piece in their relationship, but his concern remained limited to Helena. The condition of her heart. The risk of the Toll manifesting again.

When he wasn’t reminding her that “their daughter” needed Helena to breathe, and that she had to keep herself safe for “their daughter,” his interest faded.

One night, when they were lying in bed and she was trying to show him how to feel the constant kicking that she was subjected to, she realised his attention had wandered to her wrists, the punctures from the manacles that still ran through each of them.

She knew he worried that her ulnar nerve snapping was only the beginning, and that there might be more damage. He was constantly watching how she worked and rarely allowed her to carry or lift anything that might strain her wrists.

“Kaine,” she said quietly.

His attention snapped back.

“Kaine, you have to care about her.”

He stared at her blankly.

Her mouth went dry. “You can’t be like your father.”

His expression closed, but she sat up and gripped his hand.

“You have to care. You have to choose to care. The way you are, if you don’t, you won’t—and she’ll know. Just like you did. You cannot do that to her. She has to be someone that you decide to care about.”

She swallowed hard, looking down. “We don’t know how long I’ll … after everything. I need you to promise that if I’m not here, you’ll love her for me”—her voice cracked—“the way I would love her. She has to be that important to you. Do you promise?”

Kaine had grown pale, but he nodded. “All right.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

H ELENA WAS PUT ON BEDREST during the last month of pregnancy when her heart began to struggle with even simple things like the stairs.

She nearly fainted, and before the dizziness had passed, Kaine had her in bed and would not let her leave it.

Riding Amaris, he had gone to the larger islands and found several medical texts on pregnancy, which he had read from cover to cover, designating himself as obstetrician. He would not hear of Helena doing anything, and when she tried to protest, he cited passages from the books.

Several women in the village came to the house and helped Lila manage cooking and cleaning. With nothing else to do, Helena began writing, filling a journal with everything she could think of. She wanted it all written down: her version of events. Who she was, and what she’d chosen, and why. Answers to all the questions she’d ever wished she’d asked her own mother.

The winter solstice passed, and so did Helena’s due date, and she thought she would always be pregnant and never leave her bed when her labour finally started. It moved at a relentless creep for more than a day with little progress as Kaine grew more and more worried. Lila was somehow the most levelheaded among them.

“We’re all vivimancers. No reason to think we can’t get one baby out,” Lila said, kneeling by Helena’s legs while Helena leaned against Kaine, his hand pressed over her heart, making sure the rhythm stayed even when the contractions crested and ebbed.

“I hate this,” Helena finally said, beginning to feel like it was never going to end, her forehead slick, curls clinging to her face.

“I know.” Kaine smoothed her hair.

“It hurts.”

“Yes.”

“I’m tired. I’ve been pushing for hours.”

“I know.”

“Stop agreeing with me.”

Kaine stopped talking after that and didn’t utter a word of protest when she nearly broke his hand squeezing it through a contraction, her whole body curling forcefully.

“Almost there,” Lila said. “Head’s out. Just one more and you’ll get the shoulders through.” She looked at Kaine. “Do you want to catch her?”

He shook his head.

Helena could feel her heart rate trying to rocket. So close, so close. Just one more and it would be over.

“That’s it! Yes! Shoulders are out, just breathe, she’ll come …”

There was a garbled wail as Lila lifted a wet, squirming bundle and thrust her into Helena’s arms. Helena gave a startled gasp as her daughter’s tiny, scrunched-up face nuzzled against her. The baby’s head was matted with dark wet curls.

All her exhaustion was forgotten. Helena’s hands shook as she cradled the baby close. The tiny head lifted, looking towards Helena, and a little mouth opened to utter an angry, protesting cry.

Lila was saying something, but Helena could only stare as the baby furrowed her featherlight eyebrows, eyes widening briefly.

They were as bright silver as a lightning storm.

Helena gave a sob and held her tighter. “Kaine—she has your eyes.”