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“Well, you—you have a natural talent for it. In another life, you could be a healer.” “One of life’s great ironies,” he said, glancing towards the door, his jaw tight.
“So I’m told,” Ferron said with an insincere smile. “Do you think they’ll still hire me after I murdered someone in the lobby?”
“Enrolment in my repopulation program.”
Holy shit here we go. This is going to break me again
“The High Necromancer is convinced that you’re an animancer. If he’s right, we can’t let a girl like that go to waste. Do you have any idea how rare they are? And here you are at the critical moment, when we need one most.”
If she had to choose one or the other, what was worse? Cooperating with Ferron’s extraction of the Eternal Flame’s secrets, or letting herself be raped to produce the child Morrough needed for his own transference?
You’ll have two months to produce results, or she’ll be transferred to Central, and we’ll see if we have better luck with other candidates.”
“You’re having me raped, and you expect me to be grateful about it?”
But rape for the purpose of pregnancy was a layer of intention that she still had not fully wrapped her mind around.
Helena opened her eyes and couldn’t see him anywhere. The violent sound of retching emerged from the bathroom.
He drew away, wrenching a glove off. He was still wearing them, even now.
She caught only a glimpse of his face just before the door slammed. He looked grey, as though he was going to faint.
Now this sick shame was all she knew.
“Helena,” he said softly.
“If I’d known what pain you’d cause me, I never would have taken you.”
His face was so close the words brushed against her lips, and his mouth crashed against hers.
It was a punishing kiss.
“I would rather spend the rest of my life being raped in Central than spend a minute of it having feelings for you.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“No one is going to steal your book,” he said as if he was trying very hard to be patient. He gestured around. “Who even would? If they do, I will buy you a new one. Leave it.”
“No one is going to hurt your baby,” he said, meeting her eyes. She gave a small gasp of relief. It was what she’d so desperately wanted him to say.
then she realised he was massaging them.
He didn’t speak or meet her eyes, but he was there constantly. Sitting sometimes for hours with her hand in his as if it could keep her from slipping away.
“I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat. It is a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them.”
YESSSSS THIS LINE MADE IT
OMG OMG OMG
I don’t really have people like they do.”
“I am loyal to the cause. My vows are to protect life and fight against necromancy no matter the cost. This would be to that end. I would sacrifice my soul for the Eternal Flame.
“Kaine Ferron has offered to spy for the Resistance,”
“You know those lumithium pieces we find sometimes after burning the liches and Undying? If you can rip it out, it kills them. All their necrothralls, too.”
The tension between past ideals and present realities is what enabled this war.”
sincerity, he told us how to kill the liches and Undying without fire.”
“Your job, Marino, is to use any means necessary to bring Ferron to his knees.
Get closer, Ferron. Become so obsessed with finding my vulnerabilities that you don’t notice the ones I’m making in you.
A first kiss, because it was her first kiss.
Like trying to touch a mirror’s reflection rather than a person.
“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.”
“Why do you think I was brought onto the faculty and made Kaine Ferron’s academic advisor?” Helena’s eyes went wide. “You were watching him for signs.”
“It’s a trick I learned from Artemon Bennet,” he said, stepping away from her. “He calls it animancy. When we take Resistance fighters alive, it’s not unusual for us to examine their memories. So if you’re ever captured, there’s a chance it’ll happen to you. Which makes you a liability for me.”
“It’s an elixir that’s bonded to the surface. The coating bends light to make things hard to notice unless you know to look for them.”
Ferron’s resonance through her mind made her conscious of an energy there which she could manipulate.
“He’s right, I should go. Sorry, Luc,” she said as she stepped away. She looked back. “Next time.”
“You don’t want me to train you?”
“It’s all in the past, Marino. You’re not going to be deported right now for a six-year-old violation of labour law. Really, it’s an example of Sol’s providence that you have all these skills.”
The shock on his face, as if he hadn’t realised what he was like until she’d told him.
“Just lost my arm.”
“Ferron,” she said gently but firmly, “I have medical experience. I’m going to check you and see if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“I was not,” she said, her voice tight and rising, even though she had no excuse for touching him that way. “I was just wondering about your body fat ratio.” “Of course you were,” he said, sitting up with a suggestive smirk.
“Was it a punishment for you—being made Undying?” He glanced at her, his face empty. “How could immortality be a punishment? It’s what everyone wants.”
Undying. Murderer. Spy. Target. Tool. That was how she needed to view Ferron. Not as someone who could be hurt. Not as someone who didn’t understand blood loss and who rambled explanations. Not as someone who assumed a hand extended was meant to hurt him.
“For the record,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady, “this qualifies as interfering with my work. If you want to hurt me”—her jaw trembled uncontrollably—“it can’t be my hands.”
The war had prematurely aged people in all kinds of ways.
