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“Keep a lot of people in cages, Ferron?” His jaw clenched, throat dipping as he swallowed. “Only you,”
“I thought you didn’t want to lay eyes on her, Aurelia.” The way he said his wife’s name was unnervingly intimate. Aurelia flushed, the colour rising from her neck and staining her cheeks. Ferron stepped towards her. “If you feel that I’m hoarding her, keeping her all to myself, perhaps I should include you more. She could have dinner with us. I could move her into our wing of the house, bring her when we visit the city. Perhaps we should have included her in that solstice photo that you bought.” Aurelia was turning paler and paler. “The world already knows she’s mine,” Ferron said, his words
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“Watch her carefully. The Eternal Flame will come for her soon, I am certain of it.” “I will die before I lose her,” Ferron said, his grip tightening.
“You idiot—why did you come out tonight?” Helena just looked at him. She thought she should say something. What she’d tried to tell Lancaster. “Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.
“Oh, Marino.” His thumb trailed along her neck, following the scar below her jaw. “If I’d known what pain you’d cause me, I never would have taken you.” He sighed, and she could smell the liquor on his breath as his head dipped closer. She had no idea what he meant, if she was supposed to apologise. “But at this point I suppose I deserve to burn. I wonder if you’ll burn, too.”
“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.”
“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.”
“In a way.” He rolled his eyes. “But I could still lose my body at some point. They’d like me to have an heir just in case. My betrothed has recently come of age, but I visited her once, and I have no intention of ever doing so again. I keep meaning to write her letters, but somehow,” he shook his head, “they all go astray.”
“I must admit,” he said in a low voice as though making a confession, “if anyone had told me you’d become so lovely, I would never have come near you. I was rather blindsided when I saw you again.”
“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”
He looked at her again. “Why’d you kiss me?” She stared across the room at a tapestry of Tellus, spinning the earth into being. “You made me feel like the parts of me that aren’t useful still deserve to exist. Like I’m not just all the things I can do.”
“She’s dead,” he said. “You are not. My loyalty was to those least responsible for her suffering, but if the Eternal Flame has decided that you are an affordable casualty, I will not be noble or understanding. I can exact dual revenge. I will make them pay if they get you killed.”
“You are not expendable. You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you and letting you die.”
“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.”
“You’re mine. You swore yourself to me. Now and after the war. I’m going to take care of you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. You don’t have to be lonely. Because you’re mine.”
“Would you go now, if you could?” His eyes seemed to ripple with heat. “With you, I would.” She forced a smile. “Then we’ll go together. After the war.” She gripped his hand and pressed it against her chest, letting him feel her heartbeat. “When the war is over. We’ll run away somewhere no one knows us. We’ll disappear—forever.”
“I’m going to take care of you. I swear, Helena, I’m always going to take care of you.”
“Tell me about your mother, Kaine. Tell me everything you could never tell anyone.” He went silent. She slid her fingers over his shoulders, tracing the interconnected scars from the array. “You can tell me. I’ll help you carry it.”
She was almost asleep when she heard the faint whisper of his voice. “I’m going to take care of you. I swear, I’m always going to take care of you.”
“Because I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order of the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat, it’s 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. Given that the risk to their lives is the only way to make you value your own.”
“Just live, Helena.” His voice was shaking. “That’s all I’m asking you to do for me.”
“You’re mine,” he said almost against her lips. “Mine. You swore it. Your Resistance sold you to me. I’m not going anywhere without you. And if anyone touches you, immortal or not, I will kill them.”
“You’re not choosing. You promised me anything I wanted. I want you to stop breaking yourself trying to save me. Go. Live. Tell our daughter I saved you both. That—is what I want.”
“Love isn’t as pretty or pure as people like to think. There’s a darkness in it sometimes. Kaine and I go hand in hand. I made him who he is. I knew what that array meant when I saved him. If he’s a monster, then I’m his creator.”
“She deserved to die after what she did to you.” His voice was unrelenting, unapologetic. “I couldn’t leave her once I knew where she was hiding.”
