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He seemed momentarily impressed by her drug-induced bravado, but then glanced dismissively away. “It’s a pity the way you wasted yourself.”
“It wasn’t blind. I chose him,” she said. He stepped back, and something about his expression sharpened. “Did you? Remind me, how many other choices were there?”
He began circling her idly. “You think the guilds invented the divide between us and the Eternal Flame? The Holdfasts claimed all their preferences were divinely moral and treated any concessions as a violation of their consciences; where exactly did that leave the wants and needs of the rest of us? When anything we wanted became a sin or form of vice simply because it inconvenienced them for us to have it? All we did was become what they’d already convinced themselves we were. Ignoble and corrupt.”
The only sign that he’d even seen battle was his eyes: There was a hollow rage lurking behind them that she’d only ever seen in those who’d spent a long time at the front lines.
Helena had cared for their victims. Ferron seemed devoted to brutal efficiency and yet seemed to derive neither pleasure nor benefit from it.
As High Reeve, he was merely a weapon, not permitted the prestige of his abilities. He was the only anonymous figure; no one else was kept hidden behind a title.
He smirked. “Analysing me again?”
here you are, ‘touring the house.’ I thought we weren’t beholden to the Eternal Flame anymore.”
“If he wanted handmade paper clips, I’d do that with equal devotion.” He wasn’t even looking at his wife anymore. His gaze passed over Aurelia’s head, staring at a mirror that reflected himself and Helena.
“I thought you didn’t want to lay eyes on her, Aurelia.” The way he said his wife’s name was unnervingly intimate.
“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.”
“The world already knows she’s mine,” Ferron said, his words pointed, “but if you’d like, I can remind them. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m hiding anything, my dear.”
“You irritate my wife,” he said. “Seems I do,” she said blandly. “If you want to do something about it, you could kill me.”
“Well, I’m not the one to blame for that.” He turned to walk on. “Besides, if I didn’t leave you on the floor retching, you might make the mistake of thinking I care.”
Helena inclined her head. “Yes. You seem strangely concerned about me thinking such a thing.” Ferron froze for an instant, then turned back, a cruel smile thawing his face. “Your friends must have thought very little of you, if this seems like care.”
Helena was so stunned by his words, she felt her heart try to beat faster. “Yes, they did,” she said quickly. “Of course they...
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“Luc, and Lila, and—” There was a name on the tip of her tongue, but her mind seemed to swerve ...
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Ferron still seemed to be waiting, and it upset her so much that her anger broke through for an instant.
“Well, you seem to have it all very thoroughly rationalised for yourself. Congratulations. It was clearly all worth it in the end.”
bust after him and ask exactly who cared about him. His own father wanted to disown him, his wife couldn’t stand him, and he couldn’t even keep living staff on to run his house.
A snarl—almost a roar—rolled through the darkness. Every hair on Helena’s body rose on end. There was the sound of a heavy chain being dragged, another snarl, more furious than the first, and Helena saw what was in the shadows. An enormous creature, black as night, lunged towards them. It was a wolf. No. Bigger than a wolf. It was larger than a destrier. So immense it seemed to fill the stable.
Despite the visible neglect, the chantry was not entirely abandoned. One plaque was brighter than the rest, carefully polished. It sat beneath the altar of Luna, the lesser moon goddess. Enid Ferron. Always beloved. A wife and mother.
“No.” Lila shook her head. “I’ve been lying to everyone—”
Lila never cared about any of that. Protecting Luc was all that mattered to her.
as Ferron enmeshed his mind with hers. This time, she felt him blink, and her own eyes closed. She was being puppeteered not physically but across her now shared mental landscape. She could feel his mind orienting itself within the patterns of hers, his consciousness attempting to sway her.
Much of it was seamless, smooth channels of evasion that refused to veer from their course, but there was a fault line, as if one part had been constructed separately. She felt Ferron notice it, and before he could push towards it, she reacted.
A self-destructive wave of desperation exploded from inside her, like a bomb going off in her head. Ferron vanished. Everything vanished.
When she finally began to recover, she felt as though a part of her had died.
Lancaster. Helena shrank from sight instantly. Lancaster was Aurelia’s lover? The same person who’d just happened to find her room during the party.
“You are a”—she paused as though debating what to call Helena—“an asset. The Ferrons are supposed to be feeding you properly. That is not nearly enough nutrition, it’s no wonder you’ve been so sickly.” Stroud’s expression grew irate. She turned and went to the door. One of the necrothrall maids was waiting outside.
“She isn’t a necrothrall,” Stroud said sharply. “She needs real food. You can’t expect her to handle transference if you’re starving her.” Ferron said nothing, but Helena could have sworn he’d somehow paled. “I assumed she’d been eating as Aurelia and I do.” His fingers flexed. “Aurelia has always managed the menu. I will make enquiries.”
Ferron gave a tight nod. “She’ll be fed properly. I will ensure it.”
“It would seem that I’m obliged to personally see to everything,” he said with a scowl as he stepped back. “You could have mentioned it.”
“Are you one?” she asked. She’d assumed for so long, but she’d begun to wonder if he might be something else entirely. He gave a slow smirk. “What do you think?” She shook her head, uncertain. The smirk faded, but he kept looking at her, and his eyes grew darker than she’d ever seen them.
She realised then that she was lying on a bed beneath him. Heat flooded under her skin, and her spine prickled as she sat up quickly, folding her arms.
Soren. Remember Soren. What happened to him? Her skin crawled, a painful ghastly ache rose through her body, her lungs seized as if there were water inside them, and her vision turned a violent red. When her head cleared, her temples were throbbing. What had she been thinking about? Something about—Lila?
Then what? Her temples pulsed. Should she kill herself? A month before, the answer would have been obvious, but the possibility of rescue tugged at her. Luc’s insistent voice haunting her, begging her to live. Perhaps she only needed to wait a little longer.
Helena turned and headed out, careful to keep the knife from sight, moving only a little quicker than usual as the front door opened and Ferron walked in, followed by Atreus, whose mood had turned Crowther’s thin face sour. Ferron paused, his eerie eyes instantly alighting on Helena, his gaze flicking to the open dining room doors.
Ferron drifted towards her. His gaze seemed to be cataloguing her, as if there was a checklist he was reviewing. He idly pulled his gloves off, pocketing them.
hand. She could try lying. He wouldn’t believe her. She could try running. He’d catch her. She could try killing him. Yes. She’d do that. She let her eyes widen, jaw slackening with surprise. His mouth curved into a faint smirk. She lunged.
Ferron laughed, his lips close enough to her neck that his breath ran down her spine. “And here I thought you’d use poison,” he said, his voice mocking.
She angled the blade back and drove it towards her own throat, meeting Ferron’s eyes with savage triumph. Ferron moved so fast he blurred. The world morphed, going silver as resonance exploded outwards and the knife was ripped away from her throat, pain tearing up her arm all the way into her shoulder. Her mind struggled to catch up. Ferron had caught the blade in his fist, wrenching it up overhead. His other hand was wrapped around her throat,
holding her back.
“Why don’t you die?” There was no point in being coy. She wanted to kill him; they both knew it. Blood was still flowing down the hilt of the knife, dripping scarlet across the white marble floor, spattering across the ouroboros mosaic. His lips curved into an insincere smile. “Prior commitments, I’m afraid.”
Helena knew the Undying could regenerate but it was still startling to witness. It would have taken her at least half an hour to heal a wound like that; hands were delicate, intricate, full of nerves.
“She was the only southerner at the Institute, rather hard to miss, I’d say,” Ferron said, not seeming to care.
Ferron, when Helena caught glimpses of him, was no longer in coats and cloaks and pristine white shirts or even armour, but what appeared to be a combination of light combat gear and hunting clothes. He regularly returned to the house covered in mud, soaked from rain, and pale with rage. Helena was thrilled. She read the coverage obsessively, her heart soaring. The Resistance was still out there.
“The High Necromancer wishes to see you,” he said. “What’s wrong with you?” Helena had no idea what was wrong, she just knew she’d been dosed with something horrible. “Stroud,” she muttered. He swore and left, then came back looking incensed.
“Your Eminence.” Ferron knelt, pulling Helena to the ground with him. “I’ve brought the prisoner. My deepest apologies for the delay.”
“I apologise. I will strive to do better.” “Yes, you are always striving, aren’t you?”