His lip curled, a flash of teeth. “Oh, and do you have a list of post-war plans that you’ve forgotten to mention?”
She averted her eyes. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
He laced their fingers together as they lapsed into a silence as empty as the future.
“You could—become a healer,” she finally said, straining to feel the sensation of his hand against hers.
A smile ghosted at the corner of his mouth. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“You should. You have a talent for it—although your bedside manner is terrible.”
“It would be something to balance out that death toll of mine,” he said, not looking at her.
“I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not your fault.”
He shook his head, staring at the wall. “Maybe that was true once, but I believe I own it all now.”
She swallowed, willing her fingers to move so she could squeeze his hand. “You are so much more than what the war has done to you.”
Her voice shook with conviction, but he still wouldn’t look at her.
“You are,” she said desperately. “Just—just like I am. There’s more to both of us—it’s just waiting to get out. Someday, we’ll leave all this behind. Go far away, and you’ll see. The two of us—I think we could.”
He made no answer, but she dimly felt his fingers grip hers tighter.
“I promise—you’ll see …” Her eyelids began to droop.
“Go to sleep. You have a long recovery ahead of you.”
She resisted, trying to stay awake. “How long have I been here?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“How long?”
“… It’s been four days since the bombing.”
Four days? Blood was suddenly pounding in her ears, and her lungs rattled when she tried to breathe.
“Kaine—you have to get word to Crowther that I’m alive.”
“Don’t worry about them.” His voice was hard.
“No, listen. You have to tell him.”
He stroked her cheek. “Just rest.”
She fought to move, needing him to understand. “No. Promise me. Promise you’ll send word. Make sure he knows that I’ll come back.”
If Crowther thought she was dead, he might decide that Kaine was too much of a risk to keep alive.
“Promise me—promise you’ll get word—”
“All right. I’ll send word, I promise. Rest.”
The throbbing pulse of blood in her head slowed, and she relaxed. He tucked a curl behind her ear.
“You’ll be here at least three weeks unless the nullium clears from your blood before then.”
“There’s a chelator the Eternal Flame developed—”
He tapped the tip of her nose. “The Undying have chymists and are also familiar with metal-sequestering agents.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You’ll get your resonance back … but it will be a long time for you. You had several shrapnel injuries, and you inhaled a significant amount as well. It’s hard to say how long it’ll take. You’ll have to recover the old-fashioned way. Go to sleep. Loath as I am to admit it, the war will still be here when you wake.”
CHAPTER 60
Junius 1787
BEING INJURED WAS HORRIBLE. HELENA WAS ACCUSTOMED to the efficiency of healing to circumvent the slowest and more unbearable aspects of recovery; having to suddenly endure the natural speed of healing was utter misery.
She spent much of the first week in a drugged stupor, feverish with an infection. When she finally grew lucid again, she found Kaine still beside her. He had a large stack of books and folios that he was flipping through.
“What are you doing?” she asked after watching for a little while.
His eyes flicked up. “Studying human anatomy for my future career as a healer,” he said in a dry voice.
She knew that the real answer was that he would have to be her healer once the nullium was cleared from her system, but she played along. “We can open a practice together, like my parents did. Up on a cliff. We’ll be able to look out the windows and see the tides.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do I get any say about this future life of ours, or are you making all the decisions?”
“Do you have ideas?”
There was a pause. “Can’t say I do.”
She drew a slow breath. She could move her fingers now. As her fingers flexed, she realised her right hand was bandaged, the fingers splinted, and she remembered the last moments in the field hospital.
“I almost forgot,” she said. “I think I discovered something in the hospital.”
He looked up.
“The obsidian I told you about. I had some in my pocket when the necrothralls came. I think—I think I severed a reanimation with it.”
“Are you sure?”
She squinted, trying to remember more details, but all she recalled was the red-orange light, and the pain. “Not entirely, but I think we should test it again.”
“Well, don’t worry about that right now.” He snapped his book shut and came over to change the bandages.
She’d regained enough mobility that as he peeled off the gauze, she lifted her head, determined to see. Running like a ragged seam down the centre of her chest was a huge incision, sewn closed with black thread and bone wire. The skin was swollen, yellow, and white and pink.
Helena had seen more wounds than she could count, watched innumerable people grieve over the loss of who they’d been before and what their bodies had become. She knew all the things to say, the encouragement and reassurances, that it would be all right, that it would get better.
Staring at the wound, she forgot all of it.
“My gods,” she said, head dropping, her throat convulsing, too horrified to keep looking.
“It’ll heal. Give it time,” he said quietly as he checked for signs of infection.
She knew from treating Lila that she would scar. Even if she tried to heal herself afterwards, organised all the matrices, there was a limited time frame for preventing scars, and something about nullium seemed to have a mild keloid effect on the tissue.
She drew several sharp breaths.
She was lucky to be alive. A few scars were nothing compared with the injuries others in the Resistance would carry for life. She still had all her limbs, both eyes and ears. Even all her teeth.
She was very lucky by any metric. What did a scar matter? It would be fine.
She could feel Kaine watching her and forced herself to speak. “I think your scars are prettier than mine,” she finally said.
“I have a better healer.”
IT TOOK THREE WEEKS JUST for the nullium in Helena’s blood to reduce enough that Kaine could use resonance to monitor her healing, although actual transmutation was still far off.
Her own resonance was barely a hum in her veins.
Whenever Kaine was absent, Davies stayed with her. Helena’s head was finally clear enough to notice more of her surroundings.
The room was sterile. Almost bare. There was a bed, a towering wardrobe, a desk, and a chair. Falcon Matias had more indulgent quarters, and he was supposed to be an ascetic.
When she teased Kaine about it, he grimaced. “This is my room.”
Helena fell silent, looking around again, abashed. “Oh. I thought that a country house would have bigger rooms.”
He nodded. “There are larger ones. I moved in here because it was closer to my mother’s room, then never left.”
“I’m sorry I brought you back,” she said.
He shook his head. “You didn’t. I come back to check on the servants.”