“This is going to be a different kind of bomb,” she said. “It’ll still use some obsidian, but I’m using a different pyromancy principle for this. Luc’s books always warned about using pyromancy in enclosed spaces, because if the flames consume all the oxygen, it creates a vacuum. Obviously, I’m not a pyromancer, but when I was little, there was a mill fire. The flour in the air caught fire, and it burned down the entire building.”
She paused, using her resonance to stall the effects of the sedative again before measuring carbon disulfide into sealed spheres, careful to keep from inhaling any.
Her hands had to be steady, her focus razor-sharp.
“You will burn down a lab?”
She nodded. “The West Port Lab. Do you remember Vanya Gettlich? The woman with nullium in her blood? That was West Port’s doing. If I burn it down, they won’t realise that Kaine rescued Lila. If they think she died in a fire, they won’t look for her. And it’ll be—” She swallowed hard. “It’ll be a quicker death for everyone inside than what will happen to them otherwise.” She pressed her hand against her head again, clearing it, and then nodded him away. “You should go. You won’t want to be here when Kaine gets back, and if I get any of this wrong, I might blow up this building instead.”
“You will not come back?”
Helena used the mortar and pestle to grind obsidian into micro-shards. “Of course I’m going to come back. I told Kaine I’d be waiting for him. It’s just—”
She paused and blinked back tears. “I made a deal to leave, and I have to keep it.” She swallowed hard. “He’ll be—he’ll be alone here. I have to make sure he’s safe before I go.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs made that awful whistling sound, and she doubled over, clutching at her chest, trying to get her fingers under the chest brace.
Shiseo took the mortar and pestle from her.
“Your wrist motion still needs practice,” he said as he ground up the obsidian for her. “Like this, see?”
She watched, the sedative taking effect. Her chest slowly stopped convulsing. She let him finish before straightening with a wince.
When he was done with the obsidian, he helped her transmute metal bars into the various shapes she needed. He was better at delicate transmutation work than she was; he made beautifully delicate pins that would be removed to allow the carbon disulfide to evaporate and ignite the white phosphorus.
Helena made as many bombs as she could. The Hevgotian ambassador had a very large, sturdy rucksack that Helena filled with them, hoping that all the spheres were even and wouldn’t break during the journey. She took her knives from her satchel, shoving them into the pockets of a tasselled jacket, along with the few remaining supplies from her emergency kit, and pulled a cap down low to hide her face and dark hair.
After hesitating, she lay one of the obsidian knives on top of the note she’d written. Kaine should have one, if he didn’t already.
She slung the rucksack onto her back, careful not to jostle it, and then went over and unlatched the window, leaning out. There was a red haze rising from the north end of the city, but the beacon of the Eternal Flame, which had burned for centuries, visible for miles, was gone. Extinguished.
She was about to climb out the window when Shiseo spoke up.
“Wait.”
She looked at him.
“You will come back?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded, slipping one leg over the sill.
“Wait,” Shiseo said again. He drew a deep breath. “I am not in the habit of holding on to—things. People.” He shook his head. “I was very young when my father regretted his marriage. I was a disappointment. My mother’s family did not rise as expected, so he put us aside and began again. When my half brother became Emperor, I was seen as a threat, but he sent me to oversee the imperial mines, and I thought perhaps he did not want to kill me. But when I was accused of stealing imperial metals, I realised I must always wander.”
Helena knew he was trying to communicate something important, but she was too stuck on one point. “Your brother is the Emperor?”
Shiseo waved the question off and seemed very focused on the story he was telling her.
“I always thought it better to let life flow by quietly. For many years, I did.”
Helena was not sure if she was touched or exasperated by his sudden need to tell her this.
“When they said you had died, I—I regretted that I did not know you well. I do not like to presume. To ask questions. But I—enjoyed our lab.” He smiled at her.
Helena exhaled, smiling back. “Me too. I wish we could have worked on other things.” She slid through the window onto the metal balcony.
“Wait.”
She tensed with frustration.
He reached after her. “I should go. If I am caught, I will tell them about my brother. They will not kill me. You see?”
He held out his hand for the rucksack, the urgency visible in his face.
Helena looked at him for a moment and then pushed his hand away. “I’m going to use necromancy to plant the bombs. It has to be me.”
His hand dropped.
“Take care, Shiseo,” she said. She started to turn, then paused. “If I don’t come back—if you ever see Kaine, tell him—tell him that I—”
Her head dropped down, and she quickly brushed her fingertips across her cheeks. She cleared her voice and shook her head. “Never mind. I imagine he knows.”
CHAPTER 65
Augustus 1787
HELENA HAD RARELY VISITED THE WEST ISLAND even before the war, but she knew she needed to head south, and down to the lower levels of the island, to reach its small port.
It was dark and quiet; in the plaza, one might not even realise there was a war. The lifts would require fare and identification, assuming that they were even operational, but there were always stairways, some large and others designed for maintenance and service workers. They would be the most efficient. When she came across gates, the locks were usually simple enough for basic transmutational lock picking.
She was almost to the lowest levels before she saw anyone. She reached a gate, and just as she got it unlocked, two people came around the turn of the stairs, heading up. Helena tried to tuck herself against the wall and let them pass without drawing attention to herself, but when she risked a glance up, she gave a gasp of surprise.
It was Crowther. He met her eyes dully, no expression on his face, but he stopped in his tracks as the person beside him turned and looked at Helena.
Ivy gave a small smile. “You got out, too. I hoped you would.”
Helena stared at her in horror, looking again at Crowther, blank-faced and empty-eyed. He was dead.
“What did you do?” Helena’s voice shook.
The smile on Ivy’s face vanished. “The Necromancer has Sofia. He said he’d give her back to me if I gave him the Headquarters and Crowther. They wanted him alive, but they said it was all right if I had to kill him. So I did.”
Because Crowther was believed to be the one making the obsidian. Helena’s head swam.
“You’re the one who gave them all the information?” she said. “Who let them into Headquarters?”
It wasn’t Cetus. Here stood the real traitor.
“I had to,” Ivy said. “It’s the only way to get Sofia back.”
“Ivy, your sister’s dead.”
“No!” Ivy shook her head. “She’s alive. I’ve seen her, she knows me when I visit her. He’ll give her back to me when I bring him Crowther.”
“How could you?” was all Helena could say. “All those people—”