She crawled across the floor again, more slowly, tracing every line again and again, ignoring the splinters catching in her fingertips.
Her heart began to pound with relief. She could solve this. She could figure it out. An ache spread through her chest at the unsteady tempo of her heartbeat, but she ignored it, trying to finish. It began to race faster and faster, until her lungs began to hurt. Just a little more. She needed to have the whole array complete in her mind so she could etch it.
The floor blurred. She blinked hard, trying to focus.
Her fingers were bleeding as she reached up to press them against her heart, her body going cold. Her heart was racing uncontrollably. She tried to slow it, but it was like trying to catch a running horse.
The room swayed. The iron cage and the door gracefully swung to the side, upended as her shoulder hit the ground.
The room dimmed, the lights’ flickering click fading away.
SHE WOKE, DAZED, LYING IN bed in her room, her chest aching as if there were a lead weight crushing it. Kaine was sitting beside her, her hand in his.
She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. Her wrists throbbed, and she could feel the dead sensation of nullium inside them.
“The doctor just left,” he said without looking at her. “It seems you developed an irregular heartbeat from the strain and distress of your imprisonment and pregnancy. They detected it during your coma, but I was told that if I could keep you calm, it might resolve itself. Seems unlikely now, though.”
Helena didn’t know what to say.
His jaw worked several times. “Do you have any idea what it was like, finding you collapsed in the middle of that damned array inside that torture chamber?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to make you go back in.”
He exhaled, his head dropping. He’d seemed furious except he was clutching her hand in his.
“It wasn’t a panic attack,” she said. “I think I know how Morrough used the array—how the design works. I’ve figured out how he did it. I was just relieved. My heart lost control.”
He looked at her, his eyes burning. “Do you think that makes it better? Your heart could fail, and if I’m not here, you’ll be gone. Just like—” He went silent. “Don’t do this to me.”
Her mouth went dry. “But I have to save you.”
“No.” The word was sharp. “You don’t. And you can’t. You are the only person who has never understood that.”
She opened her mouth, but he cut her off.
“We made a deal to tell the truth to each other, and that is the truth. You cannot save me. I cannot be saved.”
She struggled to sit up, her chest aching as if her sternum had split again. “You don’t know that. Let me try.”
He wrenched away from her and stood. She thought he’d storm out. She slipped from the bed, reaching after him.
“Kaine.”
He stilled at the foot of the bed. “You don’t get to have everything, Helena,” he said at last. “There’s a point when you have to realise that you aren’t going to get everything you want. You have to choose and let it be enough for you. You have other people. You promised Holdfast you’d take care of Lila and her son. You have a baby who needs you, and you know that.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to choose. I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.”
He looked back at her. “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.”
“But I’m so close. I can figure this out.”
He came back towards her then. “You promised me that if the research was having an impact on your health, you’d stop.”
“I know, but—”
He gave a gasping laugh, almost more of a sob. “Did you know, you are the worst promise keeper I have ever met?”
Her throat tightened. “I keep the ones that matter.”
“No.” He shook his head. “What you do is make so many conflicting promises that you can pick and choose depending on what you want. I’ve devoted some thought to your methodology.” He looked down. “That’s why you never seem to keep any of the promises that I care about.”
He reached towards her, his fingers brushing her hip. “You care about this baby. You worried about her so constantly, you wrecked your heart with fear over what would happen to her. Now you’re so preoccupied trying to save me that you’re letting yourself forget that she is dependent on you. I can’t protect her from you. Endangering yourself trying to save me risks her.”
Helena’s throat closed. She tried to back away, but he caught hold of her, gripping her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “You have to let me go now.”
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “You think I’ll be calm if I stop? If I have nothing to do but to sit in this room and wait to lose you? You wouldn’t. You never would.”
They compromised in the end.
Kaine took her back to the room and let her spend hours crawling around the floor, copying down every detail of the array onto etching plates. When he had time, he went with her to the library, and let her use her animancy on him, studying the talisman inside his chest, but she did not set foot outside her room without him anymore.
One evening he came back after more than a day’s absence, his expression stony. “You’ll have to stay in tomorrow. There’s to be a dinner party. Aurelia is returning for it, and the remaining Undying.”
“What’s it for?”
He gave a thin smile. “I’m supposed to convince them that there’s nothing wrong.”
CHAPTER 70
Julius 1789
HELENA WATCHED THROUGH THE CURTAINS AS ADDITIONAL servants, both living and dead, were brought in from the city. Kaine had bolted the door shut to ensure that she would receive no unsolicited visitors, leaving one of the maids inside the room with her.
She had never noticed just how heavy and reinforced the door was.
The motorcars arrived in the evening. It was almost funny watching the Undying filing into the house of the very murderer they feared.
She tried not to worry. Kaine had not seemed concerned about the evening, but he was a convincing liar.
As the evening dragged by, she tried to focus on her attempts at reversing Morrough’s array structure when the maid, who’d been standing still as a statue, abruptly sprang into action, rapidly gathering up Helena’s books and notes and shoving them all under the bed.
Someone was coming.
They’d just hidden the last of the papers, ensuring everything was covered by the bed skirt, when the room was filled with the sound of shifting iron. Helena flung herself onto the bed, curling onto her side. A moment later, the door swung open, revealing Stroud, followed closely by Kaine.
“I don’t see how this could possibly help,” he said as Helena blinked at them in feigned confusion. “You know the delicacy of her condition.”
“There are a great many delicate positions right now,” Stroud said, walking over and shaking Helena. “The High Necromancer was very clear that we are to project an image of strength. All these assassinations have threatened their sense of invulnerability, and if their fears are allowed to undermine the regime, we’ll all suffer. We must show them that a solution is under way.”
“And you think parading a pregnant prisoner famously sent here for interrogation will reassure them?”