One of the servants had tried to stop him.
Atreus forced her to fall back. With each snap of his fingers, fiery red flames materialised around him.
Atreus tilted his head. “My son is always worrying over you. Your delicate heart. One would think you were quite the exotic flower. He thinks that success comes by acting as an obedient enough slave.” Atreus shook his head. “He’s always been too terrified of failure to understand that success requires risks …”
Atreus’s voice trailed off.
Helena’s eyes darted towards the window, hoping desperately to catch sight of Amaris.
“Are you hoping he’ll come for you?” Atreus was suddenly terrifyingly close. He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the window, pinning her chest against it. “My son. Do you think he’ll save you?”
Helena’s throat closed as Crowther’s thin, spider-like fingers dug into her arm, the iron window lattice biting against her skin. The sky was empty.
She was on her own.
She’d never fought a pyromancer. If she tried to fight back using her resonance, she’d give Kaine away. Atreus would immediately know who’d removed the suppression on her manacles. She’d have to go for the kill. No hesitating this time. The obsidian knife was hidden under the mattress of her bed, but the bed was on fire. The room was on fire.
Atreus pressed his face close to hers, looking up at the empty sky with her. The powdery lavender scent on his skin almost overpowered the stench of blood on his clothes.
“You’re fond of him, aren’t you? You can admit it to me. After all, he takes you for walks and keeps you so comfortable in this room, with protective servants at your beck and call. I do believe he enjoys keeping an eager creature like you around. The Holdfasts must have trained you well.”
Helena only managed to draw one ragged breath.
Crowther’s lips brushed against her ear. “My son will enjoy you far less if I’m required to burn the information out of you.”
One chance. She had one chance to catch him off guard and rip out the talisman.
“I don’t remember,” she said again, trying to gauge how fast she’d need to move, which direction to twist free.
“Maybe you just haven’t wanted to enough,” Atreus said, and before she could move, his fingers snapped.
Pain exploded across her back as her dress caught fire. Pain like a brand across her shoulders. Her knees gave out as she screamed.
There was a hiss and the fire across her shoulders vanished, but the pain didn’t stop, the heat didn’t disappear. Her mouth worked soundlessly, her vision turned white.
All she could smell was smoke and burned hair.
“That was your only warning. Don’t lie to me,” Atreus said, dragging her back onto her feet and pinning her against the window, his weight bearing down on the burns, forcing a rasping scream from her. “I don’t ordinarily move so quickly during interrogations, but I don’t have time to build your dread.” His mouth moved against her ear. “Tell me who it is, or I will hurt you exquisitely.”
“I don’t know—” she said. The words came out a half sob. “I promise I don’t.”
Atreus sighed. “Kaine will be so disappointed when he finds you.”
His fingers snapped again. Fire ran down her back like the lash of a whip.
She seized so violently that her head slammed against the window, nearly knocking her out.
Her ears were ringing from the blow, and everything seemed to slow, her panic giving way to a slow lucidity.
Kaine wasn’t going to come in time.
They’d used up all their luck surviving this long. Half a day short, and it had run out.
Atreus dragged her upright again. “I’m no fool. Everyone knew there was a spy among the Undying in the year leading up to the Eternal Flame’s defeat. The Resistance knew too much. The High Necromancer suspected that one of his most trusted had betrayed him, but they were never identified. They are the piece that remains unaccounted for. The evidence is undeniable. The massacres and acts of sabotage that were so uncharacteristic of the Eternal Flame. That person was responsible for the bombings, including the one that destroyed the West Port Lab. They disappeared after the final battle only to reemerge shortly after you did. You know exactly who it is.”
Helena tried to twist free, fingers clawing, trying to reach his face. Contact was all she needed, but Atreus crushed his weight against her burning shoulders, forcing a strangled scream from her. There were black spots in her vision.
“Tell me who it is.” He shook her.
“Kaine will be killed—if you hurt me,” she choked out. Her body was going numb, sinking her into a dissociative shock, as though she were a prey animal already hanging by her throat.
“The High Necromancer will forgive my means if I find the killer,” Atreus said. She could see his face reflected in the glass. His eyes had a burning look of utter desperation. It was strange how reminiscent of Kaine his expressions could be even in Crowther’s face.
“Kaine will survive. He can have more children,” he said.
Helena’s head grew light. She could hardly breathe in the smoke. The room was engulfed in flames behind them.
Knowing she’d never see Kaine again, she couldn’t help but look for any traces of him in Atreus. There was a similar evasiveness of their eyes in the way they spoke. The same look of furious desperation that Kaine wore all too often when he was cornered, when he thought he had nothing left to lose.
Despite their contempt for each other, Kaine had inherited his fatal flaws from his father.
Enid had been everything to Atreus, and now she was gone, and he was left grasping after shadows.
What would Kaine be like with someone who glimmered with constant reminders of what he’d lost? Perhaps something like Atreus, who could neither stand his son nor stay away.
She finally understood.
“He’s going to kill Kaine … if you don’t find the killer, isn’t he? That punishment—it wasn’t just because of Hevgoss, it was a warning for you, wasn’t it?”
Atreus’s expression turned black. He shook her so violently she nearly fainted. “Who is the last member of the Eternal Flame?”
“He looks like your wife, doesn’t he? It’s the eyes and mouth; they’re so much like hers. He’s all you have left of her now. But every time he sees you, he hates you with your wife’s eyes.”
Atreus raised his hand, ignition rings glittering.
“I’m the one who blew up the West Port Lab,” she said quickly, before the rings could spark. “I used to help Luc study pyromancy theory. I wasn’t supposed to, but he did better with companionship, so I studied it, too, even though I didn’t have the resonance. I used those principles and theory to design the bombs, and then I used necrothralls to plant them. Because I am the last member of the Eternal Flame.”
She drew a deep breath. “But you’re right—there was a spy. I was his handler.”
There was a flash of triumph in Atreus’s eyes. He saw victory in his grasp.
“But you won’t save Kaine by finding him. The killer you’re searching for is your son.”
Atreus stared at her dumbfounded before his expression contorted into fury. He forgot his pyromancy. His fingers wrapped around her throat. “My son would never ally himself with the Eternal Flame.”
“Yes, he would. He hates Morrough,” she rasped out. “He always hated him. Did you never wonder what happened to your family after you were arrested?”
Atreus sneered at her. “Nothing. When Kaine killed the Principate, my failure was forgiven.”
Helena shook her head. “Then why is there an inert iron cage in this house, and a transmutational array carved into the floor? Why are all your servants dead? Do you really think someone like Morrough was understanding during all those months before Kaine went back to the Institute?”