“Kaine,” she said as he finished. “I need to talk to your father.”
“He won’t help; he’s just trying to make you hope in order to hurt you. And even if he wasn’t, I am enough like him already, I don’t want a piece of his soul inside me.”
She turned his face to hers. “You are all he has left of your mother. When he looks at you now, he sees her. He knew the risk he was taking, coming after me. He did it because he thought it would save you.”
She inhaled. “I know you don’t want to believe it’s possible, because hoping terrifies you. But I would rather die trying to save you than live knowing there was a chance and I didn’t take it.”
She could feel him wavering.
“You promised we’d run away together,” she said. “Remember?”
He dipped his head. “Why is it that I have to keep all my promises, but you never seem to keep a single one of yours?”
She shook her head, tilting up her face so their foreheads touched.
“The first promise I made to you was that I’d be yours for as long as I live. I’m keeping that one.”
HELENA’S ROOM WAS IN RUINS, her clothing nothing but ash. Fortunately, Kaine had travel clothes ready for her. Sturdy, neutral-coloured riding clothes. She dressed carefully, trying not to worsen the burns on her back.
The hallway was soaked with water, reduced to charred ruin, but the iron remained like the bones of a beast.
Atreus still lay on the ground where Kaine had left him, his eyes closed. They opened at the sound of approaching footsteps, his head lifting. He looked between Kaine and Helena and laughed.
Helena gripped Kaine’s arm before he could react.
“I want to talk to him alone,” she said.
“No.”
“He can’t do anything to me. Just wait here.”
She felt Kaine’s eyes on her as she walked towards Atreus. Atreus watched her approach with equally piercing interest.
“I didn’t make my offer to you,” Atreus said when she got close.
She knelt beside him. “You know he won’t ask.”
He looked away from her. “Then consider it withdrawn.”
Her chest clenched in dread. She was tempted to beg, but she knew that Atreus wouldn’t care about her humanity or humiliation.
“I’m going to escape regardless of what you do. Refusing will only kill him.”
Atreus looked past her, towards Kaine, who stood watching them.
Longing like hunger shone in Atreus’s eyes as he stared at his son. She wanted to speak, but waited. Finally Atreus broke the silence.
“I only realised how much he resembled her when I returned. I’d never noticed it when he was a boy.” His eyes were straining, struggling to make out Kaine from the distance. “I never understood why she wanted a child so much. I would have adopted an heir from another family in the iron guild if need be. I should have been enough for her.”
Helena watched him pityingly. He was pathetically jealous.
“He’s all that’s left of her now.”
He finally looked at her. “Can you really save him?”
“Yes, if you truly want him to live.”
He didn’t answer immediately. Her heart dropped like a stone. If he wasn’t completely willing, the bond would fade away, and Kaine would slip away just like Luc had.
“Enid was my life,” he finally said. “If she were here, she’d tell me to save him. I never could say no to her about anything.”
Helena reached out and bent the iron away. He rose slowly. He did not look at her or Kaine, but turned and walked into the house.
WHEN THEY ENTERED THE DRAWING room, Atreus could not tear his eyes away from the cage. Had he not seen it? Or simply never stopped to wonder at its purpose?
“How long was she—?” His fingers trembled as he touched the bars. He sank to his knees, as if intending to crawl inside to occupy the same space.
“Four months,” Kaine said, his voice dull. His eyes were darting around, the way they always did inside that room.
Helena wanted to comfort him, but they were running out of time. There was so much to do.
She began working across the array on the floor. The array she’d etched had been melted and destroyed by the fire, but she had every detail memorised. She only needed the central part of the original array, but the defacement had to be repaired and altered. She needed it to hold Kaine’s soul in place until she could secure it.
The new array was laid in iron. It was perfect for their purposes and readily available.
She and Kaine knelt on opposite sides. He closed his eyes and when they opened, they were glowing. Unsteady as his hands were, his resonance was stronger than hers. The air shivered as the house groaned, and iron began to flow towards them like water. When it reached the array, Helena used her own resonance to direct it, sending it morphing down certain pathways carved into the floor, moving towards the containment circle in the middle.
Industrial guild arrays could be as big as buildings, but Helena had never worked with an array larger than she could hold. The array on the floor was too large to see at once, and she had to crawl across it, verifying that every line and symbol was correct. It had to be perfect.
Her heart was in her throat, its jerky unsteady rhythm taunting her.
One chance.
“It’s ready,” she said at last, standing up in the centre of the array. “We can begin.”
Kaine nodded but then went towards the door. The remaining servants were gathered in the hallway beyond, Davies standing in the front.
“Is Amaris ready?” he said.
One of them nodded.
Kaine stood there, not moving. “I never—I never told you—I’m sorry I couldn’t save any of you.”
Davies took a hesitant step forward, mouthing his name as she often did. She smoothed his hair back the way a mother might and then placed both hands on his chest and pushed him back. Away from them.
Helena went over to where Kaine had left Morrough’s arm. The stench of it was like a kick in the stomach each time, and she worked quickly, disassembling it. The thing was repulsive. Holding it, she could feel all the power it contained, the lives of so many running through each bone. In the section of the ulna nearest to the hand, there was a horrible sense of familiarity. The piece used to bind Kaine. She removed what she needed and discarded the rest.
Kaine was standing in the centre of the room, stripped to the waist, covered in violent scars, the array on his back the starkest of all. Atreus was staring; it was obvious he’d never seen it before.
Kaine’s focus was entirely on her.
There was no platform over this array. She would be in it beside him.
“Lie on your back,” she said.
She knelt, guiding his hands to places she needed them on the array and then met his eyes. Her heart was struggling, threatening to grow uneven.
“This will work,” she said. “I promise. I’m going to save you.”
She pressed her hands on the cold iron and let her resonance flow into it.
She had never poured her animancy into an array except for small experiments on the etching plates. It took so much more power than she’d expected. As the array activated, a glow crept slowly along the iron until the entire array was humming. Kaine seemed to grow so translucent that she could see through him, his bones and organs and the talisman tangled beside his heart.
She pulled out the phylactery. The bone was so old it threatened to dissolve into dust, and she had to focus to feel the energy in it. It was like a package bound with thread, so tangled up it was hard to tell the strands apart. But she had to work carefully or risk causing damage. She unwound and unwound with her resonance, and the threads seemed to go on forever, until there was a sudden thump, and she looked up as one of the servants in the hallway collapsed to the ground.
She looked away.