“You are a”—she paused as though debating what to call Helena—“an asset. The Ferrons are supposed to be feeding you properly. That is not nearly enough nutrition, it’s no wonder you’ve been so sickly.” Stroud’s expression grew irate. She turned and went to the door. One of the necrothrall maids was waiting outside.
“I want the High Reeve. Here. In person. Now.”
Ferron entered a few minutes later wearing a scowl, barely glancing at Helena, who was still shivering in her underclothes. “You summoned me?”
“Is there a reason you’re starving her?” Stroud said, her hard fingers digging into Helena’s arm, lifting it and turning her. “Look at her. You complain about her fevers while feeding her little more than kitchen scraps.”
Ferron finally looked at Helena properly. “Pardon?”
“She isn’t a necrothrall,” Stroud said sharply. “She needs real food. You can’t expect her to handle transference if you’re starving her.”
Ferron said nothing, but Helena could have sworn he’d somehow paled. “I assumed she’d been eating as Aurelia and I do.” His fingers flexed. “Aurelia has always managed the menu. I will make enquiries.”
“I want her eating full meals. As much as she wants, with proper cuts of meat and vegetables. And porridge or broths in between until she’s healthy.”
Ferron gave a tight nod. “She’ll be fed properly. I will ensure it.”
“Thank you, High Reeve. See that she does.” Stroud turned back to Helena.
Ferron didn’t move, still looking at Helena until Stroud glanced over her shoulder at him. “Perhaps go see if there’ll be a proper meal tonight.”
He blinked, gave a short nod, and left.
“Lie down,” Stroud said as soon as the door closed. “I want to examine things more closely.”
Helena was so cold, she was grateful to climb onto her bed. Even Stroud’s cold fingers felt warm as she appraised Helena’s limbs and then worked up to her abdomen, pressing down with the heel of her hand, feeling at Helena’s organs.
Helena hadn’t really considered malnutrition as something happening to her. Food had often been in short supply during the war, and those who fought were prioritised; they needed consistent and high-quality food. Noncombatants made do with what was left.
After the Resistance lost the ports, there’d been shortages of almost everything.
Stroud’s resonance made Helena’s stomach lurch. She gagged and tried to sit up.
“None of that. Lie still.”
Before she could protest, Stroud’s fingers were digging in against the base of her skull, and Helena’s eyes rolled back, unconsciousness swallowing her.
WHEN HELENA WOKE, STROUD WAS gone. She felt terrible with a heavy sense of disorientation throughout her body, her vision blurring, and there was a sharply painful bruise near her left hip as if she’d been stabbed with a needle. Helena rubbed at it, trying to think what kind of injections might be necessary to treat malnutrition, but her mind was too foggy for much coherence.
That night, there was a knock, and the maid brought in a tray with a full meal. Meat in a red wine sauce, two different vegetable dishes, one with cheese, and thick slices of soft fluffy bread with butter spread in a generous layer across each one, and even a stewed pear for dessert.
Helena gorged herself, despite knowing she might end up sick from it. She was starving.
She was still eating when Ferron walked in, standing over her to inspect her meal.
“It would seem that I’m obliged to personally see to everything,” he said with a scowl as he stepped back. “You could have mentioned it.”
“If I were to start complaining, the food would not be the first thing I’d bring up,” she said, dragging her spoon down the side of the pear and eating it in tiny savouring bites, refusing to be hurried by him.
He inclined his head, expression still irritated, and went over to the nearer window. Helena deliberately took slower bites, chewing luxuriantly.
When she was finally finished eating, she thought she might pop. She wanted to curl up and sleep, but Ferron nodded pointedly at her head. She sighed and seated herself on the edge of her bed, hating how routine it had all become. Even her dreams felt routine.
She kept dreaming of Ilva and Crowther. And Lila crying. Over and over, the memories seemed to haunt her.
Ferron also seemed to find them interesting. He watched them several times before he moved on to the time she’d spent spying on Lancaster, wondering if he might be there to save her.
He drew his hand away.
As her vision returned, she found herself lying flat on her back in the bed, his face just above hers.
“Lancaster will be one of the Undying soon,” he said. “In belated recognition for his exceptional services during the war.”
There was something sneering in the way he said it, but if he meant to plunge Helena into despair, he failed. If Lancaster wasn’t one of the Undying yet, that made it even more likely that he might be a spy for the Resistance. He’d have to seem trustworthy to get this close to Helena without raising suspicion.
“Are you one?” she asked. She’d assumed for so long, but she’d begun to wonder if he might be something else entirely.
He gave a slow smirk. “What do you think?”
She shook her head, uncertain.
The smirk faded, but he kept looking at her, and his eyes grew darker than she’d ever seen them.
She realised then that she was lying on a bed beneath him. Heat flooded under her skin, and her spine prickled as she sat up quickly, folding her arms.
He stepped back, straightening. “If you have any hopes involving Lancaster, you should let them die.”
LILA WAS SEATED ON THE edge of Helena’s bed, eyebrows knit together, studying her. No scar on her face.
“Are you—” Lila looked away and seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “Are you not all right, anymore? Is that why you spoke and why there’s all the trainees now?”
Helena looked sharply at Lila, but Lila was unfastening a buckle and didn’t meet her stare.
“No. I’m fine. The trainees are because Matias hopes to get rid of me.”
“Oh, good. I mean, not good, but that makes sense,” Lila said, and cleared her throat. “I can see why you’re not thrilled about them, then.”
Helena forced a laugh.
“You know, you can talk about—anything with me, if you want.” Lila looked over at her.
“No.” Helena shook her head. “I don’t need to talk. There’s—no point in talking, and as I have now been reminded publicly, I’m not a fighter. I don’t know anything about what war really is. So—what would I even have to say?”
Lila’s prosthetic leg clicked as she shifted and then said, “I think the hospital’s worse than the battlefield.”
Helena went very still.
“I realised it when I was in there for my leg.” Lila’s gaze was faraway, eyebrows furrowing. “At the front—everything’s so focused, you know. The rules are simple. We win some. We lose some. You get hit sometimes. You hit back. You get days to recover if it’s bad. But—” She looked down, her fingers tapping absently along the place where her prosthetic was joined to her thigh. “—in the hospital, every battle looks like losing. I can’t imagine what that’s like.” She looked at Helena. “All you see in there is the worst of it.”
Helena said nothing.
Lila sighed and unclasped more pieces of her armour, leaving them all over Helena’s bed. “When Soren told me what you said—I don’t agree, but I get it.”