Page 134 of Alchemised
The Outpost was a combination of a labyrinth and a city. The huge metal and concrete walls made it claustrophobic. The factories were heavily sabotaged in ways only possible with alchemy. Bizarre transmutations and alchemisation used to destroy complex machinery. The tenements were more intact, and heavily occupied. The building she’d been directed to find had the alchemical symbol for iron set into its decorative mosaic doorway.
Helena entered, trying not to seem lost.
There’d been a skylight far overhead, but now its glass covered the floor. Only a few of the units had doors. Second floor, to the left, the fourth door. The number beside it was scratched off.
Helena removed her gloves and knocked firmly, trying not to be too loud.
Nothing happened. She waited and checked the map. Perhaps she was too early.
Well, she’d wait. She stood, externally calm while her heart beat her blood into a storm.
The door abruptly swung open, an electric lantern’s light spilling out into the landing. Kaine Ferron stood framed in the doorway.
He looked identical to his portrait in the paper, as if he had not aged a day. Five years and time had not touched him.
He didn’t even look seventeen. There was a coltishness to his build, the kind that boys had just after a growth spurt before filling out. Even his dark hair was combed in the same way he’d worn it at the Institute, as if he’d stepped straight through the years.
He was in a stone-grey uniform that almost matched the hazel-grey of his eyes. It was the uniform of upper-middle-ranked members of the Undying. The higher the rank, the darker the uniform. The generals wore all black.
He stared languidly down at her with his eerily youthful face.
The circumstances were already odious, but somehow what she felt least prepared for was that he’d look so young.
She stood gaping at him until he finally moved, holding the door slightly wider in invitation, creating just enough space for her to squeeze by if she brushed against him.
Her heart caught in her throat when she stepped inside.
As she crossed the threshold, she was torn between wanting to scan the unit and being afraid to take her eyes off Ferron for an instant.
In the split second it took her to pivot, her eyes raced across the room, taking in as much detail as possible. It was simple and empty. One room with dirty walls and a cracked tile floor, furnished with only a wooden table and two chairs. No bed, no sofa. She didn’t know if she should be relieved or terrified.
Her body threatened to tremble uncontrollably. She barely heard the door closing over the blood roaring in her ears.
She faced him, trying to mirror his languid indifference, to keep from betraying how scared she was. His fingers barely brushed the surface of the door, but she heard a mechanism shift inside it before the click of the lock, trapping her.
As he turned to face her, she spoke.
“Ferron, I understand you want to help the Resistance.” Her voice came from somewhere far away. Her mind was churning. Racing ahead.
How many people had he killed? He was clearly one of the Undying and had been for years now. How many necrothralls did he control? Why did he ask for her? Why would he want her? If he hurt her, would she be able to heal it all before curfew or would she be trapped there on the Outpost overnight?
The questions were clamouring in her head as dread crawled through her like a parasite. She felt it insinuating in her bones, finding every crack in her resolve to burrow into.
“You understand the terms?” he asked, tilting his head appraisingly. His face might be deceptively young, but his eyes weren’t.
She met them. “A full pardon. And me. In exchange for your information.”
“Now and after the war.” His eyes glittered as he said it.
Helena didn’t let herself react. After years in the hospital, she’d learned to ignore her feelings and do her job.
“Yes,” she said, without emotion. “I’m yours.”
Ferron might own her in body, but her mind and feelings were her own. If he wanted them, he’d have to work harder than that.
Get closer, Ferron. Become so obsessed with finding my vulnerabilities that you don’t notice the ones I’m making in you.
He smirked, and as he did, his true age suddenly showed starkly, not a physical vanishing but a look of spite so unmistakably hardened with time that it temporarily erased the façade of youth.
