Page 63 of Alchemised
That must chafe, particularly when the rest of the Undying were filling their days with debauchery while Ferron still lived at the beck and call of the High Necromancer. Obedient as a dog.
What did he gain from it? Surely he was too intelligent to be so void of ambition. He had to be playing a long game. And if Helena could only deduce it, that would give her leverage, a means of manipulating him.
Or perhaps that was merely Helena’s vanity distorting her assessments—needing her captor to be cunning, because how pathetic was she, as his prisoner, if he was not?
She opened her mouth, wanting to prod, but reconsidered.
He smirked. “Analysing me again?”
Before she could reply, the sharp click of hurrying heels echoed down the hall. Helena moved to disappear, but Aurelia had already swept around the corner, her expression eager until she caught sight of Ferron.
Her eyes instantly narrowed, her lips pursing as she drew up, looking accusingly at them. The ringlets framing her face trembled.
“Are we all socialising together now?” she asked, her voice like sweetened arsenic.
“Just touring the house,” Ferron said, gesturing idly around the large hall, which was full of dusty portraits and busts of men who’d presumably been important members of the family.
Aurelia’s lips pressed together, turning white.
“I thought you had business today. You said your afternoon was quite full when I asked you to stop by the fundraiser.” She tossed her head, the perfect curls bouncing like springs. “And yet”—she was speaking through clenched teeth—“here you are, ‘touring the house.’ I thought we weren’t beholden to the Eternal Flame anymore.”
Helena stood very still.
Ferron’s eyes flicked upwards for a moment. “The High Necromancer was quite clear that this assignment takes precedence over everything else. Those are my orders.”
Aurelia gave a sharp, shattering laugh. “But you’ve already killed the rest of the Eternal Flame, so why does she matter?”
“Whatever the High Necromancer wishes to be done, I fulfil,” Ferron said with the impatience of someone who’d had this argument many times already. “If he wanted handmade paper clips, I’d do that with equal devotion.”
He wasn’t even looking at his wife anymore. His gaze passed over Aurelia’s head, staring at a mirror that reflected himself and Helena.
“Ah, and that’s supposed to explain why you spend so much time with her. And when you’re not, it’s the thralls following her.” Aurelia scoffed. “As if she’ll disappear otherwise.” She cast a hateful glare at Helena. “There’s no need to act as if she’s anything precious. I asked Stroud, and she told me: She was a nobody. No one’s coming for her, but you’re still hovering about like you’re hoarding her.”
Ferron gave a dark laugh, and a glint entered his eyes as they dropped from the mirror to Aurelia. Uncertainty flashed across her face, as if she was caught off guard by the weight of his attention.
“I thought you didn’t want to lay eyes on her, Aurelia.” The way he said his wife’s name was unnervingly intimate.
Aurelia flushed, the colour rising from her neck and staining her cheeks.
Ferron stepped towards her. “If you feel that I’m hoarding her, keeping her all to myself, perhaps I should include you more. She could have dinner with us. I could move her into our wing of the house, bring her when we visit the city. Perhaps we should have included her in that solstice photo that you bought.”
Aurelia was turning paler and paler.
“The world already knows she’s mine,” Ferron said, his words pointed, “but if you’d like, I can remind them. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m hiding anything, my dear.”
Aurelia trembled as if on the verge of imploding.
“I don’t care what you do with her, just keep her out of my sight!” She turned on her heel, storming away.
Ferron stared after her with a look of annoyance, then turned and directed his scowl at Helena.
“You irritate my wife,” he said.
“Seems I do,” she said blandly. “If you want to do something about it, you could kill me.”
He snorted, amusement lighting his face for an instant.
“Those tablets really do a number on you.”
