Page 342 of Alchemised
“Luc, come back,” Helena asked, her voice tremulous. “I know there’s still a part of you in there. It’s Hel. Come back. I’ll help you.”
She moved the paralysis enough to let Luc breathe.
Cetus studied her with interest. He was not afraid at all. “You’re talented. If you joined me, your abilities would be valued.”
She stared coldly at him. “Let me talk to Luc.”
There was a strange hunger in his eyes. “You’re the one making that obsidian, aren’t you? I should have realised. Crowther was so tight-lipped. Tell me how you do it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Let me talk to Luc, and I’ll tell you.”
Anger flashed across Cetus’s face. “Why bother with him? He’s weak and useless, just like Orion, so satisfied with mere tricks that he suppressed his true power, denying his animancy.”
“Luc is an animancer?” she said in shock.
Cetus’s expression was jeering. “You never noticed? Never felt the way he could alter a room, entrance an audience?”
Yes, but she’d always assumed that was related to his pyromancy. The feeling of pressure that could come over her when he was upset. She shook her head.
“That’s not animancy.”
“It’s a form of it, one Orion was especially talented in. He wanted people to love him and he made sure they did, while he repressed and rejected all the rest of it. And then hunted everyone else with similar abilities out of existence.”
She shook her head again, but Luc had always had an uncanny magnetism. She had never questioned it. Had he even known?
“Let me talk to Luc,” she said again, “and I’ll tell you how to make the obsidian.”
Cetus’s expression morphed. “Hel?” The voice was wavering.
Helena’s fingers clenched into a fist, closing his throat, choking him. She shook him. “That’s not Luc. You think I can’t tell? Give me Luc.”
Cetus glared at her, and his eyes rolled back. This time Helena felt a shift through his mind as though something were being ripped out from beneath layers of membrane.
Cetus gave a ragged groan, and his eyes rolled dazedly back into focus.
Luc’s face drained of all colour.
“Run,” Luc rasped. “Hel, run. He’s going to kill you.”
“No, I’m not going anywhere,” Helena said, wanting to cry. “I’ve got you. I’m here now. I’m sorry I’m so late.”
She sensed the landscape of Luc’s mind shifting again. That he was being dragged back under, but she’d paid attention, found the shape of Cetus, how he was entwined through Luc. After years as a healer, months of interrogations, and the difficult task of learning to sense Lila’s baby—one spark of life hidden inside another—her resonance was surgical. It wrapped around Cetus, crushing him into submission.
Luc’s eyes went out of focus, and he gave a pained gasp, wavering as if he were about to faint.
“Luc?” Helena said sharply. “Luc, focus. Listen to me. I am going to figure out a way to save you. I’ll get rid of him.”
Her voice was shaking, as her focus was split between talking to Luc and trying to keep Cetus at bay without injuring Luc further. “I just need you to hold on a little longer.”
“Hel …” Luc’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “I tried to—fight. He killed Ilva.”
“I’m so sorry.” Tears welled up in her eyes and fell onto his face. “I’m going to fix this. I promise.”
Luc shook his head. “No. Kill me, it’s the only way to stop him.”
“No!” she said sharply. “Look at me. I’m going to save you. That’s why I became a healer, remember? So that someday, when you needed me, I could save you.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. He was talking, the words all coming out in a rush.
