Warmth suffused Ivy’s cheeks. “Oh?”
By way of explanation, Helios pulled the chain from beneath his shirt and placed the locket in his palm. It was a humble piece, its square, golden surface burnished to a reflective shine. He popped open the clasp to reveal two portraits, one of an older woman and the other of a young man who bore a striking resemblance to Helios. “My mother and my younger brother,” he said. “She passed away some years ago, but Hermes is still alive. As far as I know, anyway.” His fist closed around the locket, blocking the portraits from Ivy’s view.
“Where is he now?” Ivy asked.
“He works in the kitchens at Wyvern’s Keep,” Helios replied, snapping the locket shut and tucking it back into his shirt. “He was never much of a fighter, so he didn’t follow me into the Firedrakes, but he’s a genius in the kitchen. He made the almond cakes I brought you.” He sighed. “I hope Hermes is unimportant enough to escape Tanith’s notice. My leaving put him in danger, but he was always telling me I ought to do what’s right, no matter the cost.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Ivy said, even though she was sure of no such thing. She wasn’t cruel enough to say anything else.
Helios scoffed softly. “I hope you’re right.” He blinked up at the sky, squinting against the light. “I want to make him proud. And I want to keep him safe. I’m not sure I can do both.” He looked back at her, his expression rearranging itself into one of curiosity rather than concern. “And don’t think I didn’t notice the redirect. You’re avoiding my question.” For good measure, he repeated it: “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m not avoiding the question,” Ivy said. “I honestly don’t know where to begin.”
Helios sat on the ground, legs crossed in front of him, supporting his weight on his elbows. He turned his face toward the sun, soaking up the rays like a contented cat. He rarely went outside. The Avicen distrusted him, and while the Ala had made it clear Helios was a defector and therefore on their side, he kept to his room, unhappy that he made them so uncomfortable. In the herb garden, with Ivy, he was safe, mostly because only the healers and kitchen staff were allowed there, and they were far too busy fixing and feeding a castle’s worth of refugees to grumble about one lone Drakharin. Ivy had overheard one of the senior healers say she didn’t care if Helios had scales so long as he made himself useful, which he was very good at doing.
“You might feel better if you talk about whatever it is,” Helios said, cracking open a single lemon-yellow eye to squint at Ivy. “Feelings are like wine: they need time to breathe.”
“That was unusually poetic,” Ivy said. She abandoned the bloodweed. They were running dangerously low on bloodweed, and so far, she and Helios had managed to cultivate only a tiny bit more. It was an astonishingly difficult herb to grow, as Ivy had discovered, which was not the least of her grievances.
She moved to sit next to Helios, close enough to touch him, even though she didn’t. “Where do I start? There’s the issue of the bloodweed. If that monster attacks again, we don’t have nearly enough to treat any victims. We barely had enough to help the people here. Not to mention the fact that there is a hospital full of people in Manhattan—human people—who are suffering from the same ailment, and I don’t know how or even if we can help them. Just because the bloodweed works on us doesn’t mean it’s compatible with human biology.”
Now that Ivy had started, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.
“And then there’s the issue of my best friend running off on another dangerous and deadly mission to save a guy being held captive by one of the vilest individuals I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. And that’s the best-case scenario. Caius could be dead for all we know, and Echo could be putting herself right into the trap that vicious bitch has left for her.”
“Such language,” Helios said without a hint of judgment. “Go on.”
Oh, would she ever go on. Gladly. The words bubbled up as if they’d been boiling inside her.
“Echo is out there risking her life and I’m sitting here planting godsdamn weeds that insist on dying if the wind doesn’t blow right. I’ve lost my home, I’ve lost people I’ve known since I was a child, and I don’t want to lose her, too. I can’t. I wouldn’t survive that. But I’m here, and she’s…I don’t know where she is, but it’s not here, and there’s nothing I can do to help her.” The words came out in a messy tumble, backed by such force that it felt as though they stole all the air from Ivy’s lungs.
“And that’s where you’re wrong,” said Helios. “You might not be fighting by her side, but you are helping her. Right here, right now.” He motioned toward the fragile crimson stems that had reluctantly taken root in the soil under Ivy’s care. The bloodweed was in a shady corner of the garden; Echo had found it in an underground cave, but the plant seemed to require at least a small amount of light to flourish. The mountain in which the cave had been located, Echo had told Ivy, had bled magic from its very stones, and she was willing to bet that, in the absence of sunlight, magic had helped the weed grow. Short a magic mountain, a shady patch of soil was the best Ivy could do.
“This bloodweed didn’t grow itself,” Helios said. “And there are a lot of people inside the castle right now who are alive because of you.”
Ivy blushed under his praise. “All I did was follow instructions on how to make the elixir. That text we stole from the keep contained everything we needed to figure it out.”
Helios laughed then, a bright, cheerful sound. “You say that as if it were easily laid out for us, not wrapped up in cryptic language and ancient nonsense. Creating that elixir was nothing short of genius, and you shouldn’t sell yourself short.” He reached out to touch the herbs in the basket beside him, sliding a gentle finger along the delicate petals, tracing the veins of the leaves. To both Helios’s and Ivy’s surprise, they had discovered he had a natural gift for cultivating plants. The herbs Ivy used required a delicate touch, and she had not expected to find that in the hands of a Firedrake.