Chapter Eighteen
Helspira
HELSPIRA PLACED A SMALLfestival flag atop the meager belongings she had stuffed into her open bag. Running her fingertips over the embroidery, she traced the frayed threads that poked up in places, ignoring the stains that soiled the illustrated likeness of Queen Saelihn’s castle.
The flag was in sorry shape, having been found on the ground after a festival praising another year of the queen’s rule. Helspira and her parents had clung to the outskirts of the celebration after their presence earned them distasteful glares from the townsfolk, but it was still a pleasant memory. A token of the city she loved, the kingdom she loved.
Water dripped from a hole in the ceiling, landing in a copper pot with a splash. Viina, her mother, shooed a rat from the far corner of the small room, and it disappeared into a wide split in the wall.
The almshouse paled in comparison to even the grimmest room in the queen’s castle, but Helspira would miss every crack in the foundation, every hole in the crumbling partitions. To think of how often she had stared out the hole in the ceiling, delighting in the company of the stars, knowing she would never see those constellations outside that little opening again.
“Helspira.” Viina crossed the room and towered over her daughter, then knelt beside her. “Wu kat mbak.”
Helspira forced a smile. “Of course, I’m sad. We have to leave.”
“We have found many homes in many years,” Viina said, voice slow and deliberate as she tried to recall the local language. “You are mourning more than the loss of a house. A mother knows.”
Sikras and Ben appeared in her mind, and Helspira curled her fingers into fists. “I am. But I’ll be okay. Let’s just gather the rest of our things and get out of here before Banneret Rowan returns. Where’s Da?”
Before Viina could answer, a knock sounded at the door. Helspira’s stomach dropped. He couldn’t be here already, could he? Would he cast them back to Chthonia? Did he have the whole of the R.S. behind him? She froze, heart pounding, until—
“Hello? I’m looking for a family of demons, and before you ask if I have a death wish, like the twelve families I asked before you, I can assure you, I do not.”
She would recognize that voice anywhere. Helspira all but ran to the door in a mix of emotions and threw open the rotting wood to unveil the necromancer and skeleton standing on the other side.
“Helspira?” All fatigue from Sikras’s jade-colored eyes vanished at the sight of her.
She wanted to hug him. She wanted to smack him. Paralyzed by conflicting thoughts, all she managed to say was, “You abandoned the Red Sentinel?”
“What? No, I—”
“You promised you’d help them,” she whispered, voice breaking.
“And I will, Hels. I will, but”—Sikras reached for her hand but stopped shy of touching it—“I had to make sure you were all right. You were there in that tent, and then you weren’t, and—”
Merciful fate, she wanted to throw her arms around him and breathe him in. Her toes curled inside her boots as she fought the urge. “I’m fine. Please, Sikras, you have to return to the banneret. He needs you.”
“Yes. Right. The thing is, I need you to come with us.”
“What?” The word came out ragged, and she shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve been dismissed from the Red Sentinel. If I kill anyone as a civilian, as a demon, it’ll be seen as a declaration of war.”
“Or, consider this,” he said, holding up a finger, “Icould just kill anyone who gives you guff over it, maybe?”
Helspira fought and lost a battle to stave off a small, amused smile. “Killing people sort of defeats the purpose of us saving people.”
“Yeah, maybe, but the thing is”—Sikras extended his fingers to graze hers—“a sidekick is nothing without his hero. I need you.”
In the viscous tension, a nonchalant Ben waved from behind Sikras. “Helspira,” he whispered, “hi!”
