Chapter 11 #2
He didn’t mention how his hands had shaken when he carried her. Or how quiet she’d become. Or how her breathing had been the only sound convincing him she was alive.
He swallowed all of that.
He ended with the wings. With the nightgliders. With Viliam lifting her out of Rell’s arms like she weighed nothing.
“And then they were gone,” he finished roughly.
Vye had stopped eating somewhere in the middle of his story. Her face shifted from surprise, to horror, to anger, and finally, quiet, heavy sympathy.
“Rell,” she said gently. “I’m so sorry.”
He stared at his hands. “I’m fine.”
He expected questions. Sympathy. Pity. Something uncomfortable.
Instead, Vye said, “Eat more. You’re shaking again.”
He huffed an incredulous laugh. “That your solution to everything?”
“No. But it’s my solution when you look like you’re about to either faint or stab something.”
Rell scraped his hand over his jaw, trying to breathe around the ache in his throat.
“So,” Vye said softly, “it seems we both missed a lot.”
He nodded once. “Seems so.”
Before Vye could respond, a soft gasp sounded behind him.
He turned to find a girl hovering beside their table. Blond. Fine-boned. Dressed in the muted cream and blue of a scholar apprentice. Her hopeful expression made her look even younger.
“Are you—are you Rell?” she asked, voice high, nerves pulling her words tight. “I heard Elora was with you. Is she—Is she alright?”
Rell blinked, thrown by the sudden rush of innocence in a room that was anything but gentle.
The girl looked like a kitten that had wandered into a wolf den, all wide eyes and twitchy optimism.
She must’ve known Elora from The Institute.
If Symond’s stories were anything to trust—which ranked somewhere between “compulsive liar” and “creative fiction enthusiast” on the reliability scale—Elora had been nothing but a target on two legs.
Special privileges, a shield of faculty favorites, sequestered in her own private lab.
Hated for actually wanting to be there and resented for not hiding it better.
Rell had always suspected Symond’s version was mostly projection, but the picture stuck: Elora, isolated, everyone waiting for her to fall.
Seeing someone wanting her return made his lungs loosen a notch. He opened his mouth to answer—
“Rian,” Vye cut in smoothly, standing half out of her seat. “Now isn’t a good time.”
The girl’s face flushed. She stepped back, wringing her hands, eyes lowered. He didn’t know what to say to her. Didn’t know how to give comfort when he didn’t even know if Elora was still breathing.
But the door to the mess hall swung open, and whatever words he might’ve found dissolved.
A girl walked in.
Dark brown hair cascading around her shoulders, half-curled from humidity, half-covering her face. Her steps were steady. Controlled. Confident. Rell forgot how to breathe.
“Elora?” he whispered.
She moved closer, the hair shifting as she brushed a section behind her ear. A large scar cut across her cheek.
And reality snapped back like a whip.
Not Elora.
Florence.
Rell’s stomach dropped with an uncomfortable thud.
He’d made this mistake before—back in Ravenpoint, that night at the Duckling Inn, when he first caught sight of a woman with dark hair trying to remain hidden under the stairwell.
He thought she was undercover until he realized it didn’t make any sense at the time; why would Florence be there? She was rescuing the Apprentices.
But now, seeing her up close—seeing how easily a tilt of the head, the dusting of freckles, a single quiet moment could mimic Elora—it made his skin crawl.
They weren’t identical.
Elora carried softness even in pain. A flicker of gold in her blue eyes. A quietness broken by flashes of stubbornness and defiance. She was formidable but not ruthless, driven by fear and pain.
Florence… Florence was steel.
Her eyes were a pure, unyielding blue—no gold shimmer, no warmth. Her gait held command, not caution. Her cheek bore not one scar but several, faint pale lines crisscrossing from battles she’d survived long before Rell ever walked into her mercenary halls.
Her presence filled the room before she even reached them.
Rell cursed under his breath as his heart did a stupid leap. He hated the confusion swirling in his gut, the way his mind tried to connect dots that didn’t even exist. Of all the damn people to show up, it had to be Florence. Just when he was already on edge, frayed nerves and all.
Vye straightened as Florence approached, expression shifting into something professional and wary. Rell leaned further back in his chair and smirked.
Florence stopped at the table, her shadow falling across Rell’s half-eaten breakfast.
“Rellious Lockwood,” she said. “You’ve finally returned?”
“Wow. Full name. I must be in trouble.” He tapped two fingers to his forehead in a lazy salute. “Morning, Queen Bee.”
Vye made a quiet choking sound beside him, but Florence didn’t so much as blink.
Florence’s gaze swept over him once, and the temperature in the room dropped.
“You were expected here three weeks ago,” she said, ice threaded through every word. “I sent three of you to Ravenpoint. Violette and Symond returned on time.” Her eyes narrowed. “You did not.”
Rell took a slow bite of bread, chewed, swallowed, then lifted a brow.
“Why do you sound surprised? It’s not like I’m usually the dependable one.
” A sudden weight smashed in his toes, causing him to nearly yell and kick Vye back.
But he swallowed the pain, trying to make his expression sincere.
“Look, I figured Vye already told you.” He spread his hands, casual.
Too casual. “We needed an alchemist. Simple deal, she makes us the poison we needed, and I’d escort her to Kilfaire. ”
Florence’s stare didn’t shift an inch.
Rell cleared his throat. “Anyway, point is, I paid the debt. And…” He drew the word out, building suspense that he knew would annoy her. “She gave me something our own alchemists might find useful.”
He tapped two fingers against his coat where the alchemy notes sat hidden. “Might change a few things for us.”
That finally cracked Florence’s expression, just slightly. Curiosity tugged at the hard set of her mouth.
“What did she give you?”
Rell shrugged, leaning back. “No idea. You know I can’t follow that alchemy shit. Formulas and reactions that make no sense. Weird ingredients. Like, harmonic crystals. What the fuck are those?”
Florence’s eyes flared just enough to confirm he’d hooked her attention.
“We’ll discuss it in my office,” she said, gesturing for him to follow her.
He leaned toward Vye, voice low. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing you didn’t just say,” Vye muttered. “Except I had to give her a reason for the Ravenpoint outpost being destroyed.”
Rell winced. “And the reason was…?”
“That Trinton got the location,” she said flatly. “And destroyed it to keep The Hive at bay.”
Rell exhaled, leaned closer to Vye, and whispered, “Thanks.” He kicked her ankle. Payback.
Then, before she could react, he bent and pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head.
“Don’t get sentimental,” she muttered.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, grabbing one last piece of toast.
Then he strolled out of the mess hall, toast in hand, crumbs absolutely everywhere, and followed Florence down the hall.
Florence closed the office door behind him with a soft, decisive click. She walked around her desk with the slow, measured composure of someone who could break bones without wrinkling her gloves.
Rell flopped into the chair opposite her, boots stretched out, toast hanging from his teeth.
Florence stared at him like he was an inconvenient stain.
“Explain,” she said.
Rell shrugged. “About Ravenpoint? Or my lack of knowledge about alchemy? Because honestly—”
“Rell,” she snapped. “You involved an outside alchemist in a Hive contract.”
He pulled the toast from his mouth and twirled it like a baton. “You told us to avenge Analise. You didn’t specify how. You just said kill Trinton.”
“And you brought in a stranger to do it?”
Rell felt the first crack of irritation. “I needed a poison that would make him suffer.”
Florence did not flinch. Did not blink. “We have weapons that do that.”
“Not like this.” Rell leaned forward, fire catching under his ribs. “I needed Abyss’s Embrace. Trinton didn’t deserve quick. He didn’t deserve mercy. He deserved justice. Slow justice. Painful justice.”
His jaw tightened. “I thought you, of all people, would understand that.”
Her expression didn’t move, but something in the air did.
Rell’s voice lowered. “You really didn’t want him to suffer?”
Florence’s eyes cut like razors. “What I want is irrelevant. What matters is that you jeopardized The Hive.”
Rell barked a humorless laugh. “Of course. Gods forbid someone actually avenge your mother with an actual worthy plan—”
“That’s enough.” Her tone was frigid steel. “Your sentimentality is not the issue. The issue is bringing in someone unvetted. Someone who knows The Hive had business in Ravenpoint. Someone who could expose us.”
“She’s gone,” Rell said sharply. “You don’t need to worry.”
Florence arched a brow. “Gone?”
Rell nodded once. “Off the grid. Out of reach.”
Florence studied him. “So, you trusted a street alchemist to be able to create a difficult poison like, Abyss’s Embrace.”
Rell’s stomach twisted. “She wasn’t street.”
Florence’s voice turned to a scalpel. “Then she was trained. Which means either Empire alchemist… or escaped apprentice.”
Rell exhaled, defeated. “Escaped apprentice.”
Florence didn’t believe him. She didn’t say it, but Rell saw it in the stiffening of her shoulders, the subtle tilt of her head, the way her eyes narrowed faintly. Apprentices rarely escaped, not unless they were intercepted by pirates, of course.
He rolled his eyes skyward. “Fine.”
He dug into his coat pocket and pulled out Elora’s wanted poster, setting it on the desk.