You’re a murderer all the same, and the blood of alchemists covers your hands.

I didn’t deny it. My tongue scraped the back of my teeth, an echo of the taste of blood coating my mouth. 

Ian didn’t blink either. In the pale greenish gloom of the single dim lamp on the nightstand, he looked mechanical. Flawless. A monster that pretended to be a man, just like the rest of his kind. Except… for the startling, unexpected fragility in the way his hand trembled ever so slightly against my collarbone. He was gripping my shirt, the chain of his leash pulling at my neck, and his periwinkle eyes burned with a threatening anger. But there was a sliver, a hint, of something vulnerable.

It gave me the strength and courage to bark a sharp, bitter laugh. “Get fucked,” I bit off the words, gratified to see him flinch slightly. “You don’t know anything about me, and you have no right to judge me for what I’ve done. You think the alchemists are the only ones with the right to protect themselves- their people? To be angry at the unfairness of having your loved ones snatched away from you?” My play at indignance was becoming real, fury building in my words.

It was bold, reckless- it could spell disaster. But I reached up, my fingers wrapping tightly over Ian’s where they clutched my shirt. “You think I enjoy this like you sick fucks?” For a moment I imagined my hands closing over his throat instead, watching a flush rise over those sharp cheekbones as he finally showed real, human emotion in his last, gasping moments of fear.

The image was sour, curdling in my stomach as acid crawled up my throat. I couldn’t do it, not with the leash that connected to my throat. And not while I stood directly in front of him, miraculously unharmed. I couldn’t summon the rage, the burning hatred that usually fueled me- not when so far he had seemed to protect me from a far worse fate than this quiet standoff.

His expression never changed as I suffered a torrent of emotions. Ian hadn’t reacted to my cursing and snarling; he just watched me with an almost scientific interest. I felt his hand tense under my fingers, giving me a slight shake- like one would a scruffed puppy who had tried to bite them. “I made no such accusations,” he answered, appallingly calm.

It felt like an insult for him to maintain his composure while I considered clawing out those impassive pale blue eyes. My fingers curled, nails digging into his skin, but he still didn’t move. The leash thrummed between us, and I hissed a breath between my clenched teeth as a spark of agony shot into my through the glowing links.

I released my grip with a spat curse, the admonishment of the magical contract enough to cool my temper. I was probably lucky it had only been a shock; it would be just as simple for him to kill me, especially given what he knew about me.

“What do you want?” My tone was baleful. “You know I’ve killed your kind, so why bring me here- why clean me up and dress me?” Do you mean to torture me, to make me suffer for what I did? I knew he could read the silent question from my hard glare.

Ian remained still for a moment before finally releasing his breath on a low rush- and he let go of his hold on me. 

It was such a shock that my body locked up, my thighs trembling as my knees nearly gave out. I took an immediate step back; it ran me up against the wall, giving me nowhere else to run, but at least it helped to steady my posture.

Ian still watched me with the same calm expression. “True, I brought you here because you’ve killed my kind.” He turned away from me, and my entire being hummed with possibility- but I didn’t dare to act on it after how the leash had punished me for lightly indenting Ian’s skin. “But it wasn’t so that I could take revenge on behalf of the arcanists who have fallen at your hand.”

It seemed too good to be true. I stayed frozen, hands pressed against the wall, even as Ian perched on the edge of his bed. He sat facing me, his elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled together. His head tipped back, and it brought my attention to the ring of bruises around his neck; fresh and angry, they had already darkened to a deep, inky blue-black shadow of his grandfather’s fingers.

“Then why didn’t you just kill me?” I asked, my voice thin and deadpan. “I’m sure your grandfather would have been overjoyed to find my corpse on his doorstep. You could have hand delivered the man who’s been killing your people to the Hedquist patriarch. Maybe he would have finally been proud of you.” 

His gaze slowly rose, catching mine, and again I saw something flicker under his cold exterior; something raw, almost real pain- or at least the memory of it. The kind of thing one wouldn’t expect from a man who could leash somebody with dark magic or stride into an illegal auction of shackled human beings with all the grace and pomp of a young prince. 

“If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you already. I wouldn’t have risked this,” his eyes flicked to the leash that extended between us, giving off a soft glow. The raw thing ran under his voice, his fingers pressing into each other hard enough to turn the tips white. He gritted his teeth again, eyes focused on my face as he said with a measured slowness, “I am in need of your… particular skills. And our goals are not as different as you might think.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, frantic and half-mad with shock. “What goal could I possibly share with an alchemist- much less one with the Hedquist name?” My fingers curled against the wall, catching the rough paint under my nails.

Ian smiled, thin and wry. “What use is a name when I despise where it came from?” The quiet venom in his voice made me still, eyes widening as I stared at him. “I have little in common with my predecessors- outside of a desire for survival.”

My mind raced in frantic circles trying to keep up with his words. “If survival is all you want,” I snapped, choosing the easiest option for deciphering his cryptic statements, “Then it would be better to toss my to the old man and wash your hands of the mess.”

“Giving you to my grandfather is the last thing I want!” His voice raised, booming in the small room and making me flinch.

My thighs quivered as my knees threatened to give out, a small, primal voice in the back of my mind screaming at me to kneel in response to the flicker of rage in his pale eyes. Curling my hands into fists, I let the small pain of my nails biting into my palm ground me. “What do you want, then?” It was desperate, a plea to end this circular conversation before it drove me truly insane.

Ian narrowed his eyes, a look that said he might have told me already if I’d shut my mouth. I complied with the silent order, still and silent long enough for him to sigh and nod. “I know what you want, Christopher, what you’ve really been after as you hunt alchemists in the darkness. And I can give it to you.”

My heart leapt into my throat. It seemed impossible, and I didn’t want to believe he knew anything about me… but if he knew enough to pin me to the disappearances of his kind, then I had to believe he knew what drove me. “At what cost?” It was barely a whisper, hoarse and dragged past the stabbing lump in my throat.

“Something that will make us both happy.” Ian looked up, fully meeting my gaze- for the first time without any smugness or ire. “I want to see my grandfather dead, and you’re the only one who can help me bring this family to ruin.”