She stood and went to the window. The days were short and terribly
dark, sunsets at midday.
She closed her hand into a fist, eyes shut, concentrating, and then
flexed her fingers, pressing them against the window's icy iron lattice,
straining until her eyes blurred.
Nothing.
She fidgeted with the manacle around her wrist until the spike be-
tween her wrist bones twinged in warning.
Despite centuries of alchemical study, there was still much unknown
about resonance.
Prior to the Faith, there had been a cult of alchemy devoted to a
masculine version of Lumithia.
The cult claimed that mankind itself was the first product of the al-
chemy, created by Sol at the beginning of time and scattered across the
earth. However, the human beings created were lowly and corruptible,
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Alchemised • 137
much like the most ignoble of metals, and Sol for all his power could
not make them better. Then came Lumen, whose alchemical processes
were much harsher. Lumen joined together the other four elements of
fire, earth, water, and air, using the entire earth as an alembic, with the
creatures of earth as the prima materia. The Great Disaster, two millen-
nia past, which nearly shattered both earth and humanity, had been the
processes of alchemisation itself.
First the fires that rained upon the earth: the calcination. The rising
tides that swallowed the great cities were the dissolution. The earth-
quakes that shattered even the mountains were the separation. The af-
termath as the survivors emerged from the destruction: the conjunction.
The plagues and sickness and starvation that followed: the fermenta-
tion. The death toll, so immense that humanity nearly blinked from
existence: the distillation. And finally in culmination, the result of Lu-
men's great experiment, mankind itself manifesting alchemical reso-
nance was the coagulation.
This process was the method of alchemisation that Cetus's early
writings ascribed to.
The Faith and the Institute both rejected the cult almost entirely,
although they did accept Lumen as Lumithia, and acknowledge her one
of the elemental deities in the Quintessence. However, the Faith held a
strict view that resonance was not a reflection of spiritual purity but
merely an expression of it. All humans were flawed, alchemist or not,
and therefore all humans must strive towards purification. A step which
Cetus conveniently left out of his alchemical process.
Additionally, it wasn't difficult to predict where large numbers of
alchemists would appear. It was correlated with regions that had large
lumithium deposits. The Northern continent's largest mine was in the
mountains, upriver from Paladia, and the number of children with mea-
surable resonance born in the city was more than double the rates of
neighbouring countries.
Paladia's lumithium mines had made for complicated politics.
Lumithium could only be safely excavated by those without resonance;
otherwise the symptoms and wasting sickness came quickly. But the
work was limited to a single generation. Miners' children were almost
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138 • SenLinYu
always born with measurable resonance. Paladia was constantly bring-
ing in new labourers to work the mines, resulting in a perpetual popula-
tion explosion. That was the reason for the city-state's incredible density.
The guilds depended on lumithium for processing, but they disliked
the competition that mining created. The Alchemy Institute had been
at maximum capacity for decades, which functioned as a limit on the
number of alchemy certificates in any given year. Without certification,
people could not professionally call themselves alchemists or use their
resonance without a credentialed supervisor.
The guilds wanted the certification and admissions of the Alchemy
Institute to remain limited, both because it increased the value of their
credentials, and because those without formal certification were cheap
to hire for alchemical factory work. However, the guilds also wanted
assurance that their heirs would be the ones entering the Institute, no
matter whose resonance or aptitude was greater.
It had created a perpetual cycle of grievances in which everyone
found the current circumstances unfair, but no one would agree to a
solution. Principate Helios had tried for decades, and it had resulted in
mass riots and labour strikes.
The Undying had seemingly solved the mining issue by using necro-
thralls, avoiding both lumithium shortages and exponential competi-
tion, which made for bitter irony: The war had so decimated the
alchemist population that now they needed a breeding program to re-
vive it.
She squinted, trying to see the tube running through her wrist more
clearly, to work out what it was. It appeared to be encased in ceramic.
Which might mean it was breakable, although more likely it meant the
metal was corrosive.
Lumithium wasn't corrosive, though. It was categorically noble, an
incorruptible metal, less perfect than gold but superior to silver, which
tarnished. Perhaps a lumithium alloy?
She couldn't think of many lumithium alloys, though, as it was pre-
dominantly used in the emanations needed to increase or stabilise the
resonance of other metals.
She suspected that the resonance suppression was some kind of
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Alchemised • 139
Eastern alchemy. The Eastern Empire was very secretive of their al-
chemy, and Shiseo had been the one who'd put the manacles on her.
While she was still scrutinising, the door opened. She glanced over,
expecting Ferron, but found a stranger staring at her, his face alight.
He slipped in, shutting the door softly, looking around, as if he ex-
pected to be immediately stopped. When nothing happened, a slow
smile spread across his face.
He came towards Helena on quick, quiet steps.
He was solidly built, with wheat-coloured hair and a square face. He
was dressed in a deep-blue frock coat and cape that had geometric em-
broidery decorating it, and a deep-burgundy cravat at his throat.
Helena's instinctive response to the sight of him was absolute terror.
It had never occurred to her that a stranger might one day walk into
the room. Her hands spasmed, sending a shock of pain up her arms.
He paused.
"You don't remember me," he said in disbelief. There was a hint of
offence in the way he said it, as if she should know him instantly.
Helena studied him wildly, trying to guess at who he could be. His
voice was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place where she'd heard it.
His expression grew eager, triumphant as he got closer. His hand
extended, fingers curved and grasping.
The door slammed open so abruptly the room seemed to jolt.
"Lose your way, Lancaster?" Ferron said as he entered, his eyes burn-
ing an irate silver.
A flood of relief rushed through Helena.
Lancaster straightened instantly, the hurried shiftiness falling away
as he pivoted to face Ferron, giving a careless shrug. Ferron passed him
without a glance.
"Just exploring this mansion of yours," he said. "Got curious when I
saw her."
He nodded towards Helena just as Ferron stepped between them.
Helena shrank towards Ferron without thinking, so close she could
smell his clothes. He smelled like juniper and the mountains.
"She's not available for entertainment," Ferron said, his voice chilly.
"You'll have to find someone else to amuse yourself with. I'm sure you'll
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140 • SenLinYu
manage."
Lancaster laughed. "But you got her in the papers and everything."
He pouted. "Surely you allow her visitors?"
"No, I don't," Ferron said after giving Helena a perfunctory glance.
"And in the future, if you're curious about something of mine, you may
ask. We should return to the party. I imagine Aurelia misses us."
He rested a gloved hand on Lancaster's shoulder and steered him
firmly towards the door. Lancaster glanced back at Helena, the intensity
returning to his eyes, as if there was something he was trying desper-
ately to communicate to her.
Helena watched him vanish through the doorway, trying to place
the name.
Lancaster.
A guild name. Nickel. Yes, the nickel guild. There'd been a Lancaster
in her year, or perhaps the year above? Erik Lancaster.
Why would he expect Helena to recognise him?
As she stood wondering over this, the faint sound of music drifted
through the closed door.
It dawned on then why there was someone in the house. The Ferrons
were hosting a solstice eve party.
She had no idea they hosted anything. The parts of the house she'd
seen were so dirty, she'd be embarrassed to admit guests. However, the
hibernal solstice was one of Paladia's most significant holidays, and
given how closely the summer solstice was tied to the Holdfasts, it was
probably the only major holiday the Undying were still allowed to cel-
ebrate.
She went to the door. Despite the danger, she was burning with cu-
riosity. She knew there'd be Undying and liches present. Anyone invited
would be an Aspirant or at least supportive of the regime.
It might be her best chance to get herself killed. She gripped the
knob, then paused; it was more likely that they'd just torture her. She
wavered. In that case, unless Ferron intervened, there'd be little she
could do to protect herself.
Her instinctive relief at his appearance unsettled her in more ways
than she wanted to think about, and she would think about it if she
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Alchemised • 141
spent the entire evening in her room.
She opened the door.
Even though her exploration of the house while drugged by that
tablet had made it possible for her to pass the hallway shadows without
panicking, she still had to take several steadying breaths before she
could make herself cross the threshold.
She went towards the main wing.
The music grew louder. She paused, checking to ensure all was clear.
She scarcely recognised the house. The sconces and chandeliers were
all lit and gleaming, everything sparkling in a way Helena hadn't known
Spirefell could.
She crept down the hall, but before she could turn the corner, she
heard the rustle of fabric and a woman's hushed giggle. She shrank back,
holding her breath as she melted into the shadows, trying not to feel
them closing around her. Aurelia darted around the corner, pulling
someone along by their wrist, drawing him into the darkness at the far
end of the corridor.
It was not Ferron.
Helena couldn't see much from her vantage point, but the build and
hair were unmistakably wrong.
Aurelia leaned against the wall with an eager laugh, and the man
closed in on her until Helena couldn't see her anymore. There was more
rustling fabric, and then the giggling gave way to breathy gasps and
hushed moans and audible groaning.
Helena stared in horrified disbelief, not sure what to do until the
thought occurred to her: Ferron would watch his wife having an affair
when he checked Helena's memories.
She scrambled away from the shadows and fled silently up the near-
est stair.
With her preferred route cut off, she resigned herself to approaching
from a higher floor. She could hear the hum of voices like a hive of bees.
It was a large party.
She'd peeked into an abandoned ballroom during her drugged ex-
ploration of the house. On the third floor there was a cramped, twisty
little stairway that led up to the balcony alcove over the ballroom where
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142 • SenLinYu
the chandelier could be pulled up for cleaning.
She crept up the stairs and then knelt, peeking over the railing, her
loose hair falling around her face. She noticed with irritation that there
was a mesh safety net over the opening, as if Ferron had somehow fore-
seen that she'd go there and might attempt suicide during his party.
She hadn't even been thinking about it, but she was annoyed at find-
ing herself preemptively thwarted.
She peered past the net. The ballroom was filled with people and
corpses. Everyone was gleaming, decked with fabric, jewels, and finery.
Even at a distance, she could tell their clothing was covered in intricate
decorations. Silver fine as moonlight, and platinum and gold that
seemed to glow amid the gemstones and yards of richly dyed fabrics.
The wealth of the guests dripped off them.
The high society of New Paladia. There were dozens of liches in at-
tendance, the death of their bodies apparent in the waxy pallor of their
skin and yellowing sclera. As Helena watched, she began to suspect that
some were living people who'd powdered and oiled their skin in imita-
tion. As if it were something to aspire to.
There were two girls, clearly sisters. The younger one had sharp fea-
tures and a canny look about her, while the older sister looked as if she'd
been cast from the same mould but softened somehow, her edges worn
down, like a statue left to weather.
The older girl wore a pale-bluish paint on her skin and seemed dis-
interested in the party around her. When people tried to talk to her,
she'd ignore them. Sometimes she'd drift away as if caught by an invis-
ible current, and the younger sister would immediately break off her
conversation and go after her, coddling her and snatching things off
passing trays and feeding her canapés as if she were a baby bird, holding
her hand to keep her close.
An odd pair.
Helena caught sight of Stroud and Mandl. Mandl had clearly used
vivimancy to improve her appearance. The corpse no longer bore any
visible signs of rot. The blackening veins still showed through the blood-
less skin, but she'd seemingly accentuated it, as if to make her appear-
ance seem intentional.
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Alchemised • 143
There were several photographers with large cameras. Flashes like
small explosions kept going off as they tried to capture the room.
Helena recognised the governor, Fabian Greenfinch, who'd been
named head of the Guild Assembly during the "reformation."
She searched for Ferron and found him standing towards the far side
of the room. It was like spotting a panther amid a flock of exotic birds.
He was in black, as always, and it made the silvery whiteness of his
hair and skin starker. Not the grey of death like the liches and their
imitators; he gleamed somehow.
There was something so distinctly strange about him.
"The new year is almost here!" said a woman with a grey-painted
face, spinning around. She let out a wild giggle as she held a crystal
goblet overhead, the contents splashing onto her dress and the floor.
Aurelia swept back into the room. Her dress was also black, and she
was ornamented all over with silver rather than her usual iron as if try-
ing to look more like her husband. Her bodice was detailed with scaled
armour. The geometry of the pattern was embroidered in silver up her
sleeves. She wore silver alchemy rings crafted to make her fingers look
longer.
Yet there was a faint sense of dishevelment about her. The stain on
her lips was smudged so that it softened her mouth, and her skirts had
odd creases. She sauntered over to Ferron with a smug expression,
reaching out to straighten his collar and draw him towards her.
Ferron stared at his wife, his expression not changing.
"Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!" The room began chanting a countdown
for the solstice and the new year it heralded.
As the numbers wound down, Ferron reached out and ran his thumb
across his wife's mouth.
At zero, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Aurelia's. A
camera flashed. The room exploded with cheers, and kissing, and clink-
ing glassware.
Ferron's lips remained pressed against Aurelia's, but as he kissed her,
he raised his eyes, and his gaze locked onto Helena's face.
She stared back, forgetting to breathe, frozen in place.
Her stomach flipped, and her heart began pounding until her blood
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144 • SenLinYu
roared in her ears. She wanted to draw back, to disappear, but she was
trapped by that cold silver.
He didn't look away until Aurelia broke off the kiss, turning from
him. His eyes immediately dropped, and a false, indulgent smile curved
across his lips as he scanned the room, clapping without enthusiasm
until one of the dead servants approached with a tray of drinks. He
snatched up a flute and knocked back the contents as if it were a mouth-
wash.
Helena sat back, pressing her hands against her chest, willing her
heart to stop pounding.
"And now," a loud voice said, interrupting the hum of conversation,
"some entertainment to inaugurate this new year."
The music broke off as the musicians looked around, uncertain if
they were supposed to keep playing.
Helena followed the voice and spotted a man with long sideburns
curving down his jaw, as ornately dressed as the rest of the guests, enter-
ing from the far side of the room and gleefully dragging a line of people
behind him. A man, woman, and three children, ranging in age, all
chained together.
They were clearly not guests; their clothes were too plain, and their
faces stricken with terror.
The speaker turned, facing the watching crowd as he gestured at his
prisoners. "These are the last surviving relatives of one of the Eternal
Flame's noble families."
Shock rippled through the room. Helena scrutinised the faces of the
people chained together but didn't recognise them.
"Distant relatives. I'll admit, but very careful to try to hide this il-
lustrious connection, weren't you?" He'd had turned on the captives,
wagging a finger.
"Please—" It was the father who spoke. "My wife's grandmother was
a Lapse, we had no — "
The father was backhanded across the face with a jewellery-covered
hand, knocking him off his feet, and he dragged the family to the
ground as he fell. He lay on the ground, the side of his face pocked with
wounds.
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Alchemised • 145
"I told you not to talk. You're ruining my fun." The speaker's voice
was almost singsong. "Now then, I know you'll all want a turn, but I say
we choose an order and do them one by one. Youngest first, I think.
Or . . . last?" He looked around expectantly, as if to see what the popular
vote would be.
"Durant." Ferron's voice was icy. "I told you no."
Durant pivoted, seemingly buying himself a moment by running a
finger along his cheeks to smooth his sideburns as he drew up and faced
Ferron. The room seemed to hold its breath.
"Oh, come on, it'll be fun, and they deserve it. By law, it's required
that all citizens disclose any relation to the Eternal Flame. They didn't.
They need to be made an example of."
"Then they'll be formally executed," Ferron said. "I don't need your
ideas of entertainment staining the marble."
"Come on, it's the perfect start to the new year, putting the last of
them in the ground. Everyone wants to watch them die. Are you going
to be a shit host and disappoint all your guests?"
Ferron rolled his eyes. "Fine."
Faster than Durant could move, Ferron stepped forward and snapped
the neck of the youngest prisoner. A boy of ten or twelve. The crack was
audible all the way up to where Helena watched in horror.
The mother screamed, lunging forward and catching her son as Fer-
ron let go of him. Then Ferron had his hands around her neck and
snapped it, too.
The whole family was dead within a minute, bodies left sprawled
across the floor, still linked by their chains.
It happened so fast, everyone in the ballroom was just standing in
shock, not seeming to process that it was already over. Helena could
scarcely believe it. It didn't seem real that something like that could
happen without warning. Five people.
Ferron hadn't even used resonance or a weapon, just his bare hands.
He straightened, adjusting his cuffs with the flick of his wrist. "Ex-
ecutions are required to be clean now, Durant. His Eminence has been
quite clear on that point. I hope you weren't expecting to break the law
here on my property and in front our illustrious governor and a dozen
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146 • SenLinYu
journalists."
Ferron patted Durant on the shoulder, his expression impassive, as if
it was nothing what he'd done. He raised two fingers, signalling, and
several servants hurried through the dazed crowd to drag the bodies
away. Durant stood looking like a child whose toy had been broken.
The silence was broken by hushed voices as the crowd woke from
their stupor. The music began falteringly, and after some slight hesita-
tion, the party resumed.
In a few minutes, it was as if the deaths had been forgotten.
Helena almost left, not wanting to witness what might happen next,
but equally afraid to miss something important. She'd been cut off from
everything for so long.
The party did not end until dawn, although the numbers dwindled
as those who had work the next day were forced to excuse themselves.
Eventually only the most affluent remained. Helena tried to notice ev-
erything she could, to identify as many faces as possible. She looked for
signs of tension or familiarity. Trying to construct a sense of the social
hierarchy that existed.
From overhead, unable to hear words, it was easy to notice the ways
people lied to one another. She just watched their bodies move, noticing
the contradictions between their expressions and their subconscious
gestures, slowly picking out who among the guests were the Undying.
There was a kind of fearfulness they tended to evoke after even short
conversations.
Ferron also watched the room, only conversing when approached.
He did not mingle, and he never sought anyone out. The entire room
seemingly oriented itself around him instead.
It grew readily apparent which people in attendance knew him to be
the High Reeve and who was unaware. There was a reverence and deli-
cacy in how certain people approached, while some of the liches who
spoke to him seemed overtly resentful. Atreus did not appear to be there
at all, assuming he was still in Crowther's body.
Ferron smiled smiles that never reached his eyes, engaging in endless
small talk as if he were a benevolent ruler. To Helena, unable to make
out his words and simply watching him from a distance, he looked
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Alchemised • 147
completely bored.
Morning light was streaming through the windows when the last
guests finally began to leave.
Helena turned to make her way back to her room and nearly jumped
out of her skin. One of the servants was standing silently beside the
steps, watching her. She was an older servant, one of Helena's most
regular minders. Not a housekeeper but something senior. Helena had
been so absorbed by the party, she hadn't even noticed when then the
necrothrall had come.
Halfway to her room, they paused at the sound of an angry voice.
"Still?" It was a man speaking.
"It's not like it's something I can just do on my own," Aurelia's sharp
voice retorted.
"The only reason you exist is to give the Ferrons an heir. If they cast
you aside, do you think anyone else would ever take you?"
"There's nothing else I can do! I've tried everything."
"Get him drunk. Drug him if you must, or find someone else to put
a child in your womb. I will not let you bring our family to ruin."
"He can't get drunk!" Aurelia snapped. "Do you think I haven't tried?
I've gone to every shop, used every drug and perfume, and nothing ever
works. If I get pregnant, he'll know it's not his."
"Useless girl. I should have kept your sisters instead of you."
There was no response to that.
Helena heard rapid footsteps and barely managed to shrink into al-
cove before a viper-faced man with thick sideburns came around the
corner. He was markedly less lavish in his clothing than the other guests.
Helena heard the clatter of Aurelia's heels on the wood floor, and a
door in the distance slammed.
She released a slow breath. She'd known the Ferrons were an ar-
ranged marriage, but she hadn't realised how dysfunctional they were.
When she reached the hallway leading to her room, she peeked
warily around the corner and found Ferron standing outside the door,
waiting for her. Her blood ran cold, the crack of the boy's neck still
ringing in her ears. She'd known what he was, but seeing it was differ-
ent.
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148 • SenLinYu
It had happened so fast, and in front of everyone.
He hadn't even hesitated.
He glanced over. "Enjoy your spying?"
She swallowed hard and made herself walk towards him. "It was—
something new."
He inclined his head, studying her beneath lidded eyes. "Are you
bored?"
Of course she was bored. There was little for her to do but frantically
search his decrepit house and worry over her inability to find anything.
"Imprisonment is not particularly diverting."
"You do realise you're allowed to ask for things. Within reason."
She most certainly did not. "I am?"
He nodded as if it were obvious. "Ask the servants if you want some-
thing. They know what you're allowed." His eyes narrowed. "Why is
Lancaster interested in you?"
Of course that was why he was there.
"I don't know." She shook her head, a curl falling across her face, sud-
denly tired. "I don't think I knew him. Guild students never spoke to
me."
Curiosity bloomed his eyes, real interest rather than the feigned at-
tention he'd employed during the party. "You're full of surprises."
"Do you say that to every girl?" The words popped out thoughtlessly.
Ferron gave a short laugh, his gaze sharpening, eyes darting across
her face.
"I think you should go to bed," he said.
She looked at him in confusion, feeling as if the encounter had sud-
denly veered off course, but she wasn't sure how.
She was tired, though. She hadn't expected to be up the whole night.
She looked at him for another moment, then went into her room with-
out looking back. When she climbed into her bed, she could still see
Ferron's shadow outside her door.
Somehow, knowing it was his, the sight of it didn't frighten her even
though it should have.
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Alchemised • 149
The next day when Helena spotted one of the maids, she stopped
her. "Can I have a knife?"
The maid shook her head.
Helena cocked her head, eyes widening innocently. "What about
scissors?"
Another no. Well, she'd expected as much.
"Books? Or the day's newspaper?"
The maid hesitated then nodded slowly.
Helena stared at her, torn between triumph and abject frustration.
Had she really been allowed reading materials the whole time? And
Ferron had assumed she'd know she was allowed to order the servants
around?
"Then I would like them," she said, her jaw tense. "Please."
The paper arrived with her next meal.
It featured a photograph of Ferron and Aurelia's kiss on the cover.
For all the world, they looked like a happy young couple, especially
since the black-and-white photo made Ferron appear more human
than he was in person. His hand was resting on his wife's waist, and her
embellished fingers were curved up around his shoulder as if she were
clinging to him.
It looked romantic and delightfully celebratory.
The article made no references to Ferron murdering a family for his
guests' entertainment, as if it wasn't even notable.
The next page had a picture of the High Reeve executing several
more "insurgents." Apparently in anticipation of the new year, public
executions had been held on all eight days of the week leading up to the
solstice.
There was also an article about the repopulation program "showing
promise."
Ferron arrived that afternoon to check Helena's memories. It hadn't
happened since before the latest transference, as if he'd been waiting for
her brain to recover enough to handle the intrusion.
He was disinterested in what he found aside from the moment that
Lancaster had entered her room. He watched the encounter over and
over, forcing Helena to repeatedly relive the abject mortification of her
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150 • SenLinYu
thoughtless relief when he'd stormed in. He took no interest in Aurelia's
affair, and when he encountered the conversation between Aurelia and
her father, he chuckled as he broke the connection with Helena's mind.
If he had eyes and necrothralls all throughout the house, there was
likely little he didn't know.
He pulled out a vial of the small white tablets. Helena cringed at the
thought of the withdrawal but opened her mouth obediently.
In a matter of minutes, every feeling within her was gone; she felt
placid as a frozen lake.
"That will be the last one," he said before he left.
Helena resolved to explore the remainder of the house. She'd yet to
venture into the east wing, and after such a large party there was a
chance that something useful to her might have been left out.
She slipped through the house, listening carefully for the sound of
Aurelia's heels on the wood floor, starting on the top storey and making
her way down. The east wing was not a mirror of the west wing but
similar enough that Helena almost felt as though she'd already explored
it.
The servant from the previous night was following her once again.
As Helena explored the main floor, the servant paused to close the
door, and Helena noticed a set of double doors across the way that were
ajar.
That was unusual. Locked or unlocked, the doors were almost always
closed.
On impulse, Helena made a lunge, darting through the doors and
slamming them behind her. There was a lock on the inside, and she
twisted it an instant before the knob rattled.
If she weren't drugged, her heart would be racing.
She knew she had minutes at best before the key would be retrieved,
so she turned away, eager to experience the freedom of exploring on her
own and hopefully finding something she wasn't intended to.
There was a switch on the wall. A dusty chandelier overhead came to
life, the bulbs humming, barely illuminating the room. The lights flick-
ered unsteadily, casting shadows that scrabbled across the floor like rats.
She was standing in a large drawing room. The windows were cov-
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Alchemised • 151
ered, not merely curtained but boarded up, and the smell of dust and
metal and something uncomfortably organic lingered in the air. There
was a pungent metallic ozone scent that she could taste on her tongue,
a thick sensation caused by heavy alchemy use. When resonance was
channelled deeply, the air itself was left with traces of the transmuta-
tion.
It had been a long time since she'd encountered a smell like that.
She couldn't help but feel that the heaviness about the house was
stronger in that room.
There was a large cage welded into the floor, gleaming when the
light flickered; the bulb filaments gave soft buzzing clicks each time.
She approached cautiously. The cage was too narrow for an animal
but slightly shorter than Helena. A prisoner would be forced to huddle
inside it.
It was iron, but roughly wrought, made with manual smithing not
alchemy, which meant the iron was probably inert, not transmutable at
all. She touched it, feeling the rough telltale traits that no alchemist
would leave behind.
A pattern on the floor beyond caught her attention.
There was an alchemical array carved into the wood. The largest
Helena had ever seen.
Transmutational arrays were often simply illustrative, to record pro-
cesses, but they were also used for transmutation when the process was
too complex for simple resonance manipulation. Alchemisation always
required the stabilisation of an array. Proprietary arrays were what al-
lowed the guilds to produce alchemical products inside industrial-sized
forges.
Helena had never seen anything as elaborate as what was carved into
the floor of Spirefell. Within the containment circle were nine smaller
arrays which met to form the nine points, rather than a celestial eight or
and elemental five.
Each inner array was marked with numerous symbols, and they all
channelled towards a series of concentric circles in the centre.
It was not an iron forge array. The symbols and lines were all wrong
for any kind of ironwork.
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152 • SenLinYu
The light in the room kept cutting out. She knelt, trying to see more
clearly.
Alchemists often used unique symbols to protect their discoveries
from anyone without proper training and devotion to the subtle arts,
but alchemical energy favoured certain patterns. A scholar with a wide
repertoire and sufficient experience could usually parse them. It was like
reading shorthand: If the fundamentals were there, an educated alche-
mist could divine the meaning through reason.
She traced her fingers along the lines, trying to envision the reso-
nance flow.
There was a click and grind at the door.
She glanced back to see Ferron's silhouette filling the doorway.
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CHAPTER 11
Helena knew she was about to be dragged out of the room,
but rather than stand, she turned back to the array, wanting to unravel
at least a fragment of it.
Her life was an incomprehensible mystery enough.
Rather than pull her from the room, Ferron came and stood watch-
ing as she tried to make sense of the symbols on the floor. After failing
at one, she tried the next, and then another. It took a minute before she
realised that they'd all been meticulously defaced to obscure any trace of
what they'd originally been.
Unsolvable puzzles seemed fated to be her primary occupation.
She looked up at Ferron in resignation.
He was glaring at her. "It's impressive how determined you are to be
difficult."
"Were you expecting something else?" she asked with a loose shrug.
He didn't answer, but there was a hardening fury visible around his
eyes.
She stared at him, calm enough to glimpse at what was beneath: a
sea of seething rage. There was something about this room that he
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154 • SenLinYu
seemed particularly averse to. If she was lucky, maybe he'd snap her
neck.
She looked over towards the cage. "Keep a lot of people in cages,
Ferron?"
His jaw clenched, throat dipping as he swallowed.
"Only you," he said, glancing around at the intricate, iron interior of
his ancestral home. "Haven't you noticed?"
Helena's lip curled and she stood. She'd hoped to needle him, but
he'd already seen through it. Better to behave so he'd leave her alone.
She walked out into the main hall, expecting to find the necrothrall
waiting, placid as always. Instead, the woman was all the way across the
room, clouded eyes wide as if in fear. The necrothrall's lips moved,
mouthing something silently as she looked at Ferron.
Kaine, Helena realised. The woman was saying Ferron's name over
and over.
Ferron gave a sharp flick of his hand, and the woman fled.
Helena watched her disappear, feeling a vague sense of guilt. "Don't
hurt her."
"She's dead," Ferron said coolly as he closed the door. She heard it
lock from within, and then the iron in the wall screeched, warping. The
door would not reopen for anyone without iron resonance. "She can't be
hurt."
He said it almost glibly, but Helena suspected he was not as indiffer-
ent as he tried to appear.
Helena rounded on him. "Why keep them?"
He shrugged. "It's hard to find good staff nowadays; best to keep
them when you do."
Her eyes narrowed. "How long have you had them?"
His mouth split into a grin. "Interested in keeping a few of your
own? I doubt necromancy would agree with you."
She lifted her chin, watching him archly. "You're avoiding the ques-
tion."
His eyes flickered, but he shook his head. "I've reanimated so many,
I don't keep track anymore. Now, are you done in this wing, or are you
still holding out hope that there are weapons lying around for you to
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Alchemised • 155
find?"
She refused to rise to his baiting; a trick like that didn't work when
she was drugged. He was usually so direct, it was interesting to catch
him being evasive.
"I assumed I was allowed in any rooms I found unlocked. Aurelia
never said I shouldn't go anywhere, just to keep out of sight."
"Well," he said, fingers spanning her lower back as he pushed her
firmly away from the now warped door. "I doubt Aurelia would feel
much disappointment if you met an unfortunate end. It might spell my
demise as well, and then she'd be a wealthy widow, free to conduct her
tawdry affairs even more publicly than she already does."
Helena eyed him appraisingly as they walked. "You don't care?"
He didn't look at her. "I was commanded to marry her, so I married
her. I was never commanded to care."
Helena stopped in her tracks. "You sound as enslaved as I am."
He paused and turned slowly to face her. "Are you trying to provoke
me? Or sway my allegiance?" He gave a dark chuckle. "How terribly
audacious of you."
"You've already thought it," she said, relishing how clearly she was
able to think when she wasn't overcome with the need to scan and
watch for every shadow, when she wasn't perpetually suffocating. "If you
hadn't, you'd be offended right now."
He seemed momentarily impressed by her drug-induced bravado,
but then glanced dismissively away. "It's a pity the way you wasted your-
self."
She wasn't sure she followed the line of thought but responded any-
way. "Luc was worth it."
"Why?"
The question caught her more off guard than the initial comment.
She shook her head. "Some people just are. You look at them, and you
know it."
"Blind adoration then," he said, turning to walk away.
"It wasn't blind. I chose him," she said.
He stepped back, and something about his expression sharpened.
"Did you? Remind me, how many other choices were there?"
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156 • SenLinYu
Her hand curled into a fist, the scars in her palm pressing against her
fingertips. "Not many, I admit, but I knew whose fault that was."
He began circling her idly. "You think the guilds invented the divide
between us and the Eternal Flame? The Holdfasts claimed all their
preferences were divinely moral and treated any concessions as a viola-
tion of their consciences; where exactly did that leave the wants and
needs of the rest of us? When anything we wanted became a sin or form
of vice simply because it inconvenienced them for us to have it? All we
did was become what they'd already convinced themselves we were. Ig-
noble and corrupt." He stopped, hands clasped behind his back. "You
think it was an accident that we hated sponsored students like you? If
we hadn't, how would they have kept you so lonely and desperately
grateful to them?"
She shook her head. It wasn't true. The guilds were the ones who'd
started it. Luc had always tried to see the best in everyone. To him, his
family's responsibilities were a weight he'd had no choice but to accept
for the sake of everyone else. He'd tried to solve the problems that
plagued the city, but none of the solutions were ever good enough for
the guilds.
Ferron was a snake, trying to present himself as though he were on
Helena's side. As if her morality were dictated based on who was nicest
to her.
She looked at him in disbelief, but after a moment the vague emo-
tion faded, her attention drawn away by new questions. Staring up at
him, she couldn't help but wonder again at what he was.
He would have been sixteen when he murdered Principate Apollo.
Something like that should have been enough to become one of the
Undying, but Ferron did not look sixteen.
Overlooking his colouring, his general appearance was that of some-
one in their twenties. Yet if his ascendance was so recent, he should look
more aged by all the years of war. He was almost pristine, as though all
the death and destruction he'd caused had never touched him. The only
sign that he'd even seen battle was his eyes: There was a hollow rage
lurking behind them that she'd only ever seen in those who'd spent a
long time at the front lines.
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Alchemised • 157
As if Ferron had any reason for that kind of anger.
Even locked out from her emotions, the hatred Helena felt for him
was an inescapable structure in her mind.
Why do any of it? He didn't seem to derive any enjoyment from
what he did. There'd been many sadistic Undying who fought in the
war; Helena had cared for their victims. Ferron seemed devoted to bru-
tal efficiency and yet seemed to derive neither pleasure nor benefit from
it.
As High Reeve, he was merely a weapon, not permitted the prestige
of his abilities. He was the only anonymous figure; no one else was kept
hidden behind a title.
That must chafe, particularly when the rest of the Undying were fill-
ing their days with debauchery, while Ferron still lived at the beck and
call of the High Necromancer. Obedient as a dog.
What did he gain from it? Surely he was too intelligent to be so void
of ambition. He must be playing a long game. And if Helena could only
deduce it, that would give her leverage, a means of manipulating him.
Or perhaps that was merely Helena's vanity distorting her
assessments—needing her captor to be cunning, because how pathetic
was she, as his prisoner, if he was not?
She opened her mouth, wanting to prod, but reconsidered.
He smirked. "Analysing me again?"
Before she could reply, the sharp click of hurrying heels echoed
down the hall. Helena moved to disappear, but Aurelia had already
swept around the corner, her expression eager until she caught sight of
Ferron.
Her eyes instantly narrowed, her lips pursing as she drew up, looking
accusingly at them. The ringlets framing her face trembled.
"Are we all socialising together now?" she asked, her voice like sweet-
ened arsenic.
"Just touring the house," Ferron said, gesturing idly around the large
hall, which was full of dusty portraits and busts of men who'd presum-
ably been important members of the family.
Aurelia's lips pressed together, turning white.
"I thought you had business today. You said your afternoon was quite
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158 • SenLinYu
full when I asked you to stop by the fundraiser." She tossed her head,
the perfect curls bouncing like springs. "And yet"—she was speaking
through clenched teeth—"here you are, 'touring the house.' I thought
we weren't beholden to the Eternal Flame anymore."
Helena stood very still.
Ferron's eyes flicked upwards for a moment. "The High Necroman-
cer was quite clear that this assignment takes precedence over every-
thing else. Those are my orders."
Aurelia gave a sharp, shattering laugh. "But you've already killed the
rest of the Eternal Flame, so why does she matter?"
"Whatever the High Necromancer wishes to be done, I fulfil," Fer-
ron said with the impatience of someone who'd had this argument many
times already. "If he wanted handmade paper clips, I'd do that with
equal devotion."
He wasn't even looking at his wife anymore. His gaze passed over
Aurelia's head, staring at a mirror that reflected himself and Helena.
"Ah, and that's supposed to explain why you spend so much time
with her. And when you're not, it's the thralls following her." Aurelia
scoffed. "As if she'll disappear otherwise." She cast a hateful glare at
Helena. "There's no need to act as if she's anything precious. I asked
Stroud, and she told me: She was a nobody. No one's coming for her, but
you're still hovering about like you're hoarding her."
Ferron gave a dark laugh, and a glint entered his eyes as they dropped
from the mirror to Aurelia. Uncertainty flashed across her face, as if she
was caught off guard by the weight of his attention.
"I thought you didn't want to lay eyes on her, Aurelia." The way he
said his wife's name was unnervingly intimate.
Aurelia flushed, the colour rising from her neck and staining her
cheeks.
Ferron stepped towards her. "If you feel that I'm hoarding her, keep-
ing her all to myself, perhaps I should include you more. She could have
dinner with us. I could move her into our wing of the house, bring her
when we visit the city. Perhaps we should have included her in that
solstice photo that you bought."
Aurelia was turning paler and paler.
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Alchemised • 159
"The world already knows she's mine," Ferron said, his words pointed,
"but if you'd like, I can remind them. I wouldn't want you to think I'm
hiding anything, my dear."
Aurelia trembled as if on the verge of imploding.
"I don't care what you do with her, just keep her out of my sight!" She
turned on her heel, storming away.
Ferron stared after her with a look of annoyance and then turned
and directed his scowl at Helena.
"You irritate my wife," he said.
"Seems I do," she said blandly. "If you want to do something about
it, you could kill me."
He snorted, amusement lighting his face for an instant.
"Those tablets really do a number on you."
"I feel like I can breathe again," she said, wishing she could feel this
calm without being frozen. "Like I'd been drowning so long, I'd forgot-
ten what oxygen feels like." Then she grimaced. "The withdrawal leaves
something to be desired, though."
"Well, I'm not the one to blame for that." He turned to walk on.
"Besides, if I didn't leave you on the floor retching, you might make the
mistake of thinking I care."
Helena inclined her head. "Yes. You seem strangely concerned about
me thinking such a thing."
Ferron froze for an instant, then turned back, a cruel smile thawing
his face. "Your friends must have thought very little of you, if this seems
like care."
Helena was so stunned by his words, she felt her heart try to beat
faster.
"Yes, they did," she said quickly. "Of course they cared."
He tilted his head. "Who?"
She swallowed. "Luc, and Lila, and—" There was a name on the tip
of her tongue, but her mind seemed to swerve around it until she fo-
cused. "And S-Soren. Lila's twin brother. He was—he was my friend,
too."
How had she forgotten Soren? She barely had time to wonder. Fer-
ron seemed to be waiting for more names.
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160 • SenLinYu
"Ilva Holdfast, Luc's great-aunt. She advocated for me when my
vivimancy was discovered. And—and Matron Pace. She managed the
hospital."
Ferron still seemed to be waiting, and it upset her so much that her
anger broke through for an instant.
"Having a vivimancer as part of the Eternal Flame wasn't something
everyone was going to be comfortable with. Especially since I was—
foreign. It was too much for some people. I didn't have the same kinds
of connections that others did. If there'd been problems, it could
have— it could have undermined Luc."
He raised an eyebrow. "Well, you seem to have it all very thoroughly
rationalised for yourself. Congratulations. It was clearly all worth it in
the end."
He flashed an insincere smile and walked away.
Helena was tempted to fling a marble bust after him and ask exactly
who cared about him. His own father wanted to disown him, his wife
couldn't stand him, and he couldn't even keep living staff on to run his
house.
If she hadn't been drugged, she would have, but she was rational
enough to know it was pointless, and her time was limited.
The necrothralls appeared and vanished like ghosts as she resumed
her exploration. When she finished with the east wing, she fetched her
cloak and gloves, determined to spend her remaining time on the out-
buildings.
The sky was unusually clear, a stark winter blue. The reborn sun was
a pale-golden disk, too feeble for much warmth but a comfort to see.
The garden shed was locked. The next building was a small iron
forge. Locked too. Hardly surprising. So were the connecting store-
houses. She tried the stable, feeling the eyes of the necrothalls on her as
she tested the large sliding doors and found them locked. She tugged at
them a few more times, wishing they'd give.
She'd always liked horses. They reminded her of the donkeys in Etras
that were always nuzzling into people's pockets with their velvety noses
looking for treats.
Animals were rare on Paladia's islands. The city was so dense and
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Alchemised • 161
multi- levelled, there was no place for them except as pets, and there'd
been no pets allowed at the Institute. The highroads became exclusively
for motorcars and lorries, and so horses were only brought into the city
for ceremonial events and parades.
Luc had the handsomest white destrier named Cobalt, who'd loved
carrots but hated the city, and he was always taken back out to country-
side as soon as the summer solstice parade passed. Luc had told her that
if she ever visited their country estate, they'd go riding.
Helena tried a smaller stable door around the corner and was sur-
prised when it opened.
She slipped inside. The sweet smell of hay filled the air, and another
scent she couldn't place. She squinted into the dark. All the stalls seemed
empty; no stomping or snorting greeted her.
She clicked her tongue and heard shuffling at the far end of the
stable. The sound of something very large getting up.
She clicked again and heard a deep, huffed breath, but she couldn't
see anything.
"Hello," she said tentatively, stepping a little farther in.
The door behind her swung wide open. Bright light spilling in.
She expected Ferron, but it was the two necrothralls from Central
shoving their way in.
A snarl—almost a roar—rolled through the darkness. Every hair on
Helena's body rose on end.
There was the sound of a heavy chain being dragged, another snarl,
more furious than the first, and Helena saw what was in the shadows.
An enormous creature, black as night, lunged towards them.
It was a wolf.
No. Bigger than a wolf. It was larger than a destrier. So immense it
seemed to fill the stable.
Grace had said the High Reeve had a monster, but Helena had not
taken that literally.
The creature was monstrous. Fangs longer than her fingers flashed in
the light. Wind rushed across the room. The smell of blood struck her
face as a foaming mouth burst from the shadows, jaws snapping.
There was the sharp sound of a chain reaching its end. Taloned claws
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162 • SenLinYu
scrabbled across the wood floor as the monster lunged again.
The necrothralls grabbed Helena by the hair and dragged her back
out into the courtyard, dumping her on the gravel.
Helena scrambled to her feet, heart trying to beat with fear but un-
able to. She was stunned by what had happened. Her captivity was so
rigidly controlled, it was startling to brush with danger.
She couldn't help but wonder if the stable door being unlocked was
also Aurelia's doing.
The creature was still snarling, and then a low gusting howl emerged,
a sound like moaning wind.
She caught her breath and looked back at the necrothralls, who'd
both stationed themselves in front of the stable, watching her as the
creature inside quieted.
She moved away. The next building was a small, geometric one. Hel-
ena tried the door, and it clicked, swinging inwards. As soon as she saw
the interior's five walls, she knew what it was. A chantry.
She stepped inside, letting the door close behind her. Helena had
always struggled with the rigidity of Northern religion, but now, at the
end of everything, there was a bittersweetness to a place like this.
Paladia had been a culture shock for Helena in many regards. In
Etras, gods didn't require being believed in any more than the moun-
tains did. They existed. A person accommodated them respectfully, and
sometimes made little offerings and prayers requesting favour, but the
gods represented facets of life on Etras, not purpose itself.
Things were different in Paladia. While the ancient gods were said to
have required blood for their sacrifices, Sol required life itself, lived out
in service to him. Northerners were expected to devote their every mo-
ment in ritual sacrifice so that in death their souls might ascend to the
heavens. Everything revolved around what Sol did or did not allow.
Luc had tried everything to earn the favour Sol had extended to his
forefathers. He'd possessed the alchemical gifts, sun-blessed like all the
rest, but he never received the miracles his ancestors had enjoyed, which
had ensured their triumphs in battle and the riches of their rule.
Luc would have given up all his gifts for one miracle, anything to
bring the war to an end, but his prayers were never answered, his devo-
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Alchemised • 163
tion never acknowledged.
He'd always blamed himself for that.
If he were still alive, he'd pray even now, but the ritual words stuck in
Helena's throat.
Each wall was for one of the five gods of the Quintessence. The radi-
ant, unconquerable Sol, giver of life, was at the centre, flanked by the
rest. The altar brazier that should have been burning ceaselessly with a
flame from the eternal fire was cold, its amiantos wick dusty and dry.
The Ferrons had probably had a chantry built for their private wor-
ship and interments because that was something the upper classes
did— although given the number of spires decorating the house, it did
seem that the family had been religious at some point. Paladians loved
decorating in sets of fives even though their venerations and celebra-
tions were primarily for Sol and Lumithia.
Along the walls there were dozens of stones with plaques bearing
names and dates. With limited land, Paladians kept the ashes of their
dead for generations rather than burying them in cemeteries as some
countries did.
Despite the visible neglect, the chantry was not entirely abandoned.
One plaque was brighter than the rest, carefully polished. It sat beneath
the altar of Luna, the lesser moon goddess.
enid ferron. always beloved. a wife and mother.
Based on the celestial dates, she'd died during the war, 1785, three
years into Luc's reign. She must have been Ferron's mother.
Helena studied the inscription, finding it ironic. However "beloved"
Enid Ferron had been by her husband and son, it had not been enough
to be granted the immortality they enjoyed.
Then again, the guilds had always been intensely patriarchal.
Ironically, the one thing the guilds thought the Holdfasts weren't
traditional enough about was women. Girls had been welcomed to
study at the Institute for decades. There were female lecturers, instruc-
tors, and board members in the school. It had been with Principate
Apollo's blessing that Lila Bayard had trained from childhood to be-
come paladin primary.
The guilds, for all their talk of progress and equality, and freedom
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164 • SenLinYu
from rigid traditionalism, had very specific ideas about precisely who
deserved that equality and freedom.
A low view of women was common in the North, especially among
those of faith. Prior to the pressure exerted by the Principate, the Faith
regarded women as categorically lesser, and even after the official dis-
tancing occurred, the belief remained pervasive.
It had been viewed as a fact of nature. Men were of Sol, active, hot
and dry, full of vitality, and the source of life's seed. Women, it followed,
were an inferior human form. Wet and cold, passively bound to the
monthly cycle of Luna, the lesser moon. While their bodies were the
necessary vessels for birth, it was their blood that was the source of all
defects. Both vivimancy and necromancy were regarded as a corruption
of resonance caused by a "poisonous womb."
Hence the long-standing obsession with creating homunculi even
among the Faith, to erase women's defective hold on humanity.
However, not all women were doomed to cold passivity. To avoid
such categorisation, a girl could devote herself to the cult of Lumithia,
goddess of warfare and alchemy, who'd been born from the heart of Sol.
Women associated with Lumithia were not expected to be traditional;
they could be alchemists, surgeons, paladins, anything.
But there was a price. Were they to marry or bear children, they had
to give it all up. Lumithia was a virgin goddess. Mothers and married
women were not welcome at her altar.
When Helena was done exploring, she stayed outside despite the
cold, watching the winter sun sink behind the mountains. The stars ap-
peared in the night sky, shining briefly before the moons rose. Luna
first, a deformed silver crescent in the far horizon with her soft light,
ushering in a gentle twilight.
Then Lumithia rose. She was a waning quarter moon, but still more
than double Luna's size and so bright it hurt to stare directly at her. She
ascended into the sky like a white sun, every star vanishing behind her
light until only the planets and a few stars remained visible in the black
abyss of sky. Glimmers fine as diamond dust.
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CHAPTER 12
Helena opened the door, a piece of crystal clutched in
one hand, and found Lila sitting on the floor, curled up like a child trying not
to be found. She was out of her armour. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her long
pale hair cropped short, and when she turned to look at Helena, it brought the
right side of her face into view.
A roping scar tore through the side of her face and throat.
"Lila. Lila, what's wrong? What happened?"
Lila stared at Helena without responding for a long time.
"I made a mistake," Lila finally said, her voice barely a whisper, "I've
made such a mistake."
"It's— all right. I'm sure it'll be all right. Whatever you've done—I'm sure
it can't be that bad."
"No." Lila shook her head. "I've been lying to everyone—"
Helena woke abruptly, lurching up as the dream was cut short.
The withdrawal from the tablet hit like a brick wall, and she col-
lapsed again, emotions crushing her. Even breathing hurt.
She tried to ignore it, to focus on the memory.
What had Lila been about to say? And what had happened to her?
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166 • SenLinYu
The injury had looked recent, the scarring reminiscent of what was on
Helena's own chest, no vivimancy used.
Helena couldn't imagine why. Lila wasn't someone who'd ever re-
fused healing. As Luc's paladin primary, there was a tremendous pres-
sure on her to keep him safe, to prove that she deserved her rank.
She would often grow short-tempered when she wasn't allowed to
recover as quickly as she wanted to, brushing off Helena's warnings
about the balance of things, that healing took a much greater toll on the
body than natural recovery did; too much and it could kill her. That
there was a price that had to be paid, somehow, by someone.
Lila never cared about any of that. Protecting Luc was all that mat-
tered to her.
Mountain snow blanketed the estate a few days later, cutting
Spirefell off from the rest of the world, and life fell into a monotonous
routine until the third session of transference arrived.
Once again, Helena's consciousness was crushed down to the brink
of oblivion, all the way to that moment of singularity as Ferron en-
meshed his mind with hers.
This time, she felt him blink, and her own eyes closed. She was being
puppeteered not physically but across her now shared mental landscape.
She could feel his mind orienting itself within the patterns of hers, his
consciousness attempting to sway her.
With his presence, she could finally feel the strange shape of her
thoughts, the unnatural ways they swerved.
Much of it was seamless, smooth channels of evasion that refused to
veer from their course, but there was a fault line, as if one part had been
constructed separately.
She felt Ferron notice it, and before he could push towards it, she
reacted.
A self- destructive wave of desperation exploded from inside her, like
a bomb going off in her head.
Ferron vanished. Everything vanished.
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Alchemised • 167
When she regained consciousness, she could barely form thoughts.
The vibrations of her own breathing hurt like the tongue of a whip lash-
ing through her mind.
She wasn't particularly feverish, but she also didn't get better after
several days.
In her dreams, there were people crowded around her. Dozens of
them. Each time she slept, they'd drag her underwater and drown her.
Bloodless hands grasping at her. Icy water filled her lungs. Her arms
and legs were twisted and wrenched at. Splintered nails clawing at her
skin. Fingers hooking inside her mouth, pulling down on her jaw until
it came loose. Fingernails sinking into her eyeballs, and she never died.
She just kept drowning.
She'd wake, choking and gagging as her body tried to expel the
phantom water from her lungs. She couldn't make her mouth work. Her
vision was upside down.
She recognised the voice of the stuttering mind specialist, saying
things about the mind being complex and not fully understood, that
Helena's condition was unprecedented, and there was little to be done
but wait and see what would happen.
When she finally began to recover, she felt as though a part of her
had died.
Ferron's encroachment was inevitable, progressing a little further
with each month, the cracks in her mind widening to accommodate
him. She had neither the strength nor the will to keep resisting.
The war was lost. Her suffering would not bring anyone back, not
any more than Luc's had saved them.
When she was no longer bedridden, she braved the cold and went
out to the stables. The side door was unlocked, and she entered quickly
before the thralls could stop her.
It was empty. Death slipping from her fingers again.
The winter deepened, sinking into an oppressive cold that crawled
into the recesses of the house, the iron acting like veins, carrying the
midwinter frost into every hallway and inner room, leaving the house
frigid no matter how much the radiators hissed.
The Ferrons fled to the city, leaving Helena behind. In their absence,
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168 • SenLinYu
the meals were improved by the absence of table scraps, and the bread
less stale, although the inclusion of protein was scarcer.
For several weeks, newspapers became her only glimpse into the
world beyond. The repopulation program, which had initially been
treated as an economic necessity, was gradually reframed as the new
scientific frontier. New Paladia would forge its own future; no longer
would alchemical repertoires be left to chance. Parentage in the pro-
gram was to be selected based on the strength and variety of resonance.
Tests were being done to discover the ideal combinations.
The guild families, editorials effused, had the right ideas about mar-
rying into resonance. Without the interference and backwards notions
of the superstitious, there would be a new world order. Resonance-based
abilities would achieve heights never before seen.
Scientific terminology and the overuse of words like genius and
groundbreaking tried to frame the program as if it were an obvious next
step. There were never any explanations about where these assets would
go, or who'd raise them, or that they were people, just that they would
exist and be industrially and economically valuable resources.
New Paladia sounded more like a factory than a city, intended to
produce exactly the variety of alchemists the guilds wanted.