Luc kept speaking, describing the city in the loving detail of one
who knew it intimately, describing the dreams he and his father had for
Paladia's glorious future.
The next thing Helena knew, there was a counteroffensive being as-
sembled. Squadrons readied. Luc's new battalion, who had not yet even
seen combat together, went out with four others and seized a district of
the West Island.
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Helena watched from a skybridge as they all returned in a victory
parade, followed by cheers. Luc was standing on the back of a lorry,
Sebastian beside him, waving as they swept back through the gates.
Lila had not gone. Officially it was because she was still in recovery,
but the reality was that the tribunal had not yet begun, the leaders con-
cerned over how Luc might react. If he used his power as Principate to
directly oppose the Council and military leaders, there was no real
means to overrule him that wouldn't result in a complete collapse of
leadership, potentially fracturing the Resistance.
So long as Luc acknowledged Lila as his paladin primary, Lila could
ignore what the rest of the Council said—her vows were to Luc. And so
Lila remained in limbo. Not cleared for combat, but not really injured
anymore, either. She stood at the door of the Tower, applauding with
everyone else, but grief shone in her face.
The counterattack had been so sudden, so brazen, the Undying had
hardly mounted a defence. Similarly, the Council was blindsided by
Luc's abrupt embrace of full leadership, and left scrambling in the wake
of his decisiveness. The success of the offensive made him difficult to
argue with, especially when Resistance morale rose with his ascent to
claim his place on the Council.
The battles began to blur together. Except now there was a medical
ward for nullium injuries, and the casualty rates skyrocketed, infections
and disease becoming an increasing threat. First came overcrowding,
followed by shortages in clean linens and bandages, and then the blood
infections began and sickness followed.
Helena was on shift for days sometimes, ignoring Kaine's signals
unless they were messages for Crowther. Work at least kept her from
wearing grooves of worry through her mind.
When she was alone, she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as she
twisted Kaine's ring around and around her finger, thinking about the
array sketch Wagner had drawn. Nine points.
Northern alchemy almost always used either five or eight, the ele-
mental or celestial numbers. Those were the only array formulas even
taught at the Institute, the exception being the Holdfast's pyromancy,
which operated with a seven- point array, but Helena only knew of that
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712 • SenLinYu
because she'd helped Luc with his homework.
She'd never heard of a nine- point array. She had no idea how it was
supposed to work, and her only sample was full of obvious errors and
drawn by someone wholly unfamiliar with alchemical principles.
How could she reverse what had been done to Kaine if she didn't
understand the method? She moved her fingers, trying to visualise the
energy channels. Her mind kept going back to Soren.
She smothered the thoughts, burying them with animancy, trying to
force her mind to go around her memories of him. It kept niggling at
her, though—not his destruction but the moment in which he'd died.
She always tried to break the resonance connection before a patient
died, but she'd been fully focused on Soren in that moment.
The energy, the sensation of it, running through her like an electric
current kept coming to mind whenever she tried to imagine channel-
ling through a multiple of three.
It made her wonder. If Morrough could trap living souls inside bone,
and the first Necromancer placed an entire town of living souls into a
Stone, what would happen if someone captured the other form of en-
ergy? Had anyone ever done it?
The next time she felt a patient on the verge of death, rather than
break away, she left the connection open and tried to hold the energy as
it struck. It seared through her resonance, leaving her hand numb and
twinging for hours.
Well, it made sense that she couldn't just hold it. It would need a
container of some sort. The sunstone amulet had been . . . quicksilver?
Or glass? Maybe crystal. She tried a variety of substances from the
storerooms, smuggling odd metals and other compounds into the hos-
pital inside her pockets, to see if the energy would channel into any of
them.
Sunstones cracked, while metal set her pocket on fire. In a box
shoved to the back of a storage room, she found several large chunks of
obsidian. Volcanic glass did have a higher melting point than normal
glass.
She stuck a piece in her pocket.
She gripped it when she felt a patient's vitality grow thin. He was
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one of the nullium patients, hit with shrapnel that had ripped apart his
organs, and the infection hadn't responded to treatment. She could
force his heart to keep beating, but it would only make his death take
longer; he'd die the moment she left. His skin was burning with fever,
and he was gripping her hand, speaking to someone unseen, the words
coming slower and slower.
She swallowed hard and kept her resonance open as his eyes went
still. The death surge ran through her like an electric shock straight into
the obsidian.
Her arm went briefly numb. When sensation returned, he was dead,
and the obsidian hummed warm against her fingers. She could feel it,
that strange dark energy.
Her fingers trembled as she closed his eyes, pulling the sheet over his
face. Had she just trapped a soul in volcano glass? She squeezed it. No.
She knew what that energy felt like, the amulet and Kaine. This was
different.
Still, she tried to pretend it wasn't there while she finished her shift.
She hurried to her lab. She opened the door, and stopped short at the
sight of Lila, curled up on the floor, her face swollen, eyes red.
Helena froze. Gods, the tribunal. It must have begun.
She'd hardly seen and hadn't spoken to Lila since before Luc's res-
cue. She'd returned to her room one day to find all of Lila's things gone
and heard about a private memorial service held for Soren only after-
wards.
As much as she had wanted to try to explain herself, she couldn't,
because officially Soren had simply died.
But Luc would have told Lila the truth.
Helena stood frozen, not sure what could have possibly driven Lila
here.
"Lila." Helena set the obsidian down, moving tentatively. "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."
Helena swallowed hard. "It's—all right. I'm sure it'll be all right.
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714 • SenLinYu
Whatever you've done—I'm sure it can't be that bad."
Soren's ghost seemed to hang between them.
"No." Lila shook her head. "I've been lying to everyone. My whole
life, I've been lying. Now—now I don't know what to do . . ."
Her voice was so strained, it trailed off.
"Soren was the only person that knew," Lila whispered. Her eyes
were swimming, but the tears didn't escape. "He always kept my secrets.
Knew what to do about things. Said it was his job—looking out for me."
"What happened?" Helena reached out tentatively.
Lila looked up and drew a deep breath, her chin trembling before
she finally spoke. "I—I'm pregnant."
Helena didn't move. Couldn't speak. She was too stunned to even
believe the words Lila had just uttered.
To know she was pregnant meant she had to be at least two or three
months along, and that was assuming her cycle was regular, which Hel-
ena knew it wasn't. She'd been in the hospital at that time.
"How?" was the only question Helena could even think to ask. Never
mind everything else that this meant.
Lila swallowed, her head moving jerkily, wincing when it pulled at
the scars on her neck. "I know. I didn't think I could. After—everything.
I always assumed that it wasn't even possible."
"No," Helena said impatiently. "I mean, yes, that too, but you weren't
pregnant when you were in the hospital. You've only been out for—
How would you possibly know you're pregnant?"
Lila looked down, avoiding Helena's eyes. "That's—that's the secret.
I know I'm pregnant."
It was then that something incredibly obvious, which Helena should
have realised years earlier, finally dawned on her.
Lila Bayard, who so often came back from battles nearly unscathed,
who always recovered miraculously from her injuries, who adapted to a
prosthetic leg in months when everyone said it would be a year. Who
had never struggled to recover from an injury until she lost her reso-
nance.
"You're a vivimancer," Helena said.
Lila didn't meet her eyes as she gave a small nod. "I never used it on
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Alchemised • 715
anyone except me. Soren a couple times, but only when he asked. He
said I couldn't let anyone know. Not even Mum and Dad, because if
people knew I wouldn't be allowed to be Luc's paladin."
"All this time?" Helena said softly, startled by the sense of betrayal
she felt.
"I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you but—you know what it's been like for
you. I couldn't risk that, not with Luc at stake. I couldn't be like you—
fighting's all I'm good at."
The revelation was more than Helena felt she could process right
then.
"Who's the father?" Helena asked, as if it wasn't completely obvious.
"You know it's Luc."
Helena nodded. She wanted to be angry, but her own secrets were
worse, and the fact that Lila had turned to her in Soren's absence spoke
volumes.
"You've probably heard, they're planning a tribunal unless I step
down as paladin voluntarily." Lila's voice was empty and despairing. "I
used to tell myself it would all pay off in the end, but the war just kept
going. I didn't ever—I mean, a few times he tried—but I told him off
every time." Lila shook her head. "Doesn't matter, though, seems every-
one thinks we've been fucking each other at the front lines. Doesn't
mean anything that we didn't." She looked down. "When he came back
from taking that district—I know it wasn't about me, but I felt so ru-
ined. Being left behind and knowing I always will be now. He came and
found me after and told me that he'd been thinking about me the whole
time, and—" She shrugged. "Everyone thinks we are anyway, so—"
Helena rested a tentative hand on her shoulder. "It's all right. I can
take care of it. If it's early I can get ingredients or just use vivimancy,
whatever you'd prefer. No one will know."
"No."
Helena stared at Lila, certain she'd misheard.
Lila drew a deep breath, avoiding her eyes. "I mean, that's why I
came. I knew you could do it, but—while I was waiting, I couldn't stop
thinking, what are the odds?" She shook her head. "I can't remember the
last time I had a cycle. It's been years. I didn't think I could. I always
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716 • SenLinYu
thought Soren would be the who'd marry and have the next generation
of Bayards, but now I'm all that's left."
Helena had no words.
Lila looked down, curling smaller, as if she could feel Helena's judge-
ment. "It probably won't stick. So maybe I could just wait, and—have
this for a little while."
"And if it does—stick?" Helena asked.
Lila didn't answer.
Helena's chest grew tight. She wanted to say Lila was being stupid.
A baby, during the war. Lila wouldn't be the first, but still, those girls
were different. Lila was an alchemist. A warrior. Neither of those things
paired with motherhood. The rules were strict.
"It won't stick," Lila said.
"That's not an answer," Helena said sharply. "What if it does? You are
going to have a baby during a war when you're already facing a tribunal.
You won't be a paladin after that. They won't ever let you fight again."
Lila was picking at her nails, her cuticles bleeding. "Luc's going to
leave combat to take over leadership now. Ilva's too old to continue as
steward, and there's no one he trusts to replace her. They say that if I
step down as paladin primary, they won't call a tribunal, Sebastian will
replace me, and I'll be cleared for combat again." Lila drew a deep
breath. "I'll be in command of my own unit. First woman."
Lila's voice showed no pride or excitement for what would be a his-
toric accomplishment, because there was no chance that she could reen-
ter combat, stripped of her former rank, without the scandal following
her. Her reputation and legacy were irrevocably stained.
"If you said I was sick with something, no one would know I'm
pregnant— and if it doesn't take, I'll go back into service like it never
happened."
"Or you could retire from active combat and train recruits who could
use someone with your experience," Helena said, "Those aren't your only
two options."
"I'm not going to retire. That's not how it works for us Bayards," Lila
said, her blue eyes snapping. She winced. "Sorry. People keep telling me
that it's not all over, but—" She scoffed. "—I know how it works. What
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Alchemised • 717
will be remembered. It won't be anything I ever did in combat."
Now Helena understood. A pregnancy altered the narrative. It didn't
erase the scandal, but it did reframe it; instead of a violation of vows
that nearly led to calamity, it became a love story.
The Principate had already been in desperate need of an heir, but it
was hard to make it a stated priority when Luc's life was supposed to be
shielded with divinity, and Luc had, for obvious reasons, always been
resistant to the idea of a political marriage, which was what the Council
wanted.
A Holdfast heir could reinvigorate the Resistance. How could it be
a doomed war when there was such a tangible symbol of the future?
Of course Lila would prefer that version of her story, rather than the
alternatives she was faced with.
Lila had always seemed unstoppable, but now Helena could see all
the cracks she'd hidden. The desires she'd never let herself have.
Helena knew something about that.
"Will Luc know?"
Lila drew a breath, shaking her head. "No. I think it would distract
him. He's under so much pressure, and the transition will be a lot. If he
knew and then it came to nothing—it would crush him, to have hoped."
"Does Luc—want children?" Helena asked hesitantly. She didn't
think she'd ever heard Luc speak of children. His hopes for the future
were of the war over, of travelling. Then again, the matter of Lila had
always been carefully unspoken. Helena had always known, but he'd
never admitted it outright, not even to her.
Lila nodded. "He talked about them that night. How he's not like
his father, he doesn't want to just do his duty. That he wants to have a
family for himself, not because of the Principate, or because he needs an
heir, but just because he loves someone so much that he makes one.
That's what this would be."
Helena swallowed hard. She still hated this, but she couldn't refuse
Lila. "I'll need to talk to Crowther and see what the options are."
Lila's face screwed up. "Why would you go to him? He's awful. Luc
can't stand him."
Helena looked away. "He's the most pragmatic choice. I don't have
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718 • SenLinYu
the seniority to quarantine someone. I don't think you want Elain or
Matias involved. The choices are Crowther or Ilva, and Ilva hasn't been
very reliable lately."
"Fine," Lila sighed, wincing. "Crowther then."
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CHAPTER 57
Maius 1787
According to records, Lila Bayard contracted a bad case
of bog cough after helping deliver supplies to the water slums at the
south end of the island.
Bog cough tended to crop up every year in the early summer after
the floods, as the air grew warm and damp, and the dark, recessed levels
of the city, far from sunlight, found their interiors blackened with
mould.
The symptoms were a deep cough coming from low in the lungs, and
an occasional rash. While mostly dangerous to children and the elderly,
sometimes it would linger and transform into a virulent sickness that
could sweep through the city like a plague. That was the ostensible rea-
son why the upper levels of the city preferred to be restrictive with the
lower sectors of the population.
Helena was familiar with the symptoms because her father used to
treat it every summer. Most of the people who caught it couldn't afford
to travel up-city to a licensed apothecary. Helena could replicate the
symptoms almost perfectly using vivimancy, creating purplish rashes on
Lila's inner wrists and the sides of her neck, and agitating her lungs
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720 • SenLinYu
enough to make her cough violently while Pace examined her and gave
the diagnosis.
With so many people in tight quarters, plague was a constant fear.
Lila was promptly placed in isolation in the Alchemy Tower, and
everyone else involved in the supply delivery was quarantined for three
days until they were declared symptom-free.
Such a common sickness did not dampen morale, particularly since
it was considered primarily an affliction of the poor and unsanitary. That
Lila had caught it was taken as a sign that she was still too weak from
her injuries. High in the sun-soaked rooms of the Alchemy Tower, she
would recover.
Luc, however, was distraught. He demanded to see her, but he was
flatly refused. His own lungs still showed signs of deterioration and
damage; under no circumstances was he permitted to go anywhere near
Lila until she was declared fully recovered.
Helena hardly knew where to begin with this new secret. Pregnancy
was not something she'd ever studied. Her experience with newborns
was mostly limited to emergency situations. She looked in the library
for a few references but found the options lacking, until she remem-
bered that Matron Pace kept most medical textbooks in the records
office for easy access.
"I never thought I'd find you interested in pregnancy." Matron Pace's
comment made Helena jump as she was caught hurriedly perusing one
of the books.
Helena slammed it shut, cramming it into place. "I'm not. The title
just caught my eye."
"You're welcome to borrow it."
"No." Helena shook her head. "Passing curiosity was all."
She made for the door.
"Marino." Pace's voice was commanding.
Helena turned. Pace was watching her like a hawk.
"Are you in a family way?"
"No."
"Accidents happen," Pace said mildly, leaning back against her desk.
"Especially during wartime. You wouldn't be the first."
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Helena released an exploding little scoff. "I'm not pregnant."
"I just hope your fellow is the responsible— "
"I can't be pregnant. I've been sterilised," Helena snapped, too morti-
fied to keep listening.
Pace froze, shaking her head. "No. They wouldn't. They couldn't have
possibly found that necessary at a time like this."
Helena's cheeks were burning, but her stomach had a gnawing pit
inside it. "Well, they did. Maier did it. Ligature, same week I got back.
It was— it was one of the Falcon's conditions. So, like I said, not preg-
nant."
She started again for the door.
"Helena, wait." Pace's voice was beseeching.
Helena winced, turning reluctantly back. Pace had one of her red,
chapped hands pressed against her chest. "I shouldn't have teased you. I
had no idea. Maier never said anything."
"It's fine," Helena said stiffly. "I wanted to be an alchemist more, and
women don't get to do both." She lifted her chin. "Now I won't ever
have to worry about choosing. Besides—" She looked squarely at Pace.
"— I'll probably die young, so I'd be a terrible mother."
Pace studied her. "Was your mother terrible?"
Pace couldn't have hurt her more if she'd kicked her. The room swam.
Helena's throat closed. "How dare you."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it that way," Pace said, but she didn't
really look sorry. "But Helena, I don't think you know how to be honest
with yourself about what you want."
"It was the only way to become a healer—we needed a healer, Ilva
said I was the only person who could do it." Helena's jaw trembled, and
she had to set it hard. "It was the choice I had, and I made it. Would you
really rather I hadn't?"
"You weren't even seventeen. You'd barely lived enough to know
what you wanted."
"I feel pretty alive right now," Helena said through gritted teeth.
"And I'm fine."
"Being alive is not the same as living. I hope someday you'll have a
chance to realise the difference."
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722 • SenLinYu
Pace went over to the bookshelf and pulled the book that Helena
had been reading off the shelf, holding it in both hands as she stared at
the cover. "I was a midwife, you know. Long time ago now." She shook
her head. "I should have realised. You've always poured your all into the
present moment, as if that's all you expect to have."
She turned back to Helena. "Perhaps a glimpse at the next genera-
tion will make the future feel a little more real for you."
She held the book towards Helena. The title, The Maternal Condi-
tion: An In- Depth Study on the Science and Physiology of Gestation, glinted
in the light from a window high overhead. "Lila Bayard will need the
best care you can provide."
Helena stared at her in astonishment. "How—?"
Matron Pace pressed the book into her hands. "I've been a nurse for
twice as long as you've been alive. You vivimancy skills are remarkable,
but Lila would have had to be sick for a good three weeks before devel-
oping a rash like that."
As Luc began taking over leadership, Ilva's health began a sudden and
rapid decline as if all those years, she'd just been holding on until he was
ready. Some days she was barely lucid. Crowther had become so con-
cerned about Ilva's sudden deterioration that he'd had Helena examine
her. There was nothing wrong; she was just old and tired.
The war seemed to pitch back and forth in favour of the two sides.
The constant fighting seemed to grant little advantage beyond leaving
the city more battered.
Luc led another aggressive attack on the West Island, and they cap-
tured a warehouse. It was found filled with large tublike tanks of fluid
with bodies inside, tubes connected to veins, and breathing masks fas-
tened over the noses and mouths. Resistance fighters. All dead, but their
bodies still warm.
When the perimeter had been breached, a gas had been released into
the masks, killing them all mere minutes before the Resistance reached
them.
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Alchemised • 723
A procession of lorries returned to Headquarters, filled with the
bodies to cremate. There were only a few captives, but one was the war-
den, who proved difficult and refused to answer questions.
Because the warden was Luc's captive, they couldn't be disappeared
into one of Crowther's underground holes and tortured for informa-
tion. Crowther remembered then that Kaine had taught Helena a
unique method of extracting information; she had mentioned it once as
an alternative when trying to dissuade him from torture.
Helena was as horrified as everyone else at all the healthy, intact,
familiar faces being prepped for cremation, so close to rescue. She'd im-
mediately agreed.
A few strings were pulled and Crowther managed to get a few hours
alone with the warden, bringing Helena with him.
The warden was a woman, with a narrow face with short, cropped
hair and a wide mouth. Her pale-blue eyes instantly narrowed when she
saw Helena, each sizing the other up.
Crowther settled into the shadows, leaving Helena to make her at-
tempt.
"Who are you?" Helena asked, not sure how to begin.
"What's it to you?" the warden asked.
"Can't say I've met any women among the Undying or their Aspi-
rants."
"Men generally like our bodies a lot more than they like us." The
warden looked over into the corner where Crowther was watching.
"Guess I'm one of the special ones."
"How are you special?" Helena asked, even though she had a pretty
good idea.
"Probably for the same reason you are." The warden had looked back
and was studying Helena now. "The difference is that I'm not a traitor
to my kind."
"I'm not the one who just murdered more than a hundred people,"
Helena said, struggling to keep her voice even. She didn't know why it
bothered her so much that this warden was a woman, but it made her
angrier.
"They would've killed me, given half a chance. I killed them first."
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724 • SenLinYu
The warden lifted her chin, jutting it towards Helena. "What are you?"
Her eyes flicked over Helena. "Healer? I bet. I was a healer once."
Helena was doubtful about that, but the woman was talking without
coercion, so she let her.
"Didn't want to be a healer, but there's not a lot of choices out there
for us. He tried to make me a nun. Wanted me to raise other brats born
like me. Teach them how to keep their abilities in and punish them if
they didn't. Didn't you?"
Helena turned to stare at Crowther, who watched, his expression
unreadable.
"You know her?" Helena asked.
"Oh yes. Kestrel Jan often came to see us whenever someone misbe-
haved at the orphanage. Always brought a pet along, someone with a
long leash whom we could aspire to become like as long as we'd do
anything he asked. I'm surprised, though. They're usually younger." Her
eyes flicked over Helena.
"That's enough, Mandl," Crowther said sharply.
Mandl grinned towards him. "See, I knew you'd remember me."
"Pull the information and let's be done," Crowther said to Helena.
Helena took a deep breath.
Mandl looked unfazed. "You're not going to make me talk," she said.
"I used to break my bones and gouge myself open just for fun. Just to
feel something inside that hole they raised us in. You're too weak to hurt
me, Traitor."
"You'd be surprised," Helena said, heart pounding.
Mandl just laughed.
The bodies from the warehouse were such a fresh tragedy. All those
people, moments from rescue, and now they were gone because Mandl
wanted to hurt the Eternal Flame and the Resistance even more than
she'd cared about freedom.
Helena didn't delude herself that the Eternal Flame had the degree
of moral superiority that they tried to claim, but how could anyone find
the Undying better?
"Why were you keeping the prisoners in tanks like that?" she asked,
maintaining a calm, steady voice.
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Alchemised • 725
Mandl smiled, her wide mouth stretching across her face. Her fin-
gers twirled even though her wrists were shackled with inert iron.
"Come on, try touching me. Let's see who breaks first."
Helena's anger sat like a boulder in the pit of her stomach as she
moved towards Mandl. "I'll admit, you're probably better than me at
hurting people. I can't beat you at your own game, but we're playing
mine."
Mandl's eyes flicked over to the door and then at Crowther, the first
glimmer of nervousness. She forced a laugh. "What can you do?"
Helena was behind Mandl now. "I don't think you know this trick."
Mandl tried to crane her neck, attempting to twist and see what
Helena was doing. She jerked away as Helena slid her bare hand up
from the nape of her neck, fingers lacing through the short hair. Man-
dl's hands twisted, trying to break loose from the shackles.
"It's all right." Helena's voice was as practiced and clinical as her
resonance as she blocked the right nerves along the spine, making sure
not to stop Mandl's heart or suspend anything vital. "I guess there's
something to being Institute-trained after all."
Helena slowed her heartbeat, stifling the rising terror. Like a gas
valve, tinkering with the cocktail of hormones racing through Mandl,
telling her to be calm, that Helena was not a threat.
"You want to tell me everything I ask," Helena said softly.
Mandl seized violently, trying to resist, her body lurching. Her reso-
nance flared, trying to push back against Helena, but she was too late.
"Bitch— traitorous bitch— " she slurred as Helena winnowed through
her raging emotions.
Mandl's eyes lost focus. Her mind and body were in direct conflict,
and it was impossible for her to struggle as Helena slipped into her
memories.
Kaine had made the process seen simple. It was much more difficult
than Helena had expected. The noise of another mind. There was so
much sound and energy, and Mandl's panic and attempts at resisting
made it so much harder. Kaine had always let Helena's thoughts wan-
der, catching them as they passed. Helena couldn't help but think there
were easier ways to do it.
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726 • SenLinYu
"What's your name?"
Elsbeth.
The name rang from a dozen directions all over inside Mandl's mind,
coalescing at the forefront.
Mandl's face was slack, a trickle of drool running down one side of
her mouth, but her eyes followed Helena with growing fury. Her mind
trying and failing to recoil at the way Helena was manipulating her.
"Why were you keeping prisoners in tanks like that?"
Mandl tried to resist, but a memory flitted across her consciousness.
A man in uniform was speaking: "—keep the best specimens . . ." Man-
dl's attention in the memory wandered to a buzzing fly and everything
went out of focus.
Helena tried again. "If you had a new prisoner, what would you do
with them?"
Memory fragments were like tatters of moving pictures, sounds and
sensation all whipping by as if carried by wind. She heard voices, but
they were too distant to make out.
She saw the walls of a warehouse, greenish light from the tinted
windows. A boy whose face she half recognised, writhing.
Everything blurred, but a tingle of anticipation ran along her spine.
The gleam of a hypodermic needle in the low light. A finger flicking
it to knock loose an air bubble. A glimpse of the boy again.
Blur.
Rows of the bodies laid out on gurneys next to the tanks. A bloated
corpse with yellowish eyes, grey discoloured skin. Squeezing the arm of
a young man and saying, I'll take this one next.
A printed form requesting ten female subjects. Signed Artemon
Bennet. Mandl's hands pushing a cart with the boy lying on it, the mask
and tubes still attached as she wheeled him into an empty room.
Shutting the door softly. Another shiver along her spine.
Helena ripped her mind free, snatching her hands away, wanting to
scrub them until the skin came off.
"What is it for?" she asked. Her skin was crawling. She didn't want
to go back into Mandl's mind.
Mandl was breathing unsteadily, her pupils dilated so wide that the
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Alchemised • 727
blue irises barely showed.
"I'll pull it out if you don't answer," Helena said, gripping Mandl by
the hair. "Do you prefer that?"
Mandl's expression twisted, and she spat. "It keeps them fresh."
"Fresh for what?"
"Anything. New bodies for the Undying. Test subjects. Thralls. The
thralls last longer when they're new." Mandl was panting openmouthed,
her lips growing chapped.
"How long are they kept there?"
Mandl smiled cruelly. "There's high demand, so usually not more
than a few months. Electric shock keeps the muscle toned. We slow the
vitals."
It felt an eternity before Crowther was satisfied with the amount of
information Helena pulled out. By that time, Mandl's eyes were so dis-
oriented that they looked in different directions. She'd grown feverish
and was slumped forward, trembling.
"Well," Crowther said, staring down sneeringly at Mandl, "it seems
you'll make a passable replacement for Ivy."
Helena said nothing. She never wanted to do it ever again. She re-
gretted agreeing to it.
She turned wordlessly to leave.
"Traitor . . ." Mandl called after her.
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CHAPTER 58
Junius 1787
Successful as Luc's recent offensives were, the new territory
was stretching the Resistance thin. Despite the widespread admiration
for Luc's decisive and successful leadership, the higher-ups were less
enthused. There were rumours of Luc having an explosive argument
with Althorne and several other members of military command, for not
consulting them.
Several of the districts were surrounded on three sides by the Undy-
ing, requiring constant patrols and defence while providing very little
strategic use. The districts in question also had not received their "lib-
eration" with enthusiasm. Many of the Paladians on the West Island
were quite happy under Undying occupation and fearful of being la-
belled Resistance sympathisers if the district were eventually taken
back. As result, the Resistance was forced to fend off not only attacks
from the Undying's forces but also citizen rebellions.
The summer Abeyance was approaching, and the troops were con-
centrated down-island to defend the ports and the anticipated trade
influx.
The hospital remained ceaselessly full. No longer were the sharp del-
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Alchemised • 729
uges of battles followed by a lull to recuperate. Now it was constant, an
unrelenting strain that ran everyone ragged.
"I don't know what to do," Helena said one night, sitting up because
she couldn't sleep, not even in Kaine's arms. "I don't know how we can
win. I can't see any way."
"You can't save everyone," he said quietly.
Her jaw started trembling, and she clenched her fists. "I'm not even
trying to save everyone, though. I don't know how to save anyone. I can't
figure anything out. Everything I try is a dead end. We're running out
of time."
He said nothing.
"I'm just— " She scrubbed her eyes. "I'm so tired. Everything I do
feels like I'm delaying the inevitable, saving someone one day so they'll
die in a worse way tomorrow. I wish I'd never become a healer."
She'd never admitted it to anyone before. That she hated it.
She told him everything now. The truth about the Stone, and where
it was, the true story of the Holdfasts, the array from Wagner, and how
no matter how she tried, she couldn't work out how the channelling was
supposed to work. She even told him about the obsidian, and how use-
less it had proven to be.
She was so tired of finding possibilities that went nowhere.
"Bring me a piece," he told her. "Maybe you haven't been able to test
it the right way."
She shook her head. "There's already too much you need to worry
about. You don't need to worry about my pointless experiments." She
cleared her throat. "Did I tell you, I'm working with my lab partner to
reverse the nullium alloy, so we can use the compound from it to make
inert metal? I was thinking, I could use transmutation to make a really
light mesh armour with a high tensile strength, and then use the com-
pound to remove the resonance. You would wear it under your clothes.
It wouldn't interfere with your resonance, and no one could use theirs to
break through it." She traced a finger over a silvery scar on his arm. "I
think I've almost got it all worked out. Then you won't get hurt so much."
He kissed the top of her head. "I'm still healing just fine. Bring me a
piece of the obsidian. It'll be more interesting to experiment with than
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730 • SenLinYu
dealing with all of Crowther's self-defeating sabotage orders. Everyone
in the Undying is paranoid about spies now, and Morrough's been tak-
ing more precautions than ever."
Helena was sorting through the various pieces of charged obsid-
ian she'd accumulated when the windows exploded. A roar shuddered
through the air and Tower. Lab equipment shattered across the floor.
The sirens started. All of them.
Another bomb.
Helena headed for the stairs before her bracelet burned, running
over the broken glass that covered the floors.
They got scattered reports of what had happened. Several buildings
had fallen, and the interconnected skybridges conjoining the cityscape
had wrought massive destruction across the centre of the island. The
hospital prepared for the inundation they knew would come, but as they
waited only a few lorries arrived, all carrying people from the outermost
edges of the collapse.
Helena was healing a heavy gash across a woman's head when she
heard the clamour that meant gurneys were being brought down the
hall, but before they reached the hospital, there were voices bellowing
from the hallway.
"Don't bring them in! Get them outside. Shut those windows. Get
every entrance sealed."
There was muffled arguing and protests until a voice roared. "The
nullium's in the air. They're covered in it. Take them back out!"
Helena turned to stare in horror at Elain, who looked bewildered,
her suncrest trembling below her throat.
"Why does it matter if it's in the air?" Elain asked.
"Because if we inhale it, we could all lose our resonance," Helena
said, nearly frozen as all the ramifications of that began dawning on her.
Nullium shrapnel had been devastation enough, but they weren't pre-
pared for inhalation.
She looked around at the hospital with all the high windows open
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Alchemised • 731
trying to catch the mountain breeze as the basin sweltered in the early-
summer heat. The air was hazy with dust.
They were already breathing it.
They wore cloth masks and the casualty ward was relocated into the
commons, trying to keep the new patients away from those already in
the hospital, but it was impossible to tell on sight if the dust covering
someone had nullium in it or not.
All the protocols were forgotten as more and more stretchers arrived,
the injuries growing progressively worse as the rescue and recovery ef-
forts neared the blast zone.
They washed off as much dust as possible, trying to reduce potential
contamination while sorting out life-and- death injuries and identifying
those already showing signs of nullium exposure.
How long would it take for nullium in the air to penetrate the lungs
and reach the blood? Once it did, how long would they have before
their resonance began fading? No one knew.
Helena worked with a degree of ruthless abandon that she had never
before dared. Every second counted. She healed and healed, working
with mindless desperation. The day was hot, and the dust in the air grew
thick as a rare southerly wind brought it up-island towards them.
The mask on her face sealed the dampness against her skin. Her
hands grew caked with dust that she kept washing off after every pa-
tient. The mask stopped working; it was so clogged with dust, it nearly
suffocated her. She replaced it with a wet cloth, which was what every-
one without masks had already begun using.
"Marino! Where's Marino?"
Helena looked up from washing her hands. "What is it?"
She squinted through the haze at the man in front of her.
"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be down-island. I've
been looking for you." He was in a lorry uniform, and he took her by the
arm.
She stared at him in confusion as he pulled her towards one of the
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732 • SenLinYu
lorries. "What?"
"There's too much of a risk of the nullium contamination spreading
if we keep bringing the wounded up-island. Takes too long anyway.
There's a hospital down-island but they're overrun, not enough experi-
ence with the nullium. You're in charge of the nullium ward here, so
you're lead. Orders are right here." He shoved her up into the passenger
side of the lorry and handed her a piece of paper.
"I'm not in charge . . ." She squinted at the paper, her eyes gritty with
dust. "I'm not allowed to leave Headquarters."
She stared stupidly at the words that indicated that Helena Marino
as head of the nullium ward was to be dispatched to the field hospital
to lead the medics in treating the nullium-poisoned combatants. It was
signed by Falcon Matias.
She couldn't even remember the last time she'd been given written
orders from him.
"This can't be right. Was there a meeting?"
The engine rumbled beneath her.
"I just follow orders, Marino. They don't bring me in for Council
meetings. You were supposed to be there right off. Kept waiting, finally
went looking for you." The driver twisted at the ignition, shifting a gear,
and the lorry lurched forward. Before she had more time to argue, they
were speeding out of Headquarters and down-island.
She could already see the ruined skyline.
"I need you to go back and tell Crowther where I've been dispatched.
I don't think this was Council- authorised," she said as they drove.
"There's a radio at the field office. You can check in when you arrive."
She always forgot how fast it was to travel by vehicle on military
roads. In no time at all, the lorry stopped at a hastily assembled check-
point.
Everyone sent down the island into the blast zone was fitted with
layers of protective clothing, masks as well as veils to try to keep out the
dust. They stopped to dress and then continued deeper. The dust hung
in the air, and the road deteriorated, covered in rubble. It was midday,
but the dust blotted out the sun so that everything glowed an eerie or-
ange.
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Alchemised • 733
Two bright lanterns showed through the smog, and they pulled up
at the hospital. There were already medics there, no healers, although it
was hard to tell who anyone was.
Medical workers all wore red ribbons tied around their arms. Here
Helena saw all the devastation she'd kept expecting to arrive at Head-
quarters.
This was the worst of it.
There were so many crushed bodies. The armour of soldiers had
splintered and sliced them apart. Medics with the right resonance were
transmuting the armour off, but when it came loose, blood would im-
mediately begin pouring out.
Dust and smoke and metal and blood stained the air. Helena could
taste it despite all the layers.
There was no running water.
She could barely see. No one had any idea where the radio was, or if
they still had one. They were drowning in injuries.
Half of the medics had already lost their resonance, and there was no
time to do anything but switch to manual protocols. Without running
water, it was impossible to keep anything clean.
Helena could feel her resonance starting to fail when General Alt-
horne came through the door, pulling a cart with several bodies on it.
"I think they're alive," he said, breathing heavily. He was coated in
dust, no mask and only light armour. "There's at least forty trapped
under a wall. We can hear them, but we don't know how to reach them
without potentially collapsing it on them."
Helena let the others check the bodies and try to find space for
them. The hospital was already overflowing. Althorne's fingers were
bloody from digging through rubble. He sat down heavily, coughing
violently, struggling to breathe.
"You should be wearing a mask," she said.
"Can't breathe in those damn things," he said, gulping water. "No
point. Already lost my resonance." Then he blinked and peered at her.
"Marino?"
"Yes?" She didn't know Althorne had any idea who she was.
He leaned towards her, his voice dropping. "What are you doing
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734 • SenLinYu
here? Get back to Headquarters before Ferron finds out about this."
She was speechless, but of course Althorne had to have known. She
looked at him helplessly. "Matias signed the order and dispatched me
here, and I can't find the radio to get permission to return."
"Go back to Headquarters. First lorry. Tell them I ordered it. The last
thing we need is Ferron going off the rails." Althorne dragged himself
back onto his feet.
"Wait." She caught him by the arm, and to her surprise, he collapsed
back onto the chair. She reached out with her failing resonance, but all
she felt was a blur.
"Althorne, you need a mask. It'll give you lung damage to keep
breathing this dust. You're too valuable to risk," she said, searching him,
trying to find the injury she could tell he was hiding. It was a testament
to how weak he was that he sat there, letting her.
He said nothing.
"When are reinforcements coming?" she asked. "There's not enough
people here to handle this much. We're running out of everything."
"They're not," Althorne said quietly, as if to keep anyone else from
overhearing. "We're all there is."
Helena's heart stalled.
He watched as several soldiers dragged in bodies on makeshift lit-
ters.
"We can't risk our remaining combatants down here, losing their
resonance. The fallout has to be contained," Althorne said, his voice
tight with resignation.
He stood and swayed.
"Where are you hurt?" Helena asked, blocking his path.
He shrugged her off, straightening, his breath laboured. "It's shallow.
Falling rubble. Everyone's bleeding. I'll be fine."
"Althorne." She stepped into his path. "You're hurt. Badly. If I had
my resonance, I'd sedate you by force, because you're not in any condi-
tion to lead recovery efforts. You are too valuable. You know that. The
Resistance can't lose you."
He patted her on the shoulder as if she were a child. "My men are in
that rubble. Buried and suffocating because I sent them there."
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Alchemised • 735
A warning shriek rose from the rubble. Long and piercing, followed
by another and another. Whistles. Helena didn't know what it meant.
Althorne's face hardened. He pushed her aside with a sweep of his
arm. "Block the doors. They've sent in necrothralls; they'll be coming
for the bodies."
He strode past her, and Helena stood, torn between trying to stop
him and the urgency of securing the hospital. Before she could decide,
he vanished into the dust. She turned to face the hospital.
"We need to move all the bodies as far back into the building as pos-
sible," she said, her voice shaking. "If there's not enough room—stack
the dead. We have to secure the doors."
The thought of being locked in a field hospital again made her vision
blur. She forced herself to stay focused, curling her fingers until she felt
the scars on her palm.
"Can't we let Headquarters know we're under attack?" a medic asked,
voice muffled through protective gear. "They have to send people."
Helena shook her head. "They're not coming. The nullium has to be
contained."
Everyone around her froze, staring. She probably wasn't supposed to
tell them that.
Helena had never been a leader, and she had no idea how to sud-
denly begin being one. She was not the kind of person that anyone be-
lieved in, and standing, covered in dust, soaked in blood and gore—it
was not the time for it. She focused on practicalities.
"Our job is to keep everyone here safe. We'll move them back and
put up obstacles. The Undying won't come here themselves; nullium af-
fects them, too."
"But there's no room to move anyone unless we can break through
the walls, and no one here has the resonance for that. We're already out
of space," a medic said. "And how are we going to block the doors?"
Helena looked around. He was right. If they protected the survivors,
they'd have to leave the dead to be taken. Which would cost them dearly
later on.
There was no room, and no means.
She was in command. She had a stupid slip of paper declaring it.
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736 • SenLinYu
"We'll evacuate," she said, not caring whether the nullium was sup-
posed to be contained down-island. It would be worse if the Undying
got hold of all their casualties. "We won't go into Headquarters, but if
we get close enough, they might not pursue. If the Council minds, they
can blame me."
A flurry of activity followed as bodies were prepared for transfer.
Helena went and commandeered all the lorries, using the crumpled slip
of paper that named her as head of the nullium ward as proof of legiti-
macy.
They crammed as many bodies as possible into the lorries. Dead at
the bottom, injured on top. A medic or nurse departed with each lorry.
The wait for their return felt interminable as they readied group after
group.
They could hear the fighting. Fire glowed through the smog. Whis-
tles kept sounding on all sides, like a signal of wolves closing in, except
it wasn't night; the world was red.
Helena's muscles were burning from lifting, over and over. The bod-
ies never seemed to stop. She and one other medic were left, even
though there were still wounded and more bodies that they had to get
out.
"I'll stay," he said, "Take this one."
Helena shook her head. "I'm lead. I go last."
He stepped back, thumping the lorry.
"I'll wait with you then," he said.
She could only see his eyes, and they were crusted all around until
they were black with dust.
He reminded her of Luc.
"No," she said quickly, looking away. "Go, that's an order."
She watched him swing up into the cab next to the driver as the
lorry pulled away, driving carefully through the debris. She could just
barely make out the Alchemy Tower in the distance. The flame at the
top like a small sun.
The lorry stopped.
Helena squinted through the dust, trying to make out why. There
was another lorry approaching, swerving back and forth so that the
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Alchemised • 737
departing lorry couldn't pass it.
Suddenly the approaching lorry sped up, and Helena could see
through the dust enough to make out the bloated grey face of the driver.
The Resistance lorry's wheels screamed as it went into a rapid re-
verse, but rubble scattered across the road prevented evasion. The ap-
proaching lorry crashed into it head- on.
There was a bright flash and then—
Nothing.
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CHAPTER 59
Junius 1787
Helena lay squinting, struggling to see, but everything
was dim, blurring. When she tried to breathe, pain radiated through her,
so sharp, so sudden, it jolted her back into consciousness. She clutched
her chest, trying to draw breath, but she couldn't.
What had happened? She couldn't remember. She fought to breathe,
and a low whistling sound came from somewhere. Then it all came
rushing back. The lorries, they crashed and—
There must have been another bomb.
She struggled, trying to pull herself up.
She tried to spot the explosion, but the landscape was wrong. Where
was the road? There was just fire and a crater.
Agony bloomed through her. Her vision turned red.
A whistling sound like a boiling kettle kept coming from some-
where. She tried to find it and realised it was coming from her throat.
She moved cautiously. If she'd damaged her spine—
Calm down. Focus. Assess your condition and act from there.
She forced herself to look down and gave a strangled whimper.
There was a piece of metal buried in the centre of her chest, splitting
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Alchemised • 739
her sternum.
She kept staring at it, too shocked to move at first. She was going to
die. She was going to die in a field hospital, just like her father. All that
vivimancy just to run into the same fate.
She closed her eyes, struggling to stay calm as feeling crept back over
her. She could sense her fingers. Toes. Her spine was intact at least.
She kept trying to breathe, but she wanted to scream with every
hitch of her lungs. It was worse than a knife wound; the agony seemed
to radiate outwards, seething like cracks through every rib. It consumed
the whole of her consciousness.
Get up. You have to get up.
She could barely make herself move. She looked towards the road
again. There was just a hole. The road was gone, but there were still
people in the hospital.
She managed to get her hand up and peel the mask off. She didn't
think that lung damage from dust mattered anymore.
The air was so much cooler. She managed a half breath.
She couldn't die.
She fought to her feet, managing shallow, panting breaths, and
nearly fainted when she got upright. Every movement was agony. The
need to breathe warred with the excruciating misery of forcing her ribs
and lungs to shift. She bit down on her lip as she tried to shuffle to-
wards the doors. One step at a time.
Her lungs kept agitating her with the urge to cough, but she fought
it back. Pain exploded through her each time, bright white, so searing
she'd waver, unable to see.
If she coughed, she would faint, and she'd be dead before she re-
gained consciousness.
She would not die. She would wait. Someone would come back and
find her. Maier could operate. Shiseo would work night and day to find
the right chelator, and she would make herself recover quickly.
She'd promised Kaine that she was safe, that nothing would happen
to her. She could not die.
She made it through the doors. There was a tray with a few discarded
instruments and bottles on it. She fumbled through them until she
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740 • SenLinYu
found a vial of laudanum.
She managed to unscrew the lid and forced down a sip of the tongue-
biting contents.
Not too much. She had to stay lucid. She searched the rest of the
supplies, looking for something, a stimulant to keep herself going.
She'd kill for a cough suppressant.
She forced herself to look down at her chest. She was wearing so
many layers, she couldn't see exactly where the shrapnel went in to tell
if it was nullium dissolving into her blood or just a stray piece of the
lorry.
She wanted to pull it out but knew better. If it had punctured her
heart or aorta, she'd bleed to death in seconds. It might be keeping her
alive.
Someone would come. She could wait until a lorry came back.
She made herself keep moving, because it was easier than sitting,
feeling the injury.
She checked the remaining patients. The nearest was a boy who'd
been cut out of his armour. He was missing an arm. There was an intra-
venous drip in his remaining arm, but there was so much blood pooled
beneath him. Reaching feebly for a pulse and finding none, she drew his
eyes closed and moved on.
Most were dead, several unresponsive; only a few were still conscious.
She checked all of them, noting where they were.
The laudanum had managed to numb her enough that she could
move a little easier.
"Mum . . . ?" one of soldiers moaned, catching her wrist as she passed.
Pain ripped through her chest and up her spine, shattering the relief.
Her legs nearly gave out, and she bit down on her tongue so hard her
mouth flooded with blood.
His helmet was crushed around his skull. Through the openings, one
side of his face was mangled. There was thick blood oozing from his
head onto the pallet underneath him.
"Mum . . ." he said.
"She'll be here soon."
He wouldn't let go of her wrist. He tugged again. Her vision flashed
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Alchemised • 741
white.
"Mum . . . sorry. Forgot to say goodbye. Sorry."
"It's all right, d-don't worry," she said.
His fingers relaxed enough for her to slip her hand free. She looked
down.
He was dead.
She took another sip of laudanum. It was growing harder and harder
to keep from coughing. She couldn't tell if the blood in her mouth was
from her lungs or her tongue.
She tried to listen for any sound of the lorries. The sounds of fighting
were fading. She headed for the doors.
She was growing increasingly certain that her injury was beyond the
Resistance's means. The bone and potential heart damage would require
extensive manual surgery beyond what Maier could manage without
alchemy. One of her lungs was likely punctured. She'd need at least two
surgeons, possibly three.
If triage protocols were in place, which they would be given the mass
injuries, no one except Luc or Sebastian would qualify for three sur-
geons.
She leaned her head against the wall.
Even with a successful surgery, her likelihood of survival would be
low. She'd be at high risk of complications and infection, a drain on
their limited supplies. The hospital would save far more people if they
passed her over. Any half-rate medical assessment would realise that.
Whether the lorries arrived or not, she was going to die. She looked
down at her hand, wishing she had the resonance to send a pulse code
to Kaine. Something to tell him she was sorry. That she had tried.
The edge of her vision was beginning to fade, unravelling like fabric
slowly shrinking smaller and smaller.
When she blinked, there was someone standing in front of her. Her
mind stumbled through the fog of pain before realising it was a necro-
thrall. It stood studying her as if confused about whether she was dead
or alive.
Her lungs seized, trying to force a cough, to clear the fluid inside her
chest. A rasping whimper escaped her as she tried to hold it back.
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742 • SenLinYu
Movement caught her eye. There were more necrothralls. The sounds
of fighting had ceased. Althorne and his men had died or fallen back.
The necrothralls were coming for the hospital. For the dead and the
survivors.
She couldn't let them take the survivors.
She stepped back, trying to find a scalpel, something sharp, some-
thing that would be quick and painless. She wouldn't let them be taken
to West Port. All she could find were filthy bandages and empty bottles
of medicine. She needed one scalpel.
Something under her clothes bumped against her leg. It took her a
moment to remember what was there. The obsidian. She been holding
it when the bomb went off; she'd shoved it in her pocket without think-
ing.
She fumbled for it and slit her finger open. The piece must have
shattered in the explosion, but it was sharp at least.
She was too slow. The necrothralls were already inside. There were
bodies by the door, and several necrothralls had stopped there, dragging
them away, while the rest moved deeper.
They weren't moving fast, but they were faster than Helena. They
reached the survivors before she did.
"No!" Helena rasped out, her raised voice splitting her chest.
One of the necrothralls moved towards her. She tried to fend it off.
All she had was the obsidian. She slashed at the necrothrall with it. The
soft, deteriorating skin split easily on contact, and then the tip hit bone.
She'd used barely any force, but that pressure alone was enough pain
that her legs failed her.
When her head cleared, she was on the ground—and so was the
necrothrall.
Blood dripped from her fingers where she was gripping the obsidian,
the edges of the black glass buried in her skin. There were still so many
necrothralls.
They moved towards her, bodies blotting out the reddish light filter-
ing through the door. Wind fluttered across her face.
Her eyes slid shut.
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Alchemised • 743
When she tried to open her eyes again, they were heavy, as if her
lashes had tangled. When she tried to move—her body wouldn't.
She tore her eyes open. There was glaring light, and everything was
blurred until she found a vague dark shape near her. She recoiled, then
squinted.
Kaine was standing beside her, pale and wide-eyed, his face impos-
sibly haggard.
"You . . ."
The word emerged cracked and croaking. Her tongue was thick and
dry, as if she hadn't touched water in days. She couldn't feel anything
below her neck.
She tried to look down but couldn't move.
She was paralysed.
Her eyes crossed as she tried to look down her body. All she could
make out was an intravenous drip in her arm. When she squinted, she
could see saline and other things in upended glass vials all running
down into the tube.
"What?" she asked. The words crackled in her throat and slurred
across her tongue. "What'd you do . . . ?"
"What did I do?" Kaine repeated slowly. "I saved your life."
He was breathing unsteadily. "Crowther, with his endless demands,
has the High Necromancer taking a myriad of precautionary measures.
Only three people knew about that bombing before it happened. And I
wasn't one of them. When I got word, I thought I was being paranoid
sending my thralls in. Surely, they'd understand that I can't stop every
fucking thing. This was for my peace of mind, I told myself. To see the
fallout, so I'd know how bad things were. You wouldn't be there, of
course. I told myself you wouldn't be there, you'd be safe in Headquar-
ters, because that is the damned deal. Isn't that what you promised? That
they wouldn't punish you? I knew— I told you this would happen—"
His voice broke.
"Wasn't . . . Crowth—" Speaking moistened her tongue at least, but
she was dying for water. Her mind was still foggy. She couldn't under-
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744 • SenLinYu
stand how she was there.
"Don't defend them!" Kaine looked feral with rage. "Do you have any
idea how close you came to dying? It took an entire medical team to
keep you alive. Why would they leave you alone in that fucking hospital
if they weren't trying to kill you?"
"Were . . . evacuating," she said slowly, pacing her words, her tongue
gradually complying.
"Alone?"
"I was—in charge." She felt eerily lucid. "Soldiers—didn't deserve to
die alone."
She tried to get up. She felt as if she'd be able to think more clearly
if she could just sit up for a minute and figure out what had happened
to her.
"Well, I didn't see anyone there while you were dying."
She wasn't sure why she was trying to reason with him, but she
wanted him to calm down so that she could reorient herself.
"It's a war, Kaine. People die. Given your personal death toll, you
should know that better than anyone else. You know that I'm not going
to prioritise my survival over everyone else's."
He stared at her for a long terrible moment, the rage stark on his
face. "Well, you should." He was suddenly ice-cold, and his eyes gleamed
so silver that they were almost white. "Because I have warned you, if
something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order of the
Eternal Flame. That isn't a threat, it's a promise. Consider your life as
much a necessity to the survival of the Resistance as Holdfast's. If you
die, I will kill every single one of them. Given that the risk to their lives
is the only way to make you value your own."
Helena stared at him, dumb with shock that slowly twisted into rage.
"How dare you? How— dare you!" Her voice rose so high, it cracked.
If she could have moved, she would have thrown herself at him and
tried to beat him to death with her bare hands. She wanted to scream at
him.
But beyond her rage was an even greater sense of horror at what this
meant. He'd become the very threat that Crowther had feared. Once he
would have been loyal to them for the sake of avenging his mother, but
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Alchemised • 745
Helena had usurped that, given him a new and uncontrollable source of
obsessiveness and rage.
She closed her eyes, unable to look at him, and the ouroboros flashed
through her mind, that image of endless self-annihilation. A dragon
forever consuming itself.
She gave a rasping sob that rattled her lungs violently, as she fought
to breath the room went still.
The surface beneath her shifted. Fingers tucked a stray curl behind
her ear before brushing across her cheek.
"I know your face too well." He sighed. "You're thinking you'll have
to kill me now, aren't you? That I'm too much of a liability."
She said nothing, refusing to open her eyes.
"Would you really do it?"
She looked at him. "You know—you know I will not choose you at
the price of everyone. You know what will happen if the Resistance
loses. I can't choose you. It wouldn't even save you if I did."
He looked away then. "You'd never forgive yourself."
Her jaw trembled. "No. I wouldn't—" Her throat grew thick. She
struggled to swallow, unable to lift her head. "But it wouldn't be the first
unforgivable thing I've done. What's one more line for the history
books?"
He was silent for a long time.
"What will you do when I'm gone?" he asked as if that was all that
mattered.
"I'm sure you can imagine."
The ceiling blurred at the thought of a world where Kaine was gone
and she was alone, with no one to blame but herself.
She hated this war. She had thought she could do anything. That she
was strong enough for it. That there would be no limit to what she was
willing to do or endure. Apparently, Kaine had become her limit.
She couldn't imagine herself without him. She didn't think she'd
even exist anymore.
She gave a choking gasp, struggling for air, lungs rattling.
Suddenly Kaine was over her, holding her face in his hands, tilting
her head so she could breathe. That was all the embrace possible.
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746 • SenLinYu
"Just live, Helena." His voice was shaking. "That's all I'm asking you
to do for me."
Helena gave a low sob, lungs whistling as she fought to breathe. "I
can't promise that. You know I can't promise that. But I can't risk what
you'll do if I die."
He kissed her. She could taste the plea on his lips.
"I'm sorry," she kept saying again and again, "I'm sorry I did this to
you."
A harsh buzz broke the air. Kaine went rigid and jerked back with a
curse. Another buzz. Two long and two short. Each time the noise
came, the lights in the room dimmed, flickering ominously.
He looked around, his teeth gritted. "Fuck. I'm being called back to
the city." He stepped away but kept staring down at her. She could see
the calculation in his eyes as he seemed to hesitate over something. Fi-
nally an expression of despair flashed across his face.
"Davies," he said. His voice barely carried, and his eyes went out of
focus for a moment. "Come here."
The door behind him opened, and a woman entered. Helena didn't
know enough about servants' uniforms to place what she was, but she
recognised the name.
Enid Ferron's lady's maid stood beside Kaine, looking down at Hel-
ena with rheumy blue eyes. A faint whiff of something dry but organic
drifted into the room with her. She was dead but so expertly reani-
mated, she looked almost life-like.
Helena looked around the room and towards the window, realising
that she couldn't see any buildings, just sky and trees.
"Where are we?" she asked abruptly. She didn't even know how long
she'd been unconscious.
"Spirefell. My family's country estate," Kaine said, pulling on his
uniform, the black coat and cloak. "I'll explain more later. I have to go.
Don't be afraid of Davies. She won't hurt you."
Helena kept staring at the necrothrall. One of the servants who'd
died when Kaine became Undying, whose life was responsible for his
immortality and immutability. He'd reanimated her?
"I'm sorry," he was saying, "I thought I had more time to explain.
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Alchemised • 747
You'll be safe here. No one will find you. I'll be back as soon as I can.
"Davies, take care of her." He leaned over Helena one last time,
stroking her hair. "You're safe. I promise."
Then he was gone. She could hear something in the walls and floor
moving but couldn't see what it was as she was left paralysed, in the care
of a necrothrall.
She looked at it—her— again. Davies stood watching Helena, her
gaze vague but constant.
"Can I have water?" Helena finally asked.
Davies poured a cup of water from a pitcher on a table nearby and
then brought it over to Helena and helped her sip enough to wet her
mouth. It was bitter; Helena recognised the taste of laudanum.
She had no idea it was possible to reanimate necrothralls to this
degree. The woman seemed alive.
"You were Enid Ferron's lady's maid, weren't you?" Helena asked,
fighting the wave of exhaustion the drug brought upon her.
Davies nodded slowly as if she understood the question. Helena
struggled to focus.
"You've been here, all this time?"
Another nod. Davies mouthed a word silently. Kaine.
If that were true, it meant she'd been reanimated for nearly seven
years without showing any signs of decay. Helena hadn't known that
was even possible.
"Why? Why would he do that to you?"
If the necrothrall answered, Helena wasn't conscious enough to see
it.
She slipped in and out of lucidity, in more pain each time she came
awake. Davies was sitting in a chair beside her, knitting what appeared
to be socks. The numbness was wearing off. Pain was shifting from a
distant impression to a weight steadily bearing down harder and harder.
Her throat was bruised and raw inside; she must have been on a
breathing apparatus at some point.
When the pain grew oppressive enough to wake her again, she found
that Kaine had returned. He was standing beside her, replacing several
of the vials connected to the intravenous drip.
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748 • SenLinYu
"What happened to the medical team?" Helena asked, her tongue
thick and dry again. "The people you had save me. What did you do to
them?"
He stared down at her. The room was dark; his black uniform made
him blend into the shadows, but his pale hair and eyes almost glowed in
the darkness.
"Don't ask questions you don't want answers to."
"Did you kill them?" Her voice sharpened.
He flicked a switch, filling the room with dim orange light.
"No, I didn't kill them. An entire medical team turning up dead
would have raised questions. They think they saved a woman who died
under interrogation yesterday. And they do not care at all that they
spent hours saving you for the ostensible purpose of my torturing you
to death afterwards. They were proud to be of service. You are after all,
a terrorist, they said."
She knew he was trying to distract her. "So you would have killed
them but didn't because it would have raised inconvenient questions."
His eyes flashed. "Yes, I did all of this for convenience, which you
know I have so abundantly in my life with my two mutually exclusive
masters."
Guilt caught in Helena's throat like a stone. "I don't want you to kill
people because of me."
He gave a barking laugh. "What exactly is it that you think I do with
all my time? I kill people. I order other people to kill people. I train
people to kill people. I sabotage and undermine people so that they will
be killed, and I do it all because of you. Every word. Every life. Because
of you."
She gave a ragged gasp as the room tilted, swimming as the blood
drained from her head.
The viciousness in his expression vanished. "Wait. Helena, I didn't—"
"No," she said harshly. "Don't even try to take it back."
"I—" His voice turned soft. Pleading.
"No," she said again. "It's true. What you said is entirely true. Every-
thing you do is on my head, too. Every life . . ."
"Don't." He sat on the edge of the bed, picked up her right hand.
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Alchemised • 749
"Don't carry it. It's not yours. Stop trying to carry a whole damned war
on your shoulders."
"This is all my fault, though," she said. "I did this to you. I made you
like this. Someone should regret that, and you can't. But if I do—maybe
that will be enough to make you stop someday."
He looked away and said nothing. She watched his fingers move
across hers, wishing she could feel it.
"What's happening in the city?" she asked.
He was silent for a few seconds. "Althorne's dead. There were several
units trapped in one of the buildings; they got them out, but he died
during the retreat. From our estimates, the Resistance has lost at least
half their active forces. We retook the ports two days ago."
There was nowhere for the despair of that information to go but to
lance into her mind. No twisting horror in her gut; no sense of empti-
ness. She could not feel her body. She could only think.
"There has been considerable backlash to the bombing, though. They
didn't expect the dust to contaminate both islands. There's been panic
and outrage over the widespread loss of resonance, the hospitals are
overwhelmed with patients needing chelators, and the death toll for the
Resistance, while significant, has provided us almost no new necro-
thralls because Durant forgot that the nullification compound would
interfere with reanimation. They have to pump fresh blood into the
corpses to reanimate them. So I doubt it will happen again. At least not
at that scale."
A paltry source of comfort, but it was something.
"I don't know what to do," she finally said. "I can't ignore a threat to
the Eternal Flame."
He sighed, head dipping. "I was just angry."
"You're always angry, but you can't make threats like that or reduce a
war like this into a simplistic blame game. And you can't hold the Re-
sistance hostage to control me."
His shoulders slumped. "If you die, Helena, I'm done. I won't con-
tinue this. I'm tired."
He looked at her, and she could see the whole war in his eyes, the toll
that came from struggling with no end in sight, driven by a terror of
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750 • SenLinYu
what might happen if he ever stopped.
"I mean it. I won't kill them—but I will be done. You are my terms
of service. The contract is void if you die."
She managed to turn her head a little. "There is a life for you on the
other side of this war. You have the Stone. If Morrough dies, you might
be fine, and you'd be free. You could do—all sorts of things. Don't re-
duce your world to me."
His lip curled, a flash of teeth. "Oh, and do you have a list of post-war
plans that you've forgotten to mention?"
She averted her eyes. "Do as I say, not as I do."
He laced their fingers together as they lapsed into a silence as empty
as the future.
"You could— become a healer," she finally said, straining to feel the
sensation of his hand against hers.
A smile ghosted at the corner of his mouth. "I hadn't considered
that."
"You should. You have a talent for it—although your bedside man-
ner is terrible."
"It would be something to balance out that death toll of mine," he
said, not looking at her.
"I shouldn't have said that. It's not your fault."
He shook his head, staring at the wall. "Maybe that was true once,
but I believe I own it all now."
She swallowed, willing her fingers to move so she could squeeze his
hand. "You are so much more than what the war has done to you."
Her voice shook with conviction, but he still wouldn't look at her.
"You are," she said desperately. "Just—just like I am. There's more to
both of us—it's just waiting to get out. Someday, we'll leave all this be-
hind. Go far away, and you'll see. The two of us—I think we could."
He made no answer, but she dimly felt his fingers grip hers tighter.
"I promise—you'll see . . ." Her eyes began to droop.
"Go to sleep. You have a long recovery ahead of you."
She resisted, trying to stay awake. "How long have I been here?"
"Don't worry about that."
"How long?"
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Alchemised • 751
". . . it's been four days since the bombing."
Four days? Blood was suddenly pounding in her ears, and her lungs
rattled when she tried to breathe.
"Kaine— you have to get word to Crowther that I'm alive."
"Don't worry about them." His voice was hard.
"No, listen. You have to tell him."
He stroked her cheek. "Just rest."
She fought to move, needing him to understand. "No. Promise me.
Promise you'll send word. Make sure he knows that I'll come back."
If Crowther thought she was dead, he might decide that Kaine was
too much of a risk to keep alive.
"Promise me—promise you'll get word—"
"All right. I'll send word, I promise. Rest."
The throbbing pulse of blood in her head slowed, and she relaxed.
He tucked a curl behind her ear.
"You'll be here at least three weeks unless the nullium clears from
your blood before then."
"There's a chelator the Eternal Flame developed—"
He tapped the tip of her nose. "The Undying have chymists and are
also familiar with metal sequestering agents."
She rolled her eyes.
"You'll get your resonance back . . . but it will be a long time for you.
You had several shrapnel injuries, and you inhaled a significant amount
as well. It's hard to say how long it'll take. You'll have to recover the
old- fashioned way. Go to sleep. Loath as I am to admit it, the war will
still be here when you wake."
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CHAPTER 60
Junius 1787
Being injured was horrible. Helena was accustomed to the
efficiency of healing to circumvent the slowest and more unbearable
aspects of injuries, having to suddenly endure the natural speed of re-
covery was utter misery.
She spent much of the first week in drugged stupor, feverish with an
infection. When she finally grew lucid again, she found Kaine still be-
side her. He had a large stack of books and folios that he was flipping
through.
"What are you doing?" she asked after watching for a little while.
His eyes flicked up. "Studying human anatomy for my future career
as a healer," he said in a dry voice.
She knew that the real answer was that he would have to be her
healer once the nullium was cleared from her system, but she played
along. "We can open a practice together, like my parents did. Up on a
cliff. We'll be able to look out the windows and see the tides."
He raised an eyebrow. "Do I get any say about this future life of ours,
or are you making all the decisions?"
"Do you have ideas?"
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Alchemised • 753
There was a pause. "Can't say I do."
She drew a slow breath. She could move her fingers now. As her
fingers flexed, she realised her right hand was bandaged, the fingers
splinted, and she remembered the last moments in the field hospital.
"I almost forgot," she said. "I think I've discovered something in the
hospital."
He looked up.
"The obsidian I told you about. I had some in my pocket, when the
necrothralls came. I think—I think I severed a reanimation with it."
"Are you sure?"
She squinted, trying to remember more details, but all she remem-
bered was the red- orange light, and the pain. "Not entirely, but I think
we should test it again."
"Well, don't worry about that right now." He snapped his book shut
and came over to change the bandages.
She'd regained enough mobility that as he peeled off the gauze, she
lifted her head, determined to see. Running like a ragged seam down
the centre of her chest was a huge incision, sewn closed with black
thread and bone wire. The skin was swollen, yellow, and white and pink.
Helena had seen more wounds than she could count, watched in-
numerable people grieve over the loss of who they'd been before and
what their bodies had become. She knew all the things to say, the en-
couragement and reassurances, that it would be all right, that it would
get better.
Staring at the wound, she forgot all of it.
"My gods," she said, head dropping, her throat convulsing, too hor-
rified to keep looking.
"It'll heal. Give it time," he said quietly as he checked for signs of
infection.
She knew from treating Lila that she would scar. Even if she tried to
heal herself afterwards, organised all the matrices, there was a limited
timeframe for preventing scars, and something about nullium seemed
to have a mild keloid effect on the tissue.
She drew several sharp breaths.
She was lucky to be alive. A few scars were nothing compared with
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754 • SenLinYu
the injuries others in the Resistance would carry for life. She still had all
her limbs, both eyes and ears. Even all her teeth.
She was very lucky by any metric. What did a scar matter? It would
be fine.
She could feel Kaine watching her and forced herself to speak. "I
think your scars are prettier than mine," she finally said.
"I have a better healer."
It took three weeks just for the nullium in Helena's blood to reduce
enough that Kaine could use resonance to monitor her healing, al-
though actual transmutation was still far off.
Her own resonance was barely a hum in her veins.
Whenever Kaine was absent, Davies stayed with her. Helena's head
was finally clear enough to notice more of her surroundings.
The room was sterile. Almost bare. There was a bed, a towering
wardrobe, a desk, and a chair. Falcon Matias had more indulgent quar-
ters, and he was supposed to be an ascetic.
When she teased Kaine about it, he grimaced. "This is my room."
Helena fell silent, looking around again abashed. "Oh. I thought that
a country house would have bigger rooms."
He nodded. "There are larger ones. I moved in here because it was
closer to my mother's room, then never left."
"I'm sorry I brought you back," she said.
He shook his head. "You didn't. I come back to check on the ser-
vants."
She hesitated but then asked. "Are they all dead?"
He nodded.
"Why did you—?"
He looked away, his throat dipping as he rubbed his hands together.
"It was just after. I don't remember everything. I could feel them scream-
ing inside me. I found their bodies piled up in a corner like discarded
rags. They were still warm. I'd never—I didn't even realise what I was
doing. I was trying to put them back."
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Alchemised • 755
"So they're— them?"
He shook his head. "I don't know what they are. I like to think I was
able to put a part of them back, that it's why it got easier after that, but
it's more likely that they act like themselves because I want them to. I
just—can't seem to let go."
When Helena was finally able to have a pillow, Davies would prop
up books for her to read during the hours when Kaine was absent. She
was curious about the kind of library that existed at Spirefell, but Da-
vies unfortunately did not seem to be literate, at least not anymore. The
books Helena received were largely at random. One day, she received an
encyclopaedia of butterfly species, the next a florilegium of Cetus's ear-
liest writings.
Because "Cetus" had written thousands of alchemical texts and let-