Page 111 of Alchemised

Helena closed her eyes as she fought to stay calm, trying to will Lila to survive, because this time she could not make her do it.

“Move her into the operating theatre,” Pace said. “I’m sure Maier will help as much as he can. We’ll need medics and nurses for support. I’ll brief them. You keep her stable.”

It had been only a handful of times that Helena had assisted her father with surgery. Before the massacre.

Observant with a good head in a crisis, he’d said. But that was a long time ago.

Handing over surgical instruments was very different from perform ing surgery without resonance. No one was prepared. The nullium they’d been familiar with only interfered when they worked with it directly. This was much more diffuse.

When Lila was sedated, Matron Pace used a long pair of clamps to reach into the puncture just above Lila’s collarbone and pull out a long, rusting spike.

It was fragile, degrading already due to the unstable fusion.

Shards kept breaking off, forcing Pace to reach in over and over, removing them piece by piece.

Helena could feel through her resonance that even with the bulk of the spike removed, there were shards dissolving into Lila’s blood. The nullium was spreading through her body like a fog, thicker and more impenetrable with every passing moment.

The fragility of the nullium was both a gift and a curse.

It had taken the path of least resistance.

There was a small puncture in Lila’s lung, but her heart was not damaged, nor her oesophagus.

It had stayed within the cavity. But the pieces were everywhere, and the alloy was so unstable that it was rapidly dissolving.

Pace wiped her forehead with a cloth. “We’re going to need to do a thoracotomy to get the pieces out. Is she stable enough?”

An alchemical surgeon like Maier could normally perform a thoracotomy without needing to open a patient. It only needed incisions large enough to get slender tools inside; with training and resonance, their instruments were an extension of their fingers and senses.

Helena held back her resonance, using ordinary touch to check Lila’s vital signs, because it was easier than trying to parse all the interference. “She’s holding on.”

They made an incision between Lila’s ribs, using makeshift retractors to pry the bones apart so they could reach all the remaining shards.

The pieces varied in size and crumbled if they weren’t picked out carefully enough.

There were little cuts and grooves in Lila’s lungs and heart where shards had nicked her—wounds that could be easily repaired if Helena could use her resonance but were laborious and dangerous now, each requiring manual sutures.

The procedure was all unfamiliar, and they were racing against time.

The longer the nullium had to break down and distribute into Lila’s blood, the greater the likelihood that she might die from the metal toxicity.

The surgery was pushing her body to its utmost limits, and Lila had to survive on her own.

Helena manually siphoned the blood, keeping Lila’s heart beating as Pace worked. A nurse had taken the larger shards to Shiseo to analyse and synthesise the sequestering agent, but that treatment was hours away.

It was possible that until they managed to purge the metal from Lila’s bloodstream, they would be unable to use any kind of resonance on her.

“A thoracic lavage next,” Pace said at last, setting down her tools. Her eyes were bloodshot from strain by the time they finished.

Maier took over the sutures. His stitches were beautifully neat, but he looked shaken as he worked.

Helena looked up and found it was growing dark outside. “I should check on Soren.”

She felt so strange as she washed her hands. She’d barely used her resonance, but the pressure of the last several hours had her head throbbing. Stepping out of the operating theatre, she found most of the hospital crowded around one bed.

Soren was awake and propped up. All the privacy curtains had been pushed aside, and at the forefront of the people surrounding him was Ilva.

Soren’s arm was in splints, and bandages covered half his face. He kept shaking his head. “I don’t—remember. It happened so fast.”

“Did you recognise anyone? Even imagine that you saw a face?” Ilva said, grasping Soren’s wrist.

“I don’t know,” Soren said again, his voice straining.

“There was—an explosion. Something hit me. Might have been out seconds or minutes. When I got up, I couldn’t see.

Luc was gone, and Lila was on the ground, bleeding out.

She kept saying, Told him to run. I didn’t know where to look—so I came back. ”

“There was no warning?” The questions seemed to be exploding from Ilva. She was visibly agitated. “No signs at all? Who was leading the unit?”

“I—” Soren’s expression twisted, and he seemed to struggle to remember.

“I always said it was a mistake, allowing a female paladin,” Matias said.

“If I had been Falcon at the time, I would never have allowed such a violation of tradition to be entertained. I warned you, Ilva, Luc was partial to her, but no: Lila Bayard was too exceptional to separate from him. Now look what’s happened. ”

“Shut your mouth!” Ilva snarled over her shoulder at Matias, her fingers still digging into Soren’s wrist. Then she turned back and shook him. “Did she say Luc surrendered himself? Did he hand himself over because of Lila?”

“I don’t know,” Soren half whispered.

Elain was standing near Soren’s bed, too awed by the number of Eternal Flame members currently flanking the bed to interfere.

“Pardon,” Helena said in a curt voice, and she pushed herself through the crowd. “Soren Bayard has a head injury. It’s inadvisable to stress him.”

Everyone turned to look at her.

“Is Lila awake? Can she answer questions?” Ilva said, instantly rising to her feet.

Helena shook her head sharply. “She is not available for anything. We performed an extensive manual surgery to remove a spike of nullium that she’d been stabbed with, but the alloy deteriorated and distributed through her bloodstream, which will interfere with anything involving resonance until it’s removed. ”

“How long will that take?” The panic on Ilva’s face was clear.

Helena shook her head. “We have her under anaesthesia right now, but we’re working blind. She may wake in the next few hours, or it could take days. Lila is very strong, but this will still be harder on her than past injuries. Nothing’s certain yet.”

Soren had slumped back and looked as if he was on the verge of a panic attack, but Ilva drew herself up like a viper.

“I thought you had prepared for this eventuality,” Ilva said. “What have you all been doing?”

Helena’s jaw tensed. Why was it always the hospital’s fault when things went wrong?

If Helena had come out and said that surgery was a success and Lila was already getting out of bed, they’d all be off to the perihelion to offer Sol flames of thanksgiving.

But bad news was always the hospital’s fault.

How nice it must be, to be a god.

“The alloy has been altered, and the interference is much more intense. Manual procedures are not simple, especially in a hospital where only two people have any experience performing them. If you want the hospital prepared to perform manual surgery, the Falcon will need to approve the cadavers for practice, as we requested several months ago.”

Matias coughed as if he’d swallowed something the wrong way and suddenly stopped looking like he wanted to be present.

Ilva was gripping her cane but looked ready to topple. It was as if Luc’s loss had ripped the ground out from beneath her.

“Examine him, then,” Ilva said, moving unsteadily away from Soren’s bed. “There will be a Council meeting in an hour. I want full reports on both the Bayards.”

Everyone filed out. Helena glared and jerked her head, indicating that Elain put the privacy curtains back as she sat down next to Soren.

He was leaning back amid the pillows which had propped him up, covered in newly healed cuts. She could tell, as soon as her resonance touched him, that he’d lost his right eye. Whatever had hit him had fractured the socket and crushed it.

Her fingers trembled.

“She’s never going to forgive me,” he said, his voice a near whisper.

Helena didn’t know if he was referring to Ilva or Lila.

She squeezed his hand. “If you’d gone after Luc in this state, all three of you might be dead. That wouldn’t have been any help. I’m sure there’s more people looking for him because you came back.”

Elain had done well with her healing. He’d had several broken bones, including the same arm he’d shattered just a few weeks ago. It hadn’t fully healed, and it was likely to have lingering issues now.

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Soren asked.

Helena’s heart caught. She couldn’t think of any reason the Undying wouldn’t immediately kill Luc.

“Until we know he’s dead, he’s still alive. And we’re going to get him back,” she said, forcing her voice to sound hopeful. “Stop worrying now. I need to check your head.”

He had a concussion, but his eye and brow bone had absorbed most of the blow. All her visits to Titus had made her more familiar with brains; she felt as if she understood them better and could at least diagnose accurately, rather than shying away.

Elain hadn’t known what to do with the destroyed eye and had left it, just wrapping gauze over it and repairing only the bone.

“Soren, your right eye’s—”

“I know,” he said brusquely, as if it didn’t matter. “I can still fight, though, right?”

Her hands stilled. “You’ve broken your arm and lost half your range of vision. That’s going to require adapting. You’re going to be vulnerable. You won’t see things from the right.”

“I’ll just turn my head,” he said in a flat voice. “Handy thing, necks.”

She sighed. “You’re not going back out. Not for weeks at least.”