Page 12 of Alchemised

For an instant she thought he must be a corpse, like Crowther’s body at Central, but the silver-grey eyes that met hers were sharp, the sclera white, pupils black, no darkened veins anywhere beneath his skin. There were no veins visible at all, as if his blood were quicksilver.

“The last member of the Order of the Eternal Flame for you, High Reeve,” Stroud said, as if presenting him with a medal. “I believe you knew each other at the Alchemy Institute.”

His eerie silver eyes flicked away. “Hardly.”

“I know you’ve made preparations,” Stroud said, seating herself, “but I wouldn’t worry much; she has no training or combat experience to speak of. She’ll be quite manageable for you.”

He looked at Helena again, no emotion on his face, but there was a predatory calculation in his eyes, like a wolf. “I’m sure.”

Stroud cleared her throat, seeming uncomfortable with Ferron’s terseness.

“Now then. The High Necromancer wishes to have results before the winter solstice. Per his commands, you’re to perform the temporary transference method upon her as frequently as possible to achieve singularity without extinguishing her soul.

Once that is accomplished and you’ve accustomed yourself to her mind, I believe that reversing the transmutations of her memory should be a small matter for you.

You may examine what’s concealed, and when it’s done, I’ll come to retrieve her.

The High Necromancer intends to extract the memories as well. ”

Ferron gave an idle nod.

“I’m sure you know, but this is an absolute priority. All other obligations should be considered secondary until completion.”

The girl in green made an abrupt sound, and all her perfect ringlets trembled.

“You mean, we really have to keep her?” she burst out.

“I just don’t see how it’s fair. She’s not even Paladian.

Why can’t she stay at the Outpost with the rest of them?

Why are we keeping her here? I had all these parties planned this season.

I’ve already had to cancel three dinners and make up excuses about why.

No one asked me if I wanted a prisoner.” Her voice was fluting with a note of tearful petulance.

“And what is she wearing? If anyone sees her, it’ll be all anyone talks about. ”

“Shut up, Aurelia,” Ferron said, his voice like ice, not even bothering to look over.

“I—wasn’t sure what clothes would be appropriate,” Stroud said, her voice tight with embarrassment. “Of course, you don’t have to keep her in that. It was simply what was on hand.”

The windows rattled, and a low meandering howl of wind floated through the house. Stroud jumped. Ferron and Aurelia didn’t seem to notice it.

“It’s hardly a concern,” Ferron said. “I’m sure we’ll find something for her to wear. Aurelia has so much.”

Aurelia’s eyes went wide. “You want me to give her my clothes?”

“We don’t want anyone mistaking her for staff. Unless you prefer I have something made?”

Aurelia gave a horrified gasp, as if the idea were more scandalous than keeping a prisoner or running a house with dead servants.

“Excellent,” Stroud said in a bright voice as everyone pretended not to notice that Aurelia was on the verge of spontaneous combustion. “Now then, you’re free to examine her, High Reeve. She’s all yours.” She gestured towards Helena.

Ferron looked at Helena without moving. “Here?”

“Just a preliminary exam, to see if you have questions before I go. Do you—prefer privacy?”

“No. You’re welcome to watch.” He stepped towards Helena. He was all in black, dressed in city clothes. His coat and waistcoat were intricately detailed with black embroidery that only showed when it caught the light. At his throat, he wore a pristine white cravat.

Helena had never seen a guild alchemist wearing so little metal. Alchemists tended to keep metal everywhere: as jewellery, and woven into their clothes, walking sticks, weapons. Unusual alchemists like pyromancers always wore their ignition rings unless they were forced to remove them.

Aurelia was covered in metal, but not Ferron.

He pulled off a black glove, revealing a pale, long-fingered hand.

A vivimancer, Grace had said. Of course he didn’t need metal.

Helena tried to flinch back, all too familiar with the danger of Stroud’s grasping fingers, but when she tried to move, she couldn’t.

Without Ferron touching her, a frisson of resonance fine as spider silk had insinuated itself through her body, so subtle she hadn’t felt it.

Now it held her fast. It wasn’t like Morrough’s; it didn’t fill the air until everything hummed.

If she hadn’t tried to move, she wouldn’t have realised it was there.

Ferron’s eyes gleamed, as if he could feel her struggling. His index finger barely touched her temple, and then she truly felt his resonance, vivid as a live wire.

Sharp and finely honed, it sank through her skull. The room and Ferron all vanished as her memories sprang up before her eyes like a zoetrope.

The drive to Spirefell. Penny. Stroud’s interrogations.

The lich in the Tower wearing Crowther’s body.

The discussions of how best to extract the memories from Helena’s mind.

Shiseo emerging from the darkness with his little case and awl.

As Ferron went further back, the memories dimmed, flashing by as though her mind were a book he was flipping through to see if there was anything of interest inside.

He went all the way back to the stasis and the nothing that went on and on and on, then even further to the Tower and blood and the years in the hospital.

She hadn’t realised how small and repetitive her life was until she experienced it being skimmed through like that.

When it stopped, Helena’s mind was reeling. Ferron’s touch remained a moment longer, and she could feel his resonance through her brain, turning her vision red.

Finally, his hand dropped away and he stood there, staring at her.

“Well,” he said at last.

“Extraordinary, isn’t it?” Stroud said from somewhere behind him.

“Quite,” he said, his gaze splinter-sharp. He raised an eyebrow, still looking at Helena. “The war is over. What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours?”

She met his stare without flinching.

Luc. She was protecting Luc.

“Holdfast is dead,” he said sharply, as if he’d seen the answer in her eyes. “The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.”

He turned away, his expression venomous.

“Anything else?” he asked Stroud.

She shook her head.

The paralysis on Helena vanished. She’d been fighting it, and it happened so suddenly her knees gave out. She dropped, trying to catch herself, and the weight of her body slammed into her hands. Tearing pain exploded through her wrists, white-hot fire searing all the way to her shoulders.

She hit the floor.

Aurelia stifled a laugh.

“You met with Shiseo and went over everything several times before he left, I believe,” she heard Stroud saying. “After the first session, I’ll send someone for appraisal, so we can establish a timeline for results.”

“Yes, this plan has all been laid out for me in excruciating detail,” Ferron said tonelessly. “I’ll get it done. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

He stepped over Helena’s body and walked out of the room without a backwards glance.

Helena tried to sit up. Without use of her hands, she had to roll carefully onto her side and use her elbows, cradling her wrists protectively near her chest.

When she finally looked up, Stroud had gone, and Aurelia was standing impatiently a few feet away. The short staff was clasped in her hands.

“Get off the floor,” she said. “I’m to show you your room.”

Helena stood and followed Aurelia warily back into the foyer. Her wrists were throbbing. The necrothrall from Central was still there and shadowed them as Aurelia led the way down a hallway, up a flight of stairs, through a series of rooms, and into another hallway.

It was darker there. A different wing based on the angle of the light. Most of the windows were heavily draped, the furniture shrouded with dustcloths.

“To be clear, just because we have to keep you doesn’t mean I want to see you,” Aurelia said, walking quickly.

Helena already felt short of breath from the stairs and could barely keep up.

“I understand those bracelets keep you from using alchemy. Although that hardly matters here. The Ferrons built this house with pure iron, and there’s a reason I was chosen as Kaine Ferron’s wife.”

Aurelia paused and looked back at Helena, lifting one hand. Her wrist swished dramatically, and the alchemy rings decorating her fingers transformed, lengthening into knives that made her fingers look spider-like.

Helena watched the transmutation with trained interest. Natural iron resonance was considered somewhat rare among alchemists—though not as unusual as gold resonance or pyromancy.

Raw iron was naturally intractable, to the point of being considered generally inert.

Most alchemists couldn’t transmute iron without having it repeatedly exposed to lumithium emanations in an Athanor Furnace, and even then they fared better with steel than iron alone.

Aurelia’s transmutational work was quick and flashy.

In class, she would have been docked for excess movement and imperfect iron distribution, but the ease with which she’d transformed her rings meant she had an extremely high degree of iron resonance, and if the house was iron, that meant Aurelia could wield it like a weapon, too.

Helena looked down, noticing then the wrought iron running through the floor and decorating the walls.

“We don’t use this wing,” Aurelia said, continuing down the hall.

Her rings were pretty bands around her fingers once more.

“I don’t want you seen, particularly when I have guests.

Stay out of the way unless you’re sent for.

The thralls all have instructions to keep an eye on you, so we’ll know if you cause problems.”

Aurelia stopped, setting the short staff on one of the iron bars in the floor and giving it a little twist. The iron shifted with a groan, and a door, heavily decorated with more iron, swung open.

It was a large room with two long windows and a canopied bed between them. There was a single wing-backed chair next to one window and an ornate table beside it. A large wardrobe sat against the far wall, a heavy rug covering most of the floor.

There was nothing on the walls except a clock too high to reach, but it was all clean and smelled freshly aired out.

Helena stepped into the room, taking it in carefully.

“Meals will be sent,” Aurelia said, and the door closed behind her.

It was only when she was alone that it struck Helena as odd that Aurelia had escorted her.

Perhaps the Ferrons weren’t as wealthy as their home would make them seem.

The house did appear understaffed. Their butler was a corpse—perhaps all the servants were.

If they were desperate for money, that would explain why they had no choice but to keep Helena, and why Ferron spent his time hunting down Resistance fighters rather than managing his family’s guild and factories.

She remembered the Ferrons being among the wealthiest families in Paladia. They’d invented industrial steel manufacturing, allowing them to monopolise more than just Paladia’s steel industry. Most neighbouring countries had sourced from the Ferrons, too.

Clearly their fortunes must have turned if their house was in a condition like this.

She went to the nearest window. There was a radiator bolted beneath it, and the window was latticed with wrought iron and locked tight. No jumping, then.

She touched the iron with a fingertip and felt nothing. No connection to the cold metal, just that dead, empty feeling emanating through her wrist.

She pressed the length of her hand against it, bitterly missing her resonance. The world she’d known was always full of energy, humming with power that she’d been attuned to since birth.

Now everything was still. The constant sense of inertia was disorienting.

Peering through the paned glass, she saw wilderness and mountains.

She reconsidered her plans. If the necrothralls were there to watch her, they’d likely been commanded to keep her from killing herself.

She drummed her fingers on the windowsill, ignoring the little shocks of pain it sent up her arm.

Ferron, unfortunately, was not the stupid, deluded patriarch she’d hoped for.

His resonance was like Morrough’s, beyond anything she’d known was possible, but what worried her most was the way he’d gone through her memory. Morrough had done something similar, but that mental violation had been brutal and haphazard; Ferron had been surgical.

She’d assumed his quick kills were a sign of impulsiveness, but there’d be no need to keep prisoners if he could look inside their minds and take the answers.

How could she outwit someone like that? Could he see memories alone or her thoughts, too?

She turned from the window, surveying the room, wondering if his strange appearance was an effect of his abilities.

The Undying didn’t change after their ascendance. It was a part of the “gift.” Unless their bodies were so destroyed that they became liches, they were immutable. They could lose entire limbs and grow them back.

What would make Ferron look like that?

He seemed—distilled. As though he’d been taken and sublimated until all that was left was an essence—something deathly cold and gleaming. The High Reeve.

Not a person, but a weapon.

Well, Helena would be sure to treat him as one.