Page 127 of Alchemised

“What were you supposed to do?” he repeated slowly, standing.

“You were supposed to stay in Headquarters. You have one job, Marino, and that is to stay alive and intact so that Ferron can have his weekly proof of life. But it seems I have expected too much of your skills of deduction, so let me be crystal-clear: Unless you are liaising, you will not set foot outside of Headquarters ever again. The only reason I am not having you thrown in prison to stand trial for necromancy is because you now exist to keep Ferron in line.”

Helena’s throat closed. “It was your plan. I was working with what I had.”

Crowther’s eyes bulged. “My plan?”

“It was your informant from the hospital who gave Soren all the information. Where else would Purnell—”

Before she could finish the question, the door burst open, and a boy flew into the room.

“Where’s Sofia? I tried to find her, but no one will talk to me. Where is she?”

It was Ivy, her face dirty, hair tucked up in a cap.

Crowther’s gaze slid to Helena. “Marino, perhaps you’d like to tell Ivy here where her older sister, Sofia Purnell, is?”

Ivy turned, and Helena noticed then the resemblance between the hospital orderly and Crowther’s little protégée. A few years apart, different colouring, and Ivy’s features were sharp and foxlike where Sofia was soft. But as she looked, Helena could see the likeness.

“Your sister?” Helena said, her voice straining. “Sofia was your sister?”

Beneath the dirt, all colour drained from Ivy’s face.

“Sofia was part of the rescue team that saved Luc. She showed us the route through the tunnels to the prison, but during the escape, she was caught in the flood current. I thought—I thought”—Helena looked at Crowther—“you sent her. You didn’t send her?”

Ivy stared at Helena for a moment and then screamed. Helena had never heard such a sound from anyone. It exploded out of the girl, so sharp it felt as though the lightbulbs might shatter. White rage swept across Ivy’s face.

Helena braced herself, but Ivy whirled on Crowther. “You promised to protect her if I did everything you said! She wasn’t supposed to work for you. She was just supposed to be safe!”

She lunged at him, going right over the desk, as if she intended to claw his eyes out, but before her fingers reached him, a burst of flames materialised and slammed her into the wall. Ivy hit the floor, and books toppled from the shelves onto her, catching fire as they rained down.

Crowther had moved, darting like a cat. His years of combat experience showing as he closed in on Ivy.

“I never told her about tunnels or waterways, or any prison,” Crowther said as his hand clenched in a fist, the fire vanishing.

“If she knew that information, it was from your indiscretion. I warned you to tell her nothing, but you had to talk about all the ways you could travel through the city unseen. Are you glad you impressed her now? I’m sure you made it sound so easy. ”

Helena expected Ivy to spring up, but the girl just stayed there on the floor.

“I wanted her to know the ways out. I showed her the map and told her about the prison so she wouldn’t go that way,” Ivy said, her voice a whimpering sob.

“If you had listened to me, she’d be alive,” Crowther said, his voice callous. “I upheld my end of the deal; none of this is my fault.” He kicked her. “Now get out of my sight. If Lucien Holdfast had been killed in that ridiculous rescue, I would have blamed you. ”

Ivy picked herself up off the floor without a word, but as she slipped through the door, she looked back for an instant, and there was murder in her eyes.

When she was gone, Crowther stepped over and pulled out a radio from inside his desk, holding the transceiver up as it crackled to life. Helena recognised the voice of the guard. One of the higher-ups.

The string of jargon that Crowther muttered was nearly incomprehensible, but Helena did pick up two phrases: “extremely dangerous” and “neutralised.”

He set the transceiver down and looked around his charred office.

“Is that really necessary?” Helena asked.

Crowther looked up. “You’ve seen what she’s capable of. Without her sister keeping her in check, Ivy is of no use. Bear in mind, that rule applies to Ferron as well.”

His eyes raked over her in disgust, as if he could see every place Kaine had touched her. “I would strongly advise keeping yourself alive, Marino.”

W HEN H ELENA SAW W AGNER, HE smiled at her, but all she could think of was the terror in Sofia’s face as he shoved her towards the necrothralls.

A translator had been found, a rheumy old man named Hotten who worked in the kitchens. His son had been a graduate of the Alchemy Institute and died early in the war.

“Now then,” Crowther said as they entered the cell. All his anger had vanished, and he was almost convincingly convivial. “Why are you so important?”

Hotten translated. Hevgotian was a low West dialect that had a folky cadence and very round-sounding words. Wagner gave a few long-winded answers that Hotten summarised after trying and failing to keep up.

“He knew Morrough in Hevgoss. Morrough was given a prison unit, sector four criminals. Wagner was a guard,” Hotten translated slowly.

The only thing Hevgoss liked more than expansionist war was their prison population.

It was vast, multigenerational, and the source of their labour force and the bulk of their military.

Sector four criminals were usually political prisoners, sentenced to four generations of imprisonment, lifetime after lifetime of indentured servitude that only their great-great-grandchildren would have a chance of escaping.

Labour sentences were passed down for almost any infraction, lasting anywhere from days to generations.

Much of their low-ranked military was composed of sector one and two criminals, who were promised pardons in exchange for a successful military record.

Whenever there were labour shortages, or rumours of political or economic instability within the country, Hevgoss had a habit of going to war, stretching their borders to encompass some new population to refill their prisons.

Officially Hevgotian prisons were all state-run, but that didn’t prevent the “rental” of prisoners when it suited them to whoever could pay. Slavery was illegal on the Northern continent, so Hevgoss had reinvented it.

“Morrough had made a deal with the militocrats. He was trying to find a way of controlling the power of life. He said that mastering it, harvesting it, was the key to immortality. He promised the leaders that he’d teach it to them if they provided him with the materials to test it, but the prisoners”—Wagner shrugged—“were resistant. They didn’t want to cooperate. They knew they would die.”

Wagner smiled as he recounted this, as though the story evoked fond memories.

“My job was to deliver the prisoners each day and take them back at night, but there were never any to take back when he was done with them. Morrough was friendly to me. He would talk to me, tell me his frustrations. The energy, you see, could not be taken by force; it had to be given willingly. He had already found many tricks to get it, but when the prisoners were dead, the energy, he said, remembered. They would lash out. Resist, so that it was difficult even for him to control.”

Helena and Crowther shared a quick glance. Clearly Crowther was also acquainted with the true story of Orion’s victory against the Necromancer.

“It was my idea that solved it.” Wagner thumped his chest. “My fa ther, he was a warden, so was my grandfather. Prison uprisings are a dangerous thing. There are prisons the size of towns. To keep order, it is important that the guards are not the enemy. Instead, you make the prisoners think their trouble is other prisoners, a different unit or sector. Those prisoners are the reason this prisoner has less; the rules they hate are those prisoners’ fault.

By making privileges always at the expense of others, the prisoners forget who has made those rules.

Morrough liked this idea. To take the souls, he must make the prisoners blame someone else.

Even after the energy was taken, the blame must continue to be misdirected. ”

Wagner looked from Helena to Crowther, seeming to expect their awe.

“He succeeded in this, I presume,” Crowther said.

Wagner nodded. “He stopped trying to contain or bind the energy to himself. Instead he used another prisoner inside the array.” He spread his hands wide.

“He had a strange alchemy. With his power, he pulled the energy out and bound them to the soul of a chosen prisoner. The other prisoner would suffer all the anger, and Morrough took the power.”

“But how would he control it,” Helena said, “if the souls—the energy is bound to someone else?”

“With his bones,” Wagner said, raising his eyebrows. “I saw it. He used his alchemy to contain all the souls inside pieces of his own bones. It was strange, but if a piece stayed with the prisoner in the array, they could not die, even if they tried. Then Morrough could keep the power.”

The phylacteries. It was exactly what Kaine had described.

“The souls of the others, they would feel that life, they would try to resist, but the prisoner could not be killed. Still … slowly their mind would—” Wagner touched the sides of his head, pulling invisible strings as though unravelling something.

“Are you saying that the Undying are just a power source for Morrough?” Helena said slowly.

“Yes! That is what he called them. Undying. Not living or dead.”

Crowther placed paper and pen down in front of Wagner, indicating that he sketch as much of the procedure and array as possible.