Page 213 of Alchemised

Helena could hear the flurry behind her, but she couldn’t worry about anyone but Lila.

If Lila died, so would Luc. Maybe not immediately; if he never saw combat again, physically he’d live, but every day, bit by bit, the guilt and grief would kill him.

“Don’t you dare die,” she said, shoving her vitality down through her resonance, in a wild attempt to keep Lila from slipping away, forcing the feeble heartbeat to keep going. “Don’t you dare! Elain. I need Elain! And a medic! Where is everyone?”

Elain appeared, her hands bloody. “I’m already—”

“I don’t care,” Helena cut in. “Stand near her head. I need you to keep her breathing, and don’t let her heart stop! Do you understand? I need both hands to heal, and I need to know she’s breathing and her heart is beating while I work.”

She waited until she felt Elain’s tentative resonance assume the rhythm of Lila’s heartbeat, the laborious in and out of her breath, as the last of Lila’s armour was finally out of Helena’s way and she worked easily.

A medic appeared at her elbow. Helena acknowledged her with a jerk of her head.

“I need four vials of that blood-supplementing tonic in the cabinet. You have to administer them without letting her choke.”

“We’re not supposed to—”

“I need more blood! If I can’t regenerate more, this healing will kill her, and if I do it without the tonics, it’s going to make something else fail. I don’t have enough hands. Do it now!”

It was intense, delicate work. Helena’s vision was blurring, and her resonance had singed the inside of her bones as she fought to get Lila stabilised. Elain was saying something about a hand cramp. Helena told her to shut up.

When Lila finally stopped feeling on the verge of death, Helena wanted to cry with relief. It had been so close. She could never tell anyone how close.

She leaned over Lila, her hands covered in blood, and touched her cheek for a moment.

“You can stop,” she finally remembered to say to Elain.

The punctures covering Lila’s chest were roughly transmuted skin. They’d scar, because Lila’s body would be focused on vital recovery, but she would live. Elain disappeared so the nurses and orderlies could take over.

Helena’s fingers trembled uncontrollably as she squeezed Lila’s hand. “Idiot. You know you’re not allowed to die.”

Her knees gave out. She sank to the floor, her head resting against the mattress of the hospital bed. Lila still had at least twenty broken bones, fractures in both legs. Half her fingers were broken, but Helena’s heart was pounding too violently to think straight.

“Marino, can you—” Pace was calling to her from another bed.

She tried to lift her head but couldn’t move. Her whole body was leaden. Why was it so heavy?

“Pace, check Marino.”

Was that Crowther’s voice?

She tried to look up, but instead the world tipped sideways. She could see feet moving under the rows and rows of hospital beds. Bloodstains on the floor.

She was rising upwards.

“Come on, Marino, no napping here,” Pace was saying as she pulled her to her feet. Someone was on the other side as well. Her head lolled, and she saw Crowther watching her from one of the hospital beds.

They passed through a door into the records closet that Pace used as an office.

“Just here, Sofia. Thank you, I can manage from here,” Pace was saying as Helena was lowered onto a camp bed.

Helena knew, dimly, that she’d gone too far.

She was normally careful, but there hadn’t been any choice this time.

She was so cold and tired. Blankets were pulled up and tucked around her. She heard Pace’s voice, calling her a fool girl with no sense.

Helena just wanted to sleep for a few years.