Page 229 of Alchemised

Why was everyone so happy?

There was music from a gramophone and drunken laughter filling the next room. A mug of mulled wine was shoved into her hands before she’d gotten across the room, and she sipped it on instinct. It was warm and sweet, instead of sour and watery from being stretched.

The signs of their access to the ports and river trade were everywhere, but all she could think was Kaine did this, remembering the wounds lacerating his back, the dead tissue rotting and poisoning him. He’d been gaunt and grey, paper-thin, and he’d just wanted to know if it worked.

The room blurred. She wandered in a daze until she caught sight of Titus Bayard sitting cross-legged on the floor, peeling oranges. They must have come all the way from the southern coast. There was a small mountain of peeled fruit on the table beside him.

Helena searched for other familiar faces.

Lila was sitting crammed in an armchair with Soren, who was wearing the expression of a beleaguered cat.

Ever since her injury, Soren let her get away with anything. Lila had made a complete, and stunningly rapid, recovery and acted as if the entire thing had been overblown. When she’d learned about Luc’s attempts to disregard orders, they’d had an explosive argument. Helena had only heard gossip, but it had been bad enough that the entire unit had been held on reserve for several weeks until things simmered down.

Things seemed better now but Helena couldn’t help but feel that somehow Soren was the one most irrevocably damaged by the attack.

One of the unavoidable bits of Bayard lore that Helena had heard many times over the years was the fact that Soren was older than Lila. Twenty minutes the elder twin. The disparity of age was treated as gravely significant in matters of hierarchy in times past.

It was mostly a joke, but Helena suspected that Soren took it more seriously than he let on. Paladin primary or not, Lila wasn’t only his twin, she was his younger sister.

Luc was playing cards with a group of convalescent soldiers, and Lila and Soren both watched him, Lila’s leg swinging back and forth, the gears making a soft click, click, click.

Helena knelt down next to Titus, trying to complete her list of obligations quickly so she could leave. The mood of the house was so dissonant it made her feel ill.

“Hello, Titus,” Helena said, following the script she always did. “Do you mind if I look inside your head a little bit?”

He didn’t react. She slipped a glove off, touching the scar along his temple. She closed her eyes as she reached with her resonance, and it was all the same except Helena was not the same. Her techniques and understanding of the mind had changed in a year. There were patterns of energy that she had not understood the intricacies of before.

Now she could sense where her errors lay. She had transmuted tissue without knowing how to follow the currents of energy that carried the mind through the brain matter.

Of course, Titus was often unresponsive, his mind limited; she’d hemmed him inside his own consciousness.

The connection between them snapped as Titus suddenly shoved her hand away. His face was contorted, the orange in his hand crushed into pulp. He shook his head several times as if trying to clear it.

Helena stared at him, her eyes searching as he scooted away from her, his expression unsettled. She pulled her glove back on automatically.

Was it possible that she could cure him? She was almost afraid to think it. She had to be certain before she brought the possibility to Rhea. She couldn’t break her heart again.

She was startled from her thoughts at a burst of laughter.

She slipped into another room that was quieter and less crowded, trying to collect herself in a window alcove that was cooler, the drapes creating a barrier from all the noise.

“Helena.”

She looked up to see Penny Fabien slipping into the alcove with her.

“I thought it was you slipping in here,” Penny said. “Are you all right? You looked upset.”

Penny was a year older. She’d been the dorm monitor for Helena’s room during their Institute days.

“Just a bit close in there,” Helena said, looking away. “Did something happen?”

Penny looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Why is everyone so happy?”

Penny blinked with surprise. “We’re happy because the war’s almost over.”

Helena stared at her in bewilderment.