Page 40 of Alchemised

S OMETHING WASN’T RIGHT ABOUT THIS.

Helena’s thoughts were dim, struggling to arrange themselves as she was dragged across the floor and shoved into a dark corner.

“Don’t make a sound,” someone said.

A shadow closed in. A mouth pressed against hers, thick and wet, the tongue pushing past her teeth until she choked on it. A sharp pain consumed her lip, hot, salty blood filling her mouth.

“I’ve got to get the gate open. Wait here,” said the shadow, but then it lingered, closing in and around her throat.

Her fingers twitched, spasming. Sharp pain like a fresh wound radiated up her arms as teeth sank into the side of her neck. Her body jerked. A hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her scream.

The shadow finally let go. “Wait here. Don’t make a sound.”

She sat. Pain clustered along her neck and shoulders. When she tried to brush it away, her hands grew sticky and wet.

A thought dangled just out of reach as she sat waiting in the dark. The shadow came back. She tried to speak, but the shadow clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged her outside. Both moons were nearly full, hanging like two luminous discs in the black.

Her wrist was yanked, pulling her forward. Pain shot up her arm as she stumbled.

She was dragged through the gravel as a strangled scream escaped her. A gaping mouth loomed over her.

The gate. It was open.

“Almost there. Gods, I’m going to turn you inside out.”

The shadow’s face was close again. She could see it in the moonlight. Red lips and teeth. Lancaster. A grin like a jackal.

She tried to speak. There was something she needed to say, but the words wouldn’t form. They were trapped, pulsing in her throat. There was a sudden jerk. Her legs gave out as Lancaster vanished.

Then a loud crash.

She turned, eyes dazed, and found Lancaster crumpled against the wall as Ferron stood over him, kicking so violently that bones cracked each time.

Ferron picked up Lancaster by the throat until they were eye-to-eye. The moonlight illuminated them both as if they were cast in silver.

“Going somewhere, Lancaster?”

Lancaster’s lungs gave a wet rattle. “I assumed you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed her, seeing how you let Aurelia out to play. I’m the one who caught her. She should be mine.”

“She’ll never be yours.”

Without lowering Lancaster from where he was holding him, Ferron shoved his hand into Lancaster’s abdominal cavity as easily as if his hand were breaking water. He pulled out Lancaster’s organs, winding them slowly around his fist.

Lancaster screamed, his legs thrashing.

Ferron drew out the intestines so far that they twitched, glittering in the moonlight.

“If I ever see you again, I will strangle you with these,” Ferron said in a voice of deadly calm. “Pity you’re not immortal yet. I could do it so slowly then.”

He dropped the intestines so that they hung down Lancaster’s front like watch chains, then pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his hands as Lancaster stumbled through the mouth of the gate, whimpering and trying to stuff his organs back into his stomach.

When Lancaster had disappeared, Ferron turned towards Helena. His face was rigid with fury.

“You idiot—why did you come out tonight?”

Helena just looked at him.

She thought she should say something. What she’d tried to tell Lancaster.

“Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.

He stopped short. His jaw locked, fists clenching, saying nothing for a moment. Then his throat dipped, and he sighed.

“What did he do to you?” he asked in a low voice, kneeling next to her.

Helena looked down at herself. Her dress was ripped open, her stockings shredded. All her things were ripped. There was blood and white gravel all over.

Ferron reached out towards her, just barely touching her shoulder, and she felt a little flush of warmth. She huddled towards him, but he drew away.

“Drugged,” he said. “Did he make you swallow something?”

She shook her head.

“An injection, then. Let’s go to your room.” His eyes went briefly out of focus, and then he helped her up to her feet. Helena gasped as pain shot up her arms.

Ferron said nothing, but he draped his coat over her shoulders, covering up her ruined dress.

The necrothrall woman was in Helena’s room with a bowl of water and a cloth in hand.

“Clean her up,” he said, going to the window, standing still as a statue while the necrothrall led Helena to sit on the edge of the bed and began dabbing at the gravel and blood.

The necrothrall’s fingers were cold, and she smelled vaguely of raw meat left out too long. Helena flinched away, but every time she shrank back, the woman followed until Helena was trapped against the bedpost. She started shaking.

“Stop,” Ferron finally said, his voice tense.

Helena froze and so did the necrothrall, stepping back as Ferron came over.

Helena stared at his shoes. They were so perfectly polished, they shone.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Lots of things were wrong. More things than Helena’s brain could presently remember.

“I don’t like when people are dead,” she said in a small voice.

He sighed and sat down beside her, taking the cloth away from the necrothrall.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a tense voice. He took her by the shoulders, turning her towards him.

She knew he wouldn’t. He only hurt her on certain days, and this wasn’t one of them, so she sat very still.

Moving slowly, he started along her shoulder, removing the bits of white gravel and washing the wounds before his fingers brushed across her skin.

She felt a tingle of warmth as the skin knit together, regenerating into delicate new tissue.

He worked across her shoulders and up her neck, to her throbbing lip.

His lips were pressed into a flat line, his expression clinical and intent.

When he finished, his attention turned to her hands. Her wrists were aching, the skin hot and taut.

He turned one hand over. Her palm was scraped raw, pocked with bits of gravel.

It took longer to fix her hands and wrists, and even when the cuts were gone, they still hurt. He kept going over them, making her move all her fingers.

He finally sat back and looked away. “Did he do—anything else to you?”

She shook her head.

He exhaled slowly. He was staring across the room. “I’m required to spend the next several days in the city. I think it’s best that you stay in your room until I return.”

Helena said nothing. Eventually he stood and left. She heard the door bolt for the first time.

She sat staring blankly at the wall, not sure what she felt. Her mind only seemed to work in fragments.

She was dirty.

She went and stood under the water, letting it stream hot down her face and over her shoulders.

She still felt teeth sinking into her skin, the way the flesh tore under the pressure. The places were still oversensitive. She wanted to stick her fingers inside them and tear it all out.

She found a cloth. She scrubbed and scrubbed until all her skin was so raw the water hurt.

There was a white flannel nightgown draped over the chair, and a cup of tisane by the bed. She recognised the scent of chamomile, but when she sipped it, it was bitter enough to make her tongue curdle.

Laudanum.

She drank all of it before sinking into a deep, empty sleep.

T HE MENTAL FOG WAS GONE the next morning.

Her lungs contracted, chest heaving, panicking over what had almost happened, and her lack of comprehension at the time.

If Lancaster had gotten her out of Spirefell, what would he have done to her? What would she have just lain there and let him do?

She huddled in a tight ball and didn’t get up when she heard the door unlock and the maid come in, setting the tray beside Helena’s bed.

Breakfast and a pot of tisane with the recognisable scent of chamomile. The maid poured a cup and then pulled out a small vial with a few drops of reddish liquid inside.

She shook her head but regretted the choice once the maid was gone and she was left with her thoughts.

She kept thinking about the girls in the repopulation program, lured in by the promise of food and pardon.

If Helena hadn’t been sterilised and missing memories, she’d be there, too.

Compared with what the rest of the survivors suffered, Ferron was almost kind. It was such a horrible thought.

How was it that the High Reeve was somehow one of the least mon strous of the Undying? No. That wasn’t true. She’d witnessed his killing, watched him calmly unspool Lancaster’s organs with his bare hands.

There was plenty of monster in Ferron, lurking beneath the surface.

Her head throbbed, and she closed her eyes.

The door was rebolted each time the servants left, and so Helena made no effort to leave her bed. She lay curled beneath her blankets, smothered in her despair, until the quiet was split by the sudden scream of metal and the door burst open.

Helena shot up to see Aurelia stride in, a newspaper clutched in one hand, the iron short staff in the other. There were several necrothralls out in the hallway. They all moved to follow Aurelia.

Aurelia stopped short, turning back, then she gripped the staff, twisting it against one of the iron bars running through the floor. The door slammed shut, nearly severing one of the maids’ arms. There was a grating sound of metal as the frame around the door warped, sealing the room.

Aurelia turned back to Helena.

“Come here.” Her voice was bright with anger.

Helena slipped out of bed and walked over without a word, heart pounding.

Aurelia was pale. Brittle as a stalk of grass in midwinter. She was impeccably dressed and groomed as always, but there was a sense of unravelling about her. Her earrings, intricate little chandeliers of tiny pearls, trembled.

“Did you know I was the third daughter my mother had?”

Helena didn’t know anything about Aurelia.