Page 50 of Alchemised

I T WAS A STRUGGLE TO WAKE AGAIN. The room was dim and heavy, Helena’s vision sluggish and disoriented. It felt as if she had been unconscious for a long time. Her mouth was parched.

Turning her head, she spotted Ferron standing with the lady’s maid. He was speaking quickly to her in a low voice, as though explaining something complicated.

Her eyes drifted shut, head swimming.

When they opened again, Ferron was looking at her, and the necrothrall was across the room.

Now that she wasn’t panicking anymore, Helena thought she was going to be sick from the sight of him. She squeezed her eyes shut, curling into a defensive ball as he walked over.

“You are not allowed to hurt yourself or do anything that might cause an abortion or miscarriage,” he said. “You’ll be monitored full-time now, just in case your newfound desperation drives you to previously unknown heights of creativity.”

The words were caustic, but he sounded more tired than anything else.

Helena said nothing, waiting for him to leave.

She curled protectively around her stomach. She knew there was little more than nothing there, but eventually there would be, and she could do nothing to stop it.

When she wouldn’t get up for several days, Ferron returned.

“You cannot lie in bed moping for nine months,” he said when she refused to acknowledge him. “You need to eat and go outside.”

She ignored him.

“I have something for you,” Ferron finally said.

Something heavy pressed onto the duvet. She glanced over.

There was a thick book beside her. The Maternal Condition: An In-Depth Study on the Science and Physiology of Gestation.

She looked away. “Why?”

“Because you’ll wear your brain smooth if you don’t find answers to all the things you want to know.” He sounded resigned.

There was a pause; clearly, he’d hoped for some reaction.

“I’ll expect you out of bed tomorrow,” he said, and left.

When his footsteps had finally faded, Helena reached towards the book and almost shoved it off the bed, then hesitated and pulled it against her chest, holding it tightly.

The next day, she got out of bed and sat by the window, where the light was strongest. The book was brand new, with a leather spine that creaked when she lifted the cover and pages that still smelled of machine oil and ink.

It was a medical textbook, not a housewife’s guide that would have avoided technical and medical terminology in favour of the more accessible explanations of pregnancy.

She was several chapters in when he returned.

She clutched at her book reactively, but he simply studied her.

“When did you last go outside?” he asked.

She looked down. “I—went out—”

She didn’t know how long the necrothralls retained information, whether they could observe the passage of time. If she lied, would he know?

“Last week,” she said.

“No, you didn’t. You haven’t been outside in weeks.”

She stared down at her book, not blinking until the words began to blur. She didn’t want to go outside. She didn’t want to see the spring or smell the scent of the world coming to life.

“Put your shoes on.”

She stood, holding her book tightly against her chest. He sighed with irritation.

“You cannot bring that; it weighs nearly five pounds.”

Helena only held it tighter. Other than her shoes and gloves, it was her only possession.

Ferron gripped his temples as though he had a migraine.

“No one is going to steal your book,” he said as if he was trying very hard to be patient. He gestured around. “Who even would? If they do, I will buy you a new one. Leave it.”

She placed it carefully on the table, fingers lingering on the cover a moment longer before she went to retrieve her boots.

The courtyard was reborn by spring. There was grass, and little red buds covered the trees. The vines on the house had bright-green leaves, transforming their previously gruesome appearance.

It was beautiful, Helena couldn’t deny it, but every detail felt tainted and poisonous.

Ferron said nothing, but he walked with her around the courtyard a few times and then back to her room.

As he turned to leave, she forced herself to speak.

“Ferron.” Her voice wavered.

He was already in the hall, but he paused and turned slowly back. His expression was closed, eyes guarded.

“Ferron,” she said again, voice barely more than a whisper. Her jaw trembled uncontrollably, and she gripped the post of the bed, trying to steady herself. “I—I will never ask anything of you—”

His expression went flat and cold, and something inside her broke but she kept speaking.

“You can do anything you want to me. I’ll never ask for any mercy from you, but please—don’t do this …”

He stood, impassive.

“It—this baby—it’ll be half yours. Don’t let them—” she said in a broken voice. “I’ll do anything you want—I’ll—I’ll—”

She didn’t have anything to offer. Her heart was racing too fast, and her voice cut off when she couldn’t breathe. She clawed at her chest, trying to force her lungs to inhale.

Ferron’s eyes flickered, and he stepped into the room, shutting the door. He walked over and took her by the shoulders, practically holding her up as she fought to breathe.

“No one is going to hurt your baby,” he said, meeting her eyes.

She gave a small gasp of relief. It was what she’d so desperately wanted him to say.

She dropped her head, her hair falling and concealing her face.

“Really?” She let her desperation fill her voice.

“Nothing will happen to it. You have my word. Calm down.”

What an empty promise. There was no point in begging. He had every reason to lie to her, to say whatever was necessary to lull her into compliance, to keep her calm and docile with reassurances that meant nothing.

She jerked free, backing away.

“You’ll say anything, won’t you?” she said, her voice shaking. “I guess you have to, whatever it takes to ‘maintain my environment.’”

She wrapped her arms around herself and sank to the floor.

“Stay away from me,” she said. “I’ll only exercise and eat if I don’t have to see you.”

S HE WENT OUTSIDE ALONE THE next day, intent on poisoning herself with everything and anything she could find.

Spring was a good time for it. With a garden so overgrown, there was a chance of white hellebore being somewhere in the overgrowth.

She crawled through the beds, ignoring the pain in her hands and arms, searching everywhere, but there was nothing abortive or poisonous.

Even the crocuses and snowbells that she was certain she’d seen were gone, the soil loose in their wake. She raked through it with her fingers, but there wasn’t a single bulb left behind.

She went out searching every day, desperate to find some overlooked sprout as she began to develop headaches and nausea. What was briefly a grinding pain in the back of her skull seemed to expand by the hour. It worsened week by week until she couldn’t read, her vision swimming in an aura of pain.

The heavy winter drapes were kept closed, blotting out all light. She ate less and less. When she couldn’t eat or drink or get out of bed for two days, Ferron reappeared.

“You said you’d eat,” he said.

She scoffed, and her head throbbed so painfully it was as though someone had driven a metal rod into her skull. Her vision turned blood red. She moaned, hardly able to breathe until it passed.

“If I could even think of anything that sounded edible, I doubt I could keep it down,” she said in a strained voice. “Sickness isn’t unusual in early pregnancy. It’ll pass. Statistical probability indicates I’m unlikely to die from it.”

She felt the air shift as Ferron stiffened, as if her words had startled him.

“My mother nearly did,” he said.

She felt as if there was something she was meant to realise at the comment, but her head hurt too much to wonder.

Ferron didn’t leave. He was still standing beside her bed when she fell into exhausted sleep.

He brought Stroud a few days later.

“I can’t imagine that the Toll of the animancy is already manifesting,” she was saying loudly as she entered the room. “It generally doesn’t develop until the final months. However, she was a healer. Perhaps she has less vitality left than we’d realised.”

She stopped beside Helena, not really looking at her at all. She flipped the duvet back and shoved Helena’s nightgown up to her stomach without warning.

Helena flinched, and Ferron looked away.

“Now, it’s still early, but I think—” Stroud rummaged in her bag and pulled out a resonance screen.

Stroud held the screen up in her left hand while her right rested on Helena’s lower abdomen. Stroud’s resonance sank through her skin, and the gas within the glass morphed into a series of nebulous shapes. In the negative space, there was something small, pulsing so rapidly it seemed to flutter.

Helena stared, stricken.

“There.” Stroud sounded pleased. “Your heir—” She caught herself. “Well, progeny, I suppose we should say.”

Ferron’s face had gone ashen.

Stroud pulled her hand away. “It all appears normal, nothing irregular that I can detect. Have you checked her brain recently?”

Ferron shook his head.

Stroud clicked her tongue but nodded. “Given the seizures she’s had, it’s probably for the best not to disrupt things at such a fragile juncture.

” She rested her hand on Helena’s head, sending out the barest wave of resonance.

Helena shuddered from the pain. “If she really is an animancer, I suspect the headaches are self-inflicted, so there’s not really anything to be done about it.

In fact, it might prompt the recovery of her memories. ”

Ferron’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”