Page 66 of Alchemised

H ELENA WAS STILL CATCHING HER brEATH, A stabbing pain in her side, as she was taken to Ilva’s office to report on what she’d seen in the wetlands.

Ilva sat across from Helena at her desk, a fountain pen clasped in her fingers as Helena gasped out the information.

“I thought chimaeras were a transmutational impossibility,” Ilva said calmly when Helena finished.

“That’s what I was taught,” Helena said.

“And Ferron says there will be more?” Ilva’s expression was difficult to read.

Helena almost flinched at the name but nodded. “It was just the beginning, he said.”

Ilva hummed under her breath, her pale eyes distant.

When Luc was at the front lines, he abdicated his other responsibilities as Principate to Ilva, not realising how ruthless she was in making whatever choices protected him alone.

Helena had liked that about her. When Ilva had first taken an interest in Helena, Helena had been flattered, seeing herself and Ilva as kin dred in a cause, because they were both fully willing to make hard choices for Luc’s sake.

She’d thought they were partners.

“How are things progressing with Ferron?” Ilva asked as Helena started to stand.

Helena stilled, sinking back into the chair, fingernails digging against the punctures in her palm. “He’s quite—mercurial.”

Ilva just hummed again. The strained expression she’d worn when the offer had been presented had vanished. Ilva seemed at peace with her choice now.

“Hopefully the new healers free you to focus.”

Helena’s throat closed, her knuckles whitening at the insinuation that the healers were for her benefit.

“I’m sure they will be a great help,” she said with a false smile. “Although—the initial training does take up quite a bit of time.”

Lines of tension appeared in the wrinkles around Ilva’s eyes.

“I’m sure you know about the shortages in the hospital inventory. Usually, when I have time off, I try to help supplement the hospital’s inventory—”

“Oh yes, Pace has mentioned it …” Ilva said slowly. “Your father had that—little apothecary in the low district, didn’t he?”

Helena gave a startled nod. Given that her father’s medical licensing hadn’t been recognised as legitimate in Paladia, the apothecary hadn’t been categorically legal.

Medicine, like everything else in Paladia pre-war, was industrialised, modernised, and licensed, which rooted out would-be charlatans but had a tendency to raise prices.

An amount considered trivial in the upper districts could be a month’s or a year’s wages in the water slums.

An unlicensed tincture might not be even half as effective, but it did have the added benefit of not sending the invalid and their family into debtor’s prison.

“He was a doctor, though, wasn’t he?” Ilva looked sincerely curious.

“Yes. He trained in Khem, manual surgery and medicine. He and my mother ran a surgery and apothecary together in our village before I was born.”

Ilva inclined her head. “Is that why you studied so much chymistry? I was on the board approving your scholarship every year. We used to wonder when we reviewed your transcripts. It seemed an odd choice considering your repertoire. You used it to help him during the summers, didn’t you?”

Helena froze. Working as an underaged, unlicensed chymist in an illegal apothecary was not within the Institute’s student code of conduct.

Ilva waved a dismissive hand. “It’s all in the past, Marino. You’re not going to be deported right now for a six-year-old violation of labour law. Really, it’s an example of Sol’s providence that you have all these skills.”

Her saliva turned sour; she stared at her hands.

“Thank you.” She swallowed. “Um, due to the shortages, I’ve been trying to help where I can.

I’ve been extracting salicin from willow bark; it can act as a stopgap for a few things until Novis sends more.

” Her voice was stilted. “The thing is, the willow bark is best harvested in early spring. In a few weeks, the snowmelt and Ascendance will have the wetlands flooded, so the more I can process now, the better—but if I was working and got called away, it could spoil the batch. Cost us medical supplies. I was wondering, is there anyone with some chymistry experience who might be willing to help, just help finish up, if I’m called away?

Or I could bring them supplies to process themselves. ”

Ilva’s head inclined almost mechanically, her expression growing tight as a demurring smile drew her lips back. “Helena …”

“Since it’s all we have right now, it seems a shame to waste a resource,” Helena added quickly.

Ilva paused, measuring her words. “A few weeks ago, this might have been a very different conversation, but that’s hardly something I can ask of anyone now.

Our chymists have extensive assignments of their own, and I suspect Falcon Matias is unaware of this supplementing you’ve been doing.

He would have to be informed of anyone assigned to you in an official capacity. ”

“Of course.”

“Actually—” Ilva suddenly sat forward. “I take that back. I just thought of someone who might be interested. Shiseo. I ran into him the other day.”

Helena looked up, forehead furrowed. “Who?”

“Oh, he’s an Easterner, Far Eastern. All the way from the Empire, in fact.

He came to Paladia with a political asylum request after the new Emperor came to power.

” Ilva tapped her chin. “He’s some kind of metallurgist, I think.

Apollo was thrilled to have him, always loved foreign alchemy, said that kind of exposure was good for Luc.

He’s still here. Very educated, I believe.

He might enjoy the opportunity to observe Paladian chymiatria. ”

“Doesn’t he work at the forge?” Helena asked in confusion. Metallurgists were a vital resource.

Amusement flickered in Ilva’s face. “No. We don’t allow an Easterner near the Athanor Furnace, Marino.” She nodded to herself. “Yes, I don’t think he’d mind at all. You two could work well together.”

A Far Eastern metallurgist was not what Helena had in mind. She didn’t want another trainee; she wanted help, for something in her life to be marginally less difficult.

“Well, if he’s willing, I suppose we could ask.”

Ilva hummed, seeming distracted again. “Very good. Well, you can go now, Marino. It would appear I have scouts to dispatch and a Council meeting to call about these chimaeras.”

Helena went to her lab and unpacked her satchel, washing and laying out all her willow bark and sphagnum to dry. When she went to her room in the Tower to clean up, the evidence of Lila’s return was littered everywhere.

Helena filled the bathtub, sinking in up to her neck. Now that she was alone, she could think about Ferron. Her brazen stupidity and his reaction to it.

He hadn’t hurt her.

She hadn’t realised how much she’d expected it. She’d assumed that if she ever provoked him, purposely or not, death or severe injury was inevitable.

Everyone knew the Undying were violent and sadistic. There were countless stories about the senseless cruelty they indulged in on the battlefield. Protected with invulnerability, they relished the atrocities they could commit.

Helena had assumed Ferron would be like the rest of them.

Now she wasn’t sure what he was.

He’d been so angry. Angrier than she had ever seen anyone, but he had driven her off. He hadn’t hurt her at all.

She sank under the water until it covered her face.

Why not? After all, he didn’t care about the Eternal Flame. So what held him back? It wasn’t as if Ferron was above violence. He’d ripped out a man’s heart with his bare hands.

She replayed what she’d said.

The shock on his face, as if he hadn’t realised what he was like until she’d told him.