Page 70 of Alchemised

F ERRON WAS WAITING FOR H ELENA WHEN SHE opened the door. The room had been cleaned, the floor, table, chairs, all spotless. Not even a trace of blood.

His mouth was set in a taut line as she walked in.

As she closed the door, he shrugged off his cloak. “Let’s see how you fight, Marino.”

He lunged so fast, his body blurred.

There was no time for Helena to go for her knife. She swung her satchel at his head.

It bought her a split second, but he snatched it out of midair, ripping the strap from her fingers, and threw it across the room.

She heard the glass vials shatter as she scrambled away. There was nowhere to run.

The door was too complicated to unlock.

She managed to get to the other side of the table, trying to create a barrier between them.

He kicked the table. The legs screamed across the tiles as it flew towards her. She dove. The table struck the wall so hard, the top split.

She hit the floor, her left hand bending the wrong way, a bone in her wrist cracking against the stone. Pain exploded up her arm.

She cradled it against her chest, trying to scramble to her feet.

“Ferron, stop!”

He didn’t stop. He grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the wall, squeezing. His expression was void of emotion.

She clawed at his grip with her uninjured hand, fingernails carving grooves into his skin. She tried to knee him in the groin, and he kicked her foot out from under her and brought her to the floor.

The force knocked her breath out. She saw stars.

He pressed his knee into the middle of her chest, bearing down enough to make the bones strain. “Anything?”

She couldn’t breathe, her lungs spasming. She writhed, trying to twist out from beneath him, scrabbling at every part of him that she could reach.

He grabbed her hand in his, his eyes glinting. She tried to pull away, but he squeezed tighter. Pain shot down her right arm, the metacarpals grinding against one another.

“Don’t break my hand! You can’t—hurt my hands!” She screamed the words at him in pure panic.

He leaned closer. “Then fight me off.”

Both of her arms were on fire. She could barely breathe. He was seconds from caving her chest in. Struggle again and she was certain all the bones in her right hand would snap.

She went limp.

He held her for several more seconds, as if expecting her to suddenly spring into action. Confusion flashed across his face for a moment as he exhaled, then his expression hardened again.

“You’re pathetic,” he said, adding more weight to her chest. Her eyes watered but she didn’t make a sound.

“I could do anything I wanted to you, hurt you in ways you cannot even imagine, and you couldn’t do anything to stop me.

I wouldn’t even need my resonance. I could do it with my bare hands. That’s how weak you are.”

He sneered and let go. His hands were streaked with blood, but the marks she’d gouged were already gone. He stood, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe the blood, straightening his clothes.

Helena remained gasping on the floor. Her spine and the back of her head throbbed. When she tried to brace herself into a sitting position with her right hand, she nearly cried.

Pain was radiating through her hands. There was blood and skin under her fingernails, staining her fingertips.

Her left wrist was beginning to swell. Her right hand was hardly better: When she tried to curl her fingers into a fist, pain burst like a halo up to her elbow.

“For the record,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady, “this qualifies as interfering with my work. If you want to hurt me”—her jaw trembled uncontrollably—“it can’t be my hands.”

So much for claiming she could say no to things.

Ferron said nothing, just walked over and pulled his cloak back on without looking at her again.

Helena stayed where she was. She’d known this was a possibility, but he’d lulled her into a false sense of security, waiting until she let her guard down to finally hurt her.

It was crueller than if he’d done it from the start.

“Do I get to know why?” she asked, still staring dully at the floor, ribs aching with every breath. “Did I—did I d-do something?”

“You exist, Marino. I think that’s reason enough.”

She had no response to that. She got up slowly. “Do you have any information today?”

He gave a thin smile. “No. That was all.”

She retrieved her satchel without a word, gingerly hooking an arm through the strap. She couldn’t get it up to her shoulder. Broken glass tinkled inside.

She’d added an emergency kit after last week, thinking that if Ferron was ever hurt again, she would come prepared. The waste of medicine it represented was almost as painful as her ribs, and the broken glass and contents would have contaminated everything she’d foraged that day. Hours wasted.

She went to the door and tried to flex her fingers enough to open it, but all she could feel was pain.

“Will you”—her voice finally betrayed her and shook—“will you let me out?”

I F SHE’D HURT ANYTHING BUT her hands, it would have been easy to follow Crowther’s instructions and hide the bruises before she returned to Headquarters, but there hadn’t been any contingency plans made beyond that.

Once she was off the Outpost, Helena wandered up and down along the dam. She was functionally useless without her hands. If she tried to get back to Headquarters looking as bruised as she was, there could be questions that she couldn’t answer.

Finally, in desperation, she scrambled down the embankment towards the marshes. Without her hands, she was clumsy, quickly covered with dirt. She crawled back to the firm ground, drenched and muddy, smearing at her face and throat so that any bruises would be covered.

At the checkpoint, they recognised her and pitied her enough that they didn’t ask many questions. When she reached Headquarters, she was forced to go to the hospital because she couldn’t use the lift.

“What happened?” Matron Pace came to meet Helena as she arrived at the doors.

“I fell in the marsh,” Helena said without meeting her eyes. “Sprained my wrists.”

“Both of them?”

Helena didn’t look up as she nodded.

Pace didn’t move for a moment but then recovered. “Let’s get you out of these muddy clothes and see what needs to be done.” She led Helena towards one of the private rooms usually reserved for the high-ranked members of the Eternal Flame, shooing away anyone who came towards them.

Helena had always appreciated how professional Pace was. No matter the circumstances, she was unflappable. Helena’s hands were too swollen and cold to manage buttons or clasps. Pace didn’t say a word about all the mud that spread to her apron and sleeves and hands as she helped Helena undress.

“It’s a novelty after all the blood,” she said dismissively when Helena tried to apologise, squeezing out a wet cloth. “Now let’s get you clean, and see what the damage is. Elain will be the best choice for your hands.”

Helena tensed, but there was nothing to be done. Once the bruises were visible, Pace would realise that Helena had not sprained her wrists by tripping, and Elain, while the most competent trainee, was a terrible gossip.

Pace paused the instant Helena’s throat was clean enough to make the bruises ringing it unmistakable. Before Helena could think of anything to say, there was a knock on the door.

Pace pressed her lips together and went to answer, her body blocking out the hospital ward beyond.

“What is it, Purnell?” Pace said.

A hushed voice replied, “Message for you. Said it was urgent.”

Pace took something and then shut the door. She unfolded, read, and then ripped up a slip of paper as she walked back to Helena.

“I have instructions to send you to your room. Immediately,” Pace said, her cheeks a furious red. “But I think I can get you a little cleaner first.”

Once she was clean, Helena was bundled up as though she were hypothermic, and Pace accompanied her to the Alchemy Tower. Crowther was waiting as they exited the skybridge. Pace stiffened at the sight of him.

“Matron Pace,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Broken blood vessels stained Pace’s cheeks. “I came to be sure that Marino is being looked after.”

Crowther’s eye twitched. “Of course.” He looked at Helena. “I presume, then, that you’re in a condition that requires healing?”

Helena had been considering the question. “If I have my left hand treated, I think I can manage the rest after that.”

“I’ll send for someone. Stay out of sight until then. Matron, you’re dismissed.” He turned and walked away without another word.

Pace didn’t return to the hospital; instead she went with Helena to her room, and stayed even after Helena was in her bed.

“You know, I knew a few healers when I was a midwife,” Pace finally said, sitting down at the foot of Helena’s bed and looking around the room.

“City-trained doctors didn’t care much for working in the mountain villages.

The ones I knew didn’t always call themselves healers, they just thought it was intuition.

They were mostly older women who’d thought for a long time that they had a good sense for bodies.

When I was told there was a healer coming from the mountains, I expected someone my age.

” She finally looked over at Helena. “You’re so young.

You don’t even know how young you are. You’re sacrificing things you don’t even comprehend the value of. ”

Helena’s emotions were a tangle inside her. “No one’s forcing me to do anything I didn’t—agree to.”

“What have you ever said no to?” Pace asked. Before Helena could reply, she continued, “You think a man like Crowther hasn’t noticed that?”

Pace might have said more, but the door opened, revealing Crowther with a young girl beside him.

“You may return to the hospital, Matron,” Crowther said pointedly, holding the door.

Pace patted Helena on the knee and stood, glaring at Crowther as she passed. Crowther closed the door firmly before turning to Helena.

“This is Ivy; she’ll do as instructed to get your left hand working.”