Page 87 of Alchemised

The priority was stabilising the spike, and applying pressure to reduce the bleeding. Then she’d plan.

She chewed on an abandoned sprig of yarrow as she wrapped bandages around her leg.

Blood was already seeping through before she’d finished, and her mind had gone sluggish.

She tried harder to focus, head lolling as she struggled to stay alert.

Stay awake. You have to stay awake.

Her vision lengthened. Her legs seemed far away, all the way down a tunnel, and then everything faded away.

“What are you doing?”

Helena started, her leg jerking reflexively, pain bursting through her.

Kaine was standing over her, seemingly having appeared out of thin air.

At least, she thought it was Kaine. Her vision was blurry, and his presence seemed to swallow the space. As his face swam into focus, he was glaring at her icily.

Her heart lurched at the sight of it.

“It’s Martiday,” she managed to say.

“What happened?”

She gestured limply at the metal spike still running through her calf.

He barely glanced at it. “Yes, I noticed. I’ll admit, your commitment to the bit is impressive. I can’t say I expected you to go this far.”

She stared at him, not understanding.

“Tell Crowther I have no time for his tricks. Pull something like this again, and he can consider the deal off.” Kaine turned, walking away.

Her chest felt hollow as she watched him leave, realising that he thought she’d injured herself on purpose.

He paused at the top of the stairs, staring at the trail of blood before looking back at her.

“Get up.” He was speaking through clenched teeth.

She shook her head. “I’m waiting for my resonance to come back.”

His head jerked sharply. “What?”

She looked down. “The fires … there were a lot—I was too tired today. I didn’t realise—never burned out before. So I’m—waiting.”

Kaine walked back over and crouched in front of her, his eyes narrowed. His hair was so much more silver now.

“Marino, what kind of vivimancy do they have you doing in the hospital?”

“Depends who’s injured.” Her head was very light; her consciousness was threatening to rise through the top of her head and float away.

Fingers snapped sharply in front of her face.

“Focus,” he said. “Describe the healing you do. Are you just transmuting physical injuries away or are you using your vitality to keep people alive?”

“Depends …” she said again. She was having trouble making her eyes focus. His own eyes shone, and she stared at them, mesmerised. “We use triage protocol. Can’t afford to lose our combatants. Especially not alchemists.”

His jaw tensed. “I assumed they’d save that for the likes of Holdfast.”

The corridor had stretched into a tunnel once more.

“Luc can’t win by himself,” she said.

Ferron was suddenly very close, reaching towards her. He pulled her up off the ground, sending an inferno of pain through her body. She screamed and fainted.

When her eyes opened again, she was in the tenement unit, lying on her back, her injured leg elevated with a chair. She felt simultaneously better and worse.

She was overwhelmingly thirsty.

Kaine was studying her calf where the spike ran through it.

“How do I heal this?”

She blinked sluggishly, the ceiling swirling overhead.

Think, Helena, you’ve taught healing before. “Numbing the area is the first step, but I don’t have enough blood to …”

Her words slurred away. Explaining the lack of saline and plasma expanders was too many words to string together. Did he even know how to numb? With the new healers, she’d use her resonance at the same time and guide them, so that they’d know what to look for.

She was so thirsty.

She shook her head. “I don’t think … It’s … tricky for beginners … nerves.”

Annoyance flashed across his face. “I did paralyse you once. I’m familiar with nerves.” His bare hand pressed just below her knee. “Here?”

She nodded and barely felt his resonance before her leg went numb. She drew several deep breaths, feeling less shaky now that she wasn’t distracted by pain.

“Um,” she said, swallowing, “you need to identify what’s damaged before you pull the spike out. Nerves, veins—I don’t think it went through the artery, but you should check. Might’ve fractured the bone. Blood flow’s easy to sense. Close the veins and arteries temporarily—not too long.”

Kaine was silent, his bare fingers pressed against her calf, and his eyes went out of focus. She couldn’t feel what he was doing, which would normally bother her, but right now she was not lucid enough to care properly.

He placed his hand on the spike. Despite being numb, she tensed, bracing herself for the grind of metal against tissue.

Rather than pull it out, he transmuted it. The metal rippled in his hand, shrinking out of the wound so that it didn’t drag or tear. Only a little blood spattered on the floor. He dropped the bar, studying the puncture with a critical eye.

“I don’t feel any trace metals left. Do I clean it?”

She nodded, starting to tremble even though the spike was out and the pain was gone. “There’s leftover carbolic dilution in my satchel.”

He rummaged through it and found the vial.

“Lucky I healed you,” she said as he wordlessly unscrewed it and poured the contents over the wound. It looked like water trickling through and joining the puddle of blood on the floor.

Then he began closing the puncture. She warned him to only perform the most basic regeneration, because she didn’t have the physical resources for more.

Gradually the hole in her leg was gone, replaced with delicate, extremely inflamed new tissue, and he partially removed the block on her nerves. Pain rolled through her like a wave. She’d need more healing, but this was enough to get her back.

She tried to rotate her foot, but the muscles weren’t intact enough. She could limp, though.

“Thank you.”

He didn’t acknowledge her, wiping his hands off on a handkerchief and pulling his gloves back on. He radiated impatience as she got up, favouring her left leg. There was a new sort of hardness about him.

Her head was light, but she felt less wobbly.

She touched the door, but her resonance was still just a gap, like a lost tooth. Her fingers skittered across the surface. Before she could say anything, she heard the mechanisms inside move, and the door clicked open.

She looked back, expecting to find Ferron behind her, but he was still across the room.