She glanced around the room again. From the angle of the city, she
could tell she was on the West Island. Probably one of the towers so
immense they often disappeared into the clouds.
She'd always imagined Kaine on an estate or in one of the old houses
in the city. Why would he be somewhere like this?
He lay, arms wrapped possessively around her as though he were
keeping her from being stolen, features relaxed in sleep. She studied
him.
What had she done?
Kaine Ferron was a dragon, like his family before him. Possessive to
the point of self-annihilation. Isolated and deadly, and now he held her
in his arms as if she were his. The temptation to give in, to let him have
her, and to love him for it terrified her.
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Alchemised • 665
Her need to love people and her desperate longing for them to love
her back—she had given that up, locked it away and buried it, giving its
place to the coldness of logic, realism, and the necessary choices of war.
This could only lead to ruin.
She had to be gone before he woke.
She tried to slip away as she had before, but this time his eyes
snapped open. He pulled her back immediately but then caught sight of
her terrified expression.
His eyes flickered, and he let go.
She went still.
The fear and anger that he'd inspired a year earlier had all but disap-
peared. The danger was still there, cast in sharper relief now that she had
seen how lethal he was. Yet somehow knowing it made her less fright-
ened. Now she knew how much he was holding back. Despite every-
thing he'd achieved, this was Kaine Ferron using restraint.
"This was a mistake," she said. "I shouldn't have come here."
His throat dipped as he looked away.
"Don't worry," he said quietly. "This won't complicate anything for
you. You wanted someone to be with, and I was available. I know it
didn't mean anything."
Helena's breath caught, and she swallowed. He wasn't just someone.
To her, he was—
That was the mistake of it, what she was so scared of.
Before she could even begin to invent a lie, something must have
shown in her face. Her eyes that always betrayed her.
Because his expression was withdrawn and then, in an instant, tri-
umph flashed across his face and he reached for her again. Hunger and
heat splintered the air like lightning.
Before she could bolt, he pulled her back to him and his lips found
hers, and all her fears and guilt and resolution became lost to her. All
she could think of was how much she wanted to be there, being touched
by him. He was fire, and she was already consumed.
"You're mine," he said against her lips, his fingers sliding along her
throat, tangling in her hair, holding her fast as he dragged her nearer.
It was not like the previous night. It wasn't comfort. It was claiming.
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666 • SenLinYu
His mouth was hot against her lips, his teeth nipping possessively
along her jaw and her throat, over her shoulders. She tangled her fingers
in his hair, arching into his touch. She tried not to cry from how desper-
ately she wanted him, and how grateful she was that she didn't have to
ask. He pulled her closer, arms entwined around her as he aligned him-
self and sank into her with a sharp thrust, his breath burning along her
neck.
He was exacting. Determined to prove to her that this was where she
belonged, to ensure that she could never deny what he made her feel.
She could feel his resonance along her nerves. He made no effort to
hide the way he attuned himself to her, overwhelming her with sensa-
tion and pleasure all at once.
In the moment his control slipped and his expression was laid bare
again, there was no more heartbreak; he was possessive and triumphant.
He pulled her close, crushing her against his chest. "You're mine. You
swore yourself to me. Now and after the war. I'm going to take care of
you. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you. You don't have to be lonely.
Because you're mine."
Helena knew she should go, but she had lost herself there.
She was locked in the dangerous embrace of Kaine Ferron, and it felt
like home.
She slept in his arms, nearly dead to the world, waking only briefly
when his fingers trailed along her shoulder. She looked up, found him
watching her, his eyes dark.
She arched into his touch and dropped a kiss over his heart. He
picked up her hand, and she felt his resonance in her fingers as she fell
asleep again.
When she woke again, it was nearly evening, and the mountains had
turned purple with dusk, gilded a burnished red as Sol began his de-
scent.
Kaine was dressed, but he was just sitting beside her, watching her
sleep, her fingers laced in his, as if there was nothing else to do.
"How are you here?" she asked, dazed with exhaustion. She some-
how felt more tired than she ever had before, as if her body had finally
remembered how to sleep and now intended to recover all the years of
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Alchemised • 667
deprivation.
He raised an eyebrow. "I live here. Did you think my primary resi-
dence was the Outpost panic room?"
She shook her head, rolling onto her back. Her hands didn't hurt at
all anymore. "No, but how are you able to spend a whole day in bed with
me? Aren't you a general or something? Don't you have meetings, or
crimes to commit?"
Rather than answer, he leaned over her until she was stretched out
beneath him. His longer arms pinned her hands above her head, and he
kissed her.
"I'm off duty," he finally said when she was breathless. "A concept I
fear no one has ever acquainted you with."
She rolled her eyes. "But why do you live here? I thought old families
had property."
He let go then and sat up, looking out at the view. "My mother was
tortured at our country estate, and all the staff murdered. We moved to
the city residence, and that's where she died. I wanted somewhere else
to go, away from it all."
Helena sat up.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked, I just never imagined you high like
this." she said, reaching up and resting a hand on his cheek. He dropped
his head against her palm and closed his eyes for a moment, the strands
of his hair falling across her fingertips.
Then he abruptly lifted his head. "Well, it's mostly practical. Amaris
flies better from the roof. She's better at it now, but it used to be hard
for her to get airborne."
"Amaris?" Helena repeated slowly.
"The chimaera. You saw her last night."
She blinked at him, a memory of an impossibly enormous, winged
wolf resurfacing. "I thought . . . I'd hallucinated."
He gave her a look. "I told you I was getting a chimaera."
"Well, yes, but I assumed it was something—smaller, and you never
mentioned it again. I assumed it had died."
He shrugged. "Well, she was small at first. About the size of a foal
when she arrived."
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668 • SenLinYu
"What is she?"
"Bennet isn't forthcoming about such things. A lot of Northern wolf
and some kind of destrier. I don't know where he got the wings, though."
"And she's— tame?"
He shook his head. "No. Just fond of me, but you should meet her. I
meant to introduce you, but the moment never seemed right. Come on."
Helena didn't move, not wanting to go anywhere yet. Everything
was so different between them now. The tension and wariness finally
absent.
She'd never known him outside of that context, even as children.
Secreted away from the rest of the world, she felt that she could fi-
nally see him for his own sake, rather than only through the lens of the
Eternal Flame's interests.
Glancing around the impersonal rooms, she could see them for what
they were, a place to exist. There was not a single item of personal sig-
nificance. Temporary. Uncommitted.
"When did you realise that I didn't know you were supposed to die?"
she asked rather than stand.
He released a long breath. "The first time you arrived on the Out-
post. I could tell by the way you looked, you thought it really was for-
ever."
Her throat tightened.
He looked away. "It was—funny at first. I kept waiting for you to
realise."
Heat spread across the back of her neck.
"I thought that when I pointed out that you should've known about
my punishment, you'd realise it was a setup, but you didn't. Then I as-
sumed that it would have been explained to you by that evening or the
next day, but you just kept coming back. I figured there must be some-
thing else they wanted, but it was clear by then they weren't going to tell
you. I almost did, a few times, but—" He sighed. "—I suppose I enjoyed
the way you wanted to save me."
She nodded slowly, fingers running along the seam of the linen
sheet. "Crowther talked so much about the long term and making sure
you didn't lose interest, and how I had to keep it secret, that no one
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Alchemised • 669
could know. I thought they trusted me." She was quiet for a moment.
"Ilva told me just before the solstice. You probably realised."
She took his silence for confirmation.
There was a pause as she remembered something. "Kaine, I don't
think your father's dead."
Kaine looked at her sharply. "What?"
"When we rescued Luc, there was a lich. He told Sebastian that he
was Atreus. He was guarding the door to the room Luc was in."
"No." Kaine said, his voice shaking. "No. He died. If he was still alive,
he would have come back. For my mother."
His pupils had shrunken into sharp points of black, the denial stark.
"He was a lich," she said as gently as she could. "Would he have
wanted her to see him like that?"
He started to speak several times as if to protest but then stopped.
"What happened?"
"Soren and Sebastian killed him He was between us and Luc. We
didn't have time to find the talisman, though. You didn't know he was
Undying?"
He shook his head. "I thought he was arrested before all that began."
He drew a scoffing breath, his expression growing bitter. "So in the end,
he didn't even manage to die for her."
"Your mother?"
He nodded slowly. "It was all because of her. I know what people
said about them, about why he married her, but he—adored her. She
was life itself to him. When I was born and she was sick, he grew ob-
sessed with keeping her well, not allowing visitors or any potential dis-
ease near her. Morrough claimed he could cure her, that she'd live
forever."
"He must not know what happened after he was arrested," Helena
said.
There was a strained look in Kaine's eyes. "Likely not."
"If he knew, do you think—?"
Kaine shook his head. "I'm sure he'd blame me. He always did."
There was a pause, and he looked over at her. "Speaking of dying, or
rather not dying . . . would you mind telling me why I haven't?"
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670 • SenLinYu
Helena suddenly found the thread count of the sheets fascinating.
"It was a failed experiment. Bennet spent weeks trying to heal it, and
everything he did made it worse. When it was finally deemed a failure,
he tried to scrap my body, but the array was pulling so much energy
from the talisman, he couldn't touch it. He assumed that eventually the
energy would run out, or my body would incinerate around it, so they
sent me home, because they didn't want the potential fallout to con-
taminate the new lab.
"Since my miraculous recovery, Bennet's tried to repeat the experi-
ment. Every subject has died, slowly and terribly, and Bennet cannot
find any explanation for why I alone survived. You are the only person
who has never questioned my survival, and I would like to know why."
There was a long pause. Helena cleared her throat. "I had this amulet
of the Holdfasts. A holy relic, you could say. Ilva gave it to me when I
became a healer, and it helped."
"Helped?" The scepticism in his voice was heavy.
"I could—work longer." She avoided his eyes. "I didn't get tired or—
burn out when I had it. When you were injured, you'd deteriorated so
much that the array was using more energy and resources than you had.
I thought since it had helped me maybe it would work for you too, give
you enough strength to recover."
His eyebrows rose. "What kind of relic would have the power to do
that?"
She coughed. She should probably lie, given that telling the truth
was possibly treason.
But she couldn't think of a lie to tell. She'd already committed trea-
son anyway.
"The Stone of the Heavens," she said. "I didn't know that's what it
was, and it's not—really what the stories said. It was something made
by the Necromancer, but Orion ended up with it, and people just as-
sumed it was heaven-sent."
"And they gave it to you?" Kaine eyes were narrowed.
"Apparently, it—chose me. It doesn't work for most people."
Kaine has his hands on his hips. "And that's how you healed me?"
She gave a tight nod. "That's how I healed you."
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Alchemised • 671
He was silent for a long time. She couldn't read his expression,
couldn't tell if he believed her.
"Where is it now?"
"Gone," she said, averting her eyes. "It's gone now."
He sighed. "Well, I suppose it makes sense they wouldn't let you
keep it, if I'm what you used it on."
She forced a self- deprecating smile. It was probably best he thought
that. "Ilva wasn't pleased."
"I imagine not. Were there any other repercussions?"
"Well, I was supposed t—" She swallowed. "—to kill you, but I got
out of that. So I guess it all worked out in the end."
She managed another smile, but he did not return it.
His expression had gone cold and empty. "This is your idea of things
working out?"
Her face fell, and just as suddenly it was all back: the reality of all
that existed between them. That he would have preferred it if she'd
killed him; that that was what he'd wanted. Instead she was sitting on
his bed, smiling over how it had worked out so nicely for everyone else
now that she had him on a leash.
"No, no of course not. Sorry."
She drew back, turning, trying to find her clothes.
"What are you doing?" Kaine leaned forward and caught her by the
ankle before she was halfway across the bed.
"I think I should go now," she muttered, her throat tight, trying to
slip free.
"Why?"
Her heart was in her throat. "I know you didn't want any of this; I
didn't mean to act like it was all fine."
His expression hardened, and he dragged her back across the bed.
She tried desperately to get free. "Can I—at least put my clothes on
before you get angry? Please."
He stared at her. "I wasn't talking about me. I was talking about you."
"Me?" She was confused enough that she stropped struggling.
"Yes. You. The Resistance has latched on to you like a parasite, and
you think it's all worked out because they're kind enough to keep you
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672 • SenLinYu
alive while they eat you?"
"It's not like that," she said sharply.
"Six years in a war hospital. How many people have you saved for
them? I doubt you know. But was that enough for them? No. The mo-
ment there was another advantage to gain, they sold you for the ports.
I've seen workhorses treated better; they would have turned you into
glue once you weren't good for anything else." He sneered. "But I sup-
pose that's how it's always been. It's only the war stallions like the Ba-
yards who are retired to the countryside."
"Shut up," she said, kicking sharply and freeing herself. Her face was
hot with anger. "You think I don't know I'm expendable? When you see
fit to remind me of it at every turn? Well you don't have any right to be
angry about that, when you're just as much a part of it as any of them.
You knew what was happening, and that I didn't, and you still chose to
be cruel as you were. At least Ilva and Crowther manipulated me for a
reason." She looked away from him. "When were you even that kind?"
He was silent. She looked away.
"I'm sorry," he said after a moment.
She gave a mirthless laugh. "Yes, you've apologised before, but you
don't change, so it doesn't really mean anything."
"You're right."
He sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed his face into his
hands. "I'm sorry for that, too. I never meant for any of it to go so far. I
knew the mission you'd been sent with, and I was sure I'd be immune,
but realising it was all real for you—when it would work, and I'd find
myself falling for the trap I'd chosen—I'd do whatever it took to make
you stop. It hadn't occurred to me that they wouldn't tell you."
She bit the inside of her lip. "They thought I'd be more convincing
that way."
He nodded slowly. "I thought if I was just cruel enough, you'd give
up. That you'd have a limit, that once I found it, you'd stop—finding
ways to emotionally blindside me." He gave a low sigh. "I spent such a
long time waiting to be betrayed, I didn't want to care when it hap-
pened. I was trying to hurt you, but I am so sorry that I did."
She stared out at the horizon, shaking her head slowly. "I don't know
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Alchemised • 673
why I kept trying. You just had these moments when I could see how
little of you was real. When you'd forget to pretend, you always seemed
so lonely. And I was lonely, too." She looked down at the scar in her
palm. "I used to think that we were the reverse of each other. Now—"
She looked at him and extended her hand. "—I can't help feeling like
we're mostly the same."
He entwined his fingers with hers and pulled her close, and this time
she let him take her into his arms, his face buried in the curve of her
neck.
Life was not cold.
Then he sat back enough to look at her. She watched the way his eyes
moved, taking her in piece by piece as if he didn't want to miss a single
detail.
His hands slid up around her throat, warm and possessive, thumb
covering the scar below her jaw as he kissed between her eyes. "You're a
far better person than I am. This world doesn't deserve you at all."
She shook her head. "I could survive without having to go as far as
you did. That doesn't make me better."
"You keep people alive. You touch them and your instinct is to save
them, no matter who they are or what they've done to you. That is not a
trait we share. It's far more difficult than calculating all the ways to kill
someone. And it costs you more."
Their foreheads touched, and she closed her eyes. It was as though
their souls were touching.
She wanted to spend her life lost in that moment, but she'd been
gone for a day, and no one knew where she was. She couldn't stay.
"I have to go back."
He didn't let go. "You should eat."
"I have to go," she said firmly, trying to get up.
"Take a bath," he said, catching her waist. "I'll order something to be
brought up. Anything you want."
"Kaine." She pulled his hands off. "You can't keep me here. I have to
go."
His expression flickered, just enough to reveal a shard of possessive-
ness, something ravenous and desperate. Then it vanished and he let her
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674 • SenLinYu
stand, resignation sweeping across his face.
She reached out, her fingers brushing back his hair. "Don't worry. I'm
always going to come back to you."
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CHAPTER 53
Aprilis 1787
Kaine's chimaera was somehow even larger when encoun-
tered lucid. When Helena was dressed and ready to leave, rather than be
smuggled through the city, Kaine led her to the high open roof. The
creature stood, stretching and yawning, baring fangs longer than Hele-
na's fingers, wings spreading so wide they nearly blanketed the rooftop.
The chimaera cantered stiffly towards Kaine, eerie yellow eyes watch-
ing Helena, the whites showing, muzzle curled in warning.
"Be nice, Amaris," Kaine said chidingly, scratching the chimaera be-
hind her ears.
Amaris drooped her head, her lip still curling to the gums, eyes fas-
tened on Helena. It was for the best that Helena had been delirious the
night before; she would never have climbed on that animal knowing it
was real.
Kaine patted the wolfen monster and then knelt, running his hands
up and down a foreleg. Helena could see the horse shape of the leg, but
it ended in a paw with huge talon- like claws.
She backed away, giving more space. Despite Kaine's desire that they
all be friends, it was obvious that Amaris did not like anyone but him.
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676 • SenLinYu
"She's not growling at you," Kaine said before Helena could take
another step back. "Bennet spliced the legs wrong when he made her.
Whenever she grows, the nerves get stretched out, and I have to fix
them."
"What do you mean?" Helena watched. She could tell he was using
his resonance as his fingers brushed along the length of the foreleg.
"Bennet only cares about the aesthetics when it comes to the chi-
maeras. He forces things to fit together even when they shouldn't. The
reason the chimaeras are so dangerous is that they're all rabid with pain.
They usually die because the stress kills them. When Amaris arrived,
she bit me about fifty times during the first week. You may recall that
my back was still in tatters at the time. I nearly snapped her neck after
the tenth time, but I thought, I'm in so much pain I'd love to bite some-
one. Why would it be different for her? She was all puppy then, but legs
like a foal. Constantly tripping and breaking her wings." He glanced
back at Helena. "I had a notion of the taming capacity of pain relief, and
you'd mentioned how flawed the transmutations were, so I tried to fix
what I could. Once she realised I wasn't there to hurt her, she stopped
biting."
He straightened and patted Amaris just below a huge wing. The
feathers were as long as Helena's arms.
He rubbed his knuckles between Amaris's eyes. "She warmed up to
me after that. She's the only survivor of the whole batch. Bennet tried
to take her back, wanted to see why she'd worked. She nearly took his
head off. Didn't you?"
He rumpled the thick fur.
"Come meet her, she'll be nice now." He gestured Helena over. He
took her hand and let Amaris sniff it. Her teeth remained bared, but her
tail slowly began to swing and her wings relaxed. He guided Helena to
bury her fingers in the thick fur and scratch behind an enormous,
pricked ear.
Helena could feel his eyes on her as she tentatively let her resonance
creep in. Amaris trembled but didn't move or snarl.
She could feel how haphazardly assembled Amaris was, bones and
tissue not meant to be combined but forced together nonetheless. Un-
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Alchemised • 677
like the chimaeras she'd examined in her lab, it was clear someone had
tried to correct the excessive flaws, to properly join the muscles, smooth
the bone fusions and mis- joined ligaments, to block off nerves that
caused nothing but pain.
She tried to imagine this monster as a puppy, a foal, a hatchling. In-
nocent and juvenile and then—
Pain and mutilation.
Of course the chimaeras were savage. How could anything endure so
much hurt and not learn only to bite?
"You've done remarkable work on her," she said, her mouth dry. "Is
this how you learned to heal?"
"I suppose it was some good practice."
He looked out over the city, spread below like a glittering crown.
Lumithia had yet to rise, leaving whole swaths of the East Island in
darkness, but the Alchemy Tower stood above it all, its beacon ever
burning.
"We should go now. It's dark enough to fly without being sighted."
It was one thing to pet Amaris; it was quite another to mount her.
Helena was certain the wolf could bite her in half if so inclined. Kaine
stood at Amaris's head, scratching her ears, while Helena grasped the
leather harness and clambered up.
It took an embarrassingly long time, like scaling a furry mountain.
Helena was worried about kneeing or elbowing Amaris and struggled
to get a good grip. Kaine swung up behind her in one easy movement.
He was barely seated before Amaris leapt off the roof.
They plummeted straight down and then the huge wings spread out,
catching the air and carrying them skywards.
Kaine flew Amaris so high, the air grew thin. They kept their dis-
tance from the city and towers, flying near the mountains until they
reached the dam. Amaris banked sharply, so fast the Outpost blurred
and the wind from her wings rattled the windows as they sped past.
One of the factories had a large open roof that they landed on.
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678 • SenLinYu
Helena's legs scarcely held her as she slid off, desperately grateful for
solid ground and convinced that humans were not meant to fly, and it
was an abomination for them to do so. She tried to appear grateful and
not look too green as she scuttled away from the chimaera.
Kaine followed her. Now that the introduction to Amaris and jour-
ney were over, there was an undeniable look of resentment in his eyes
again, as if letting her return to Headquarters was not yet something he
was convinced of.
Helena pretended not to notice as she headed for the gate, but it
only made his mood darken. Finally, she stopped. "What is it?"
"Don't go," he said softly.
"You know I have to."
He shook his head. "No, I don't. They don't care about you."
The words were like a raw nerve being plucked. The pain hummed
inside her. Before she would have denied it, because Luc was there and
he would never turn on her, but that was no longer true.
Still, she was unmoved. She shook her head. "We can't let the Undy-
ing win. There is too much at stake. I have to go where I can do good."
A look of fury joined his resentment. "No, you don't. It doesn't mat-
ter how many times you break yourself, the gods don't care. There's no
reward. This"—he threw his hand out, gesturing at the city, the moun-
tains, and the black sky that Lumithia now radiated down from—"is
the Abyss. We're already in it. None of it matters. Sacrifice and pain, the
universe does not care."
"You're wrong," she said.
He opened his mouth to argue, to offer an endless list of examples of
how cold and uncaring the world was, but she didn't need to be told.
"You're wrong because I'm part of the universe," she said. "A tiny
piece, I admit, maybe never an important or mathematically significant
one, but still a piece. You and I are not separate from it. No one is. It
matters to me, everyone who's died and everyone who will, and every-
one who suffers. As long as I exist, I will always care. And that means
that part of the universe does." She smiled at him. "Doesn't that make it
all a little brighter?"
He looked despairing.
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She gave a helpless shrug. "I want to do good in the world. That was
what my father wanted most for me." She looked down at her hands. "I
know most people won't think I have. I've done things now that I don't
think I'm supposed to be forgiven for. But I want to be remembered as
someone who tried at least."
She stepped back, but he caught her.
"Helena— "
She pulled free. "Be careful, Kaine. Don't die."
"Crowther's looking for you," the gatehouse guard said as he let
her in. She'd had no papers, and it made everything take much longer.
Helena nodded and headed to the Tower.
Crowther was seated in his office, his right arm strapped to his body
as if it were paralysed again, and he looked at Helena with a degree of
disgust unlike anything she'd ever seen before. It reminded her of how
the guild students used to look at her, but intensified by magnitudes.
The fingers of his right arm were squeezed into a fist. Which meant
it still worked and he was intentionally depriving himself of it.
It took her a moment to understand. This was because she was a
necromancer now.
"I was told you wanted me," she said, pretending not to notice his
expression.
"Hours ago," he said through clenched teeth.
"I'm here now."
Crowther snapped the ignition rings on his left hand, and a deep red
orb of flames filled his hand before his fingers squeezed into a fist, skin
glowing for a moment before the light extinguished. "The prisoner you
brought back refuses to cooperate without you, and Ilva . . ." His expres-
sion twisted with fury. "Ilva insists on a light touch until we know who
he is. I have wasted an entire day waiting for you. Where were you?"
Helena avoided his eyes. "Ilva said it would be best to keep out of
sight until the official story had circulated."
"That's not what I asked."
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Helena set her jaw and met his eyes. "I was with Ferron, but I'm sure
you already worked that out."
He gave a scathing laugh that made her scalp crawl. The venom in
his expression was so shocking, it was as if she were not even human
anymore.
"It's not as if I wanted to use necromancy," she said, deciding to drag
the unspoken source of his fury into the open. "There was no other way.
Soren wasn't near recovered enough for a mission like that. What was I
supposed to do? Let Luc die?"
"What were you supposed to do?" he repeated slowly, standing. "You
were supposed to stay in Headquarters. You have one job, Marino, and
that is to stay alive and intact so that Ferron can have his weekly proof
of life. But it seems I have expected too much of your skills of deduc-
tion, so let me be crystal-clear: Unless you are liaising, you will not set
foot outside of Headquarters ever again. The only reason I am not hav-
ing you thrown in prison to stand trial for necromancy is because you
now exist for keeping Ferron in line."
Helena's throat closed. "It was your plan. I was working with what I
had."
Crowther's eyes bulged. "My plan?"
"It was your informant from the hospital who gave Soren all the
information. Where else would Purnell—"
Before she could finish the question, the door burst open, and a boy
flew into the room.
"Where's Sofia? I tried to find her, but no one will talk to me. Where
is she?"
It was Ivy, her face dirty, hair tucked up in a cap.
Crowther's gaze slid to Helena. "Marino, perhaps you'd like to tell
Ivy here where her older sister, Sofia Purnell, is?"
Ivy turned, and Helena noticed then the resemblance between the
hospital orderly and Crowther's little protégée. A few years apart, dif-
ferent colouring, and Ivy's features were sharp and foxlike where Sofia
was soft. But as she looked, Helena could see the resemblance.
"Your sister?" Helena said, her voice straining. "Sofia was your sister?"
Beneath the dirt, all colour drained from Ivy's face.
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"Sofia was part of the rescue team that saved Luc. She showed us the
route through the tunnels to the prison, but during the escape, she was
caught in the flood current. I thought—I thought"—Helena looked at
Crowther— "you sent her. You didn't send her?"
Ivy stared at Helena for a moment and then screamed. Helena had
never heard such a sound from anyone. It exploded out of the girl, so
sharp it felt as though the lightbulbs might shatter. White rage swept
across Ivy's face.
Helena braced herself, but Ivy whirled on Crowther. "You promised
to protect her if I did everything you said! She wasn't supposed to work
for you. She was just supposed to be safe!"
She lunged at him, going right over the desk, as if she intended to
claw his eyes out, but before her fingers reached him, a burst of flames
materialised and slammed her into the wall. Ivy hit the floor, and books
toppled from the shelves onto her, catching fire as they rained down.
Crowther had moved, darting like a cat. His years of combat experi-
ence showing as he closed in on Ivy.
"I never told her about tunnels or waterways, or any prison,"
Crowther said as his hand clenched in a fist, the fire vanishing. "If she
knew that information, it was from your indiscretion. I warned you to
tell her nothing, but you had to talk about all the ways you could travel
through the city unseen. Are you glad you impressed her now? I'm sure
you made it sound so easy."
Helena expected Ivy to spring up, but the girl just stayed there on the
floor.
"I wanted her to know the ways out. I showed her the map and told
her about the prison so she wouldn't go that way," Ivy said, her voice a
whimpering sob.
"If you had listened to me, she'd be alive," Crowther said, his voice
callous. "I upheld my end of the deal; none of this is my fault." He
kicked her. "Now get out of my sight. If Lucien Holdfast had been
killed in that ridiculous rescue, I would have blamed you."
Ivy picked herself up off the floor without a word, but as she slipped
through the door, she looked back for an instant, and there was murder
in her eyes.
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When she was gone, Crowther stepped over and pulled out a radio
from inside his desk, holding the transceiver up as it crackled to life.
Helena recognised the voice of the guard. One of the higher-ups.
The string of jargon that Crowther muttered was nearly incompre-
hensible, but Helena did pick up two phrases: "extremely dangerous"
and "neutralised."
He set the transceiver down and looked around his charred office.
"Is that really necessary?" Helena asked.
Crowther looked up. "You've seen what she's capable of. Without her
sister keeping her in check, Ivy is of no use. Bear in mind, that rule ap-
plies to Ferron as well."
His eyes raked over her in disgust, as if he could see every place
Kaine had touched her. "I would strongly advise keeping yourself alive,
Marino."
When Helena saw Wagner, he smiled at her, but all she could think
of was the terror in Sofia's face as he shoved her towards the necro-
thralls.
A translator had been found, a rheumy old man named Hotten who
worked in the kitchens. His son had been a graduate of the Alchemy
Institute and died early in the war.
"Now then," Crowther said as they entered the cell. All his anger had
vanished, and he was almost convincingly convivial. "Why are you so
important?"
Hotten translated. Hevgotian was a low West dialect that had a
folky cadence and very round-sounding words. Wagner gave a few
long- winded answers that Hotten summarised after trying and failing
to keep up.
"He knew Morrough in Hevgoss. Morrough was given a prison unit,
sector four criminals. Wagner was a guard," Hotten translated slowly.
The only thing Hevgoss liked more than expansionist war was their
prison population. It was vast, multigenerational, and the source of their
labour force and the bulk of their military. Sector four criminals were
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usually political prisoners, sentenced to four generations of imprison-
ment, lifetime after lifetime of indentured servitude that only their
great-great- grandchildren would have a chance of escaping.
Labour sentences were passed down for almost any infraction, last-
ing anywhere from days to generations. Much of their low-ranked mil-
itary was composed of sector one and two criminals, who were promised
pardons in exchange for a successful military record. Whenever there
were labour shortages, or rumours of political or economic instability
within the country, Hevgoss had a habit of going to war, stretching their
borders to encompass some new population to refill their prisons.
Officially Hevgotian prisons were all state-run, but that didn't pre-
vent the "rental" of prisoners when it suited them to whomever could
pay. Slavery was illegal on the Northern continent, so Hevgoss had re-
invented it.
"Morrough had made a deal with the militocrats. He was trying to
find a way of controlling the power of life. He said that mastering it,
harvesting it, was the key to immortality. He promised the leaders that
he'd teach it to them if they provided him with the materials to test it,
but the prisoners"—Wagner shrugged—"were resistant. They didn't
want to cooperate. They knew they would die."
Wagner smiled as he recounted this, as though the story evoked fond
memories.
"My job was to deliver the prisoners each day and take them back at
night, but there were never any to take back when he was done with
them. Morrough was friendly to me. He would talk to me, tell me his
frustrations. The energy, you see, could not be taken by force; it had to
be given willingly. He had already found many tricks to get it, but when
the prisoners were dead, the energy, he said, remembered. They would
lash out. Resist, so that it was difficult even for him to control."
Helena and Crowther shared a quick glance. Clearly Crowther was
also acquainted with the true story of Orion's victory against the Nec-
romancer.
"It was my idea that solved it." Wagner thumped his chest. "My fa-
ther, he was a warden, so was my grandfather. Prison uprisings are a
dangerous thing. There are prisons the size of towns. To keep order, it is
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684 • SenLinYu
important that the guards are not the enemy. Instead, you make the
prisoners think their trouble is other prisoners, a different unit or sector.
Those prisoners are the reason this prisoner has less; the rules they hate
are those prisoners' fault. By making privileges always at the expense of
others, the prisoners forget who has made those rules. Morrough liked
this idea. To take the souls, he must make the prisoners blame someone
else. Even after the energy was taken, the blame must continue to be
misdirected."
Wagner looked from Helena to Crowther, seeming to expect their
awe.
"He succeeded in this, I presume," Crowther said.
Wagner nodded. "He stopped trying to contain or bind the energy
to himself. Instead he used another prisoner inside the array." He spread
his hands wide. "He had a strange alchemy. With his power, he pulled
the energy out and bound them to the soul of a chosen prisoner. The
other prisoner would suffer all the anger, and Morrough took the
power."
"But how would he control it," Helena said, "if the souls—the energy
is bound to someone else?"
"With his bones," Wagner said, raising his eyebrows, "I saw it. He
used his alchemy to contain all the souls inside pieces of his own bones.
It was strange. but if a piece stayed with the prisoner in the array, they
could not die, even if they tried. Then Morrough could keep the power."
The phylacteries. It was exactly what Kaine had described.
"The souls of the others, they would feel that life, they would try to
resist, but the prisoner could not be killed. Still . . . slowly their mind
would— " Wagner touched the sides of his head, pulling invisible strings
as though unravelling something.
"Are you saying that the Undying are just a power source for Mor-
rough?" Helena said slowly.
"Yes! That is what he called them. Undying. Not living or dead."
Crowther placed paper and pen down in front of Wagner, indicating
that he sketch as much of the procedure and array as possible.
It was clear that Wagner was no alchemist, or artist, but he'd seen the
process done at least a few times. He sketched a massive array unlike
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anything Helena had ever seen. Neither celestial nor elemental, it had
nine source points, and in the centre a platform was suspended by which
Morrough could access the body of the prisoner designated to survive.
The sacrificial victims were placed on the nine points. Morrough
would open the chest cavity of the chosen recipient prisoner and place
a piece of one of his own bones inside as the final component of the
array. After somehow tethering their life force to that bone, he would
activate the array.
The array created a pull so terrible that the sacrifices shrivelled into
husks, stripped of life until it was drawn into the recipient, trapping
their soul beneath the layers and layers of the others, like an insect
trapped in a spiderweb.
Morrough would cut off a shard of the bone, coat it in lumithium,
and leave it inside the prisoner's body. Then he'd place the rest back in-
side his own.
The information fell in line with what they knew, but Helena's mind
refused to believe that such a thing could be possible.
Ilva's story about the first Necromancer had been horrifying enough,
manipulating and deceiving a multitude, but the scale made it imper-
sonal. This process was so intimate and intentional. The repetition. The
scope. Nine victims, over and over, tearing bone shard after bone shard
each time. For power. For immortality.
This was how Kaine had been made.
"How did you survive so long, knowing all this?" Crowther asked
Wagner.
Wagner smiled. "He was a selfish man. The lives of others were, to
him, a resource. I am no fool. When it was a success, I ran. I knew he
would try to find me someday. He would not share credit in his great
discovery. I thought he had forgotten, until I woke up in Paladia. Now
the world will know of me."
He smiled craftily at Crowther, clearly anticipating being used by
the Resistance to counter Morrough's claims of power and scientific
genius, but Helena couldn't imagine anyone caring whose idea it was;
Morrough was the one with the power and ability.
"How are all the Undying able to use necromancy?" she asked.
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686 • SenLinYu
Hotten translated the question.
"Accident," Wagner said with a barking laugh. "He never knew why."
Once the interview with Wagner was over, Helena was left at loose
ends. Headquarters security was thrown into chaos after the guards
failed to apprehend Ivy.
Any information Ivy knew was now considered compromised.
Crowther immediately moved the prisoners under the Alchemy Tower
to a different location, somewhere south of Headquarters, and a team of
alchemists went down into the warren of tunnels, trying to seal them off
to keep Ivy from sneaking back in.
But when Ilva and Althorne went with Crowther for a follow-up
interrogation, Wagner was found dead, hacked to bits by the reanimated
corpses of the two guards stationed outside his cell. The remains had
been assembled to read: crowther next.
Luc was still in the hospital, under constant watch. Information
about his condition was kept carefully controlled. According to the
daily reports, he was recovering and only needed a few more days before
he'd be transferred to his rooms.
Elain was the only healer allowed to go in to see him. She was tight-
lipped for the first time in her life. She would hurry in and out, retriev-
ing medicine from the supply room, talking to Pace in a hushed voice,
and then hurrying back.
Helena covered Elain's usual shifts. Among those patients was Penny,
whose leg had been too damaged for healing and been amputated at the
knee. Alister was sitting at her bedside, keeping her company when
Helena pushed back the curtains.
Helena was surprised at first that Penny had so few visitors, but then
she remembered that, aside from Alister, Luc and Lila were the only
ones left. All the rest were still being searched for beneath the rubble.
"I should go," Alister said, standing up. "The tribunal has follow-up
questions."
Penny nodded wordlessly, her fingers clutching the blankets on her
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lap.
"What tribunal?" Helena asked, sitting down when Alister had gone.
"You two aren't being punished for saving Luc, are you?"
Penny shook her head, picking at a lump in the thread of the linen
sheets. "No. We just got a reprimand. I'm even supposed to get two
medals. The tribunal's for Lila."
Helena looked up sharply. "What do you mean?"
"They're replacing Lila with Sebastian as paladin primary," Penny
said without looking up. "Lila's probably going to be stripped of rank
for compromising Luc's safety."
"You can't be serious," Helena said. "Lila has saved Luc's life more
times than— "
"I know," Penny said sharply. "We all know, but they're not going to
do anything to Luc—he's Principate. So Lila takes the fall. People have
been complaining for a while—I mean, they always were, because she's
a girl and paladins are supposed to be boys—but Lila always outweighed
the risk before, but after that last time with the chimaera, and now . . .
the higher-ups see her as a liability for him. They think that if it hadn't
been for her, Luc wouldn't have been captured."
"But— "
"They've been doing interviews, and the thing is," Penny continued,
looking a mixture of guilt-stricken and resigned, "we all knew. I mean
he tried to be subtle about it, but you could tell just looking. Especially
lately, everyone thought it was all going to be over soon. I think Luc
thought it'd be fine because no one cared when it was his dad and Se-
bastian. But there's always more rules for us girls, and no one under oath
can say that Luc's not compromised. Could you?"
Helena looked away.
Poor Lila. She'd straddled the impossibility of her role for years,
rarely making a mistake, but now she was left paying for Luc's.
What would happen?
Helena swallowed hard, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand.
There wasn't anything they could do about the tribunal. "How's the leg?"
Penny seemed to shrink. "Fine," she said too quickly.
Helena reached out slowly. "You know, sometimes the nerve endings
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688 • SenLinYu
don't realise the amputation has happened, and it can make you feel like
the leg's still there and in pain. I can use my resonance to block it so it
doesn't feel that way."
"Really?" Penny's voice had a hint of desperation.
Helena set to work, but even this made her think about Lila.
As far as lost limbs went, it was a good amputation. Maier had been
able to salvage as much of the leg as possible and perform a clean cut,
without the rush of an emergency. "You know, you might be able to get
a prosthetic."
"I don't think my repertoire is good enough for much," Penny said
with a bitter smile, but the strain in her expression was already clearing.
"Maybe a basic one, though, so I can stay on, maybe man the radios. I
don't want to get sent off."
"The forge- masters are very talented. Titanium bonds well for most
people, and it's a lot lighter than the old models."
"I guess we'll see," Penny said.
There was silence while Helena worked, and then Penny spoke again.
"Is it true, what Luc said. When Soren came to save Alister and me, was
he dead?"
Helena flinched as if she'd been kicked through the skull, Soren's
name striking like an anvil. She was drowning again.
Penny's leg wavered in Helena's vision.
"When I first heard the rumour, I thought it was ridiculous. I was
sure I would have noticed if he was dead. But sitting here, I keep think-
ing about it, the way he didn't stop fighting no matter what they did to
him. He never screamed—not even when they started tearing him
apart." Penny's voice shook. "I think I'd rather believe he was dead."
Helena's skin crawled as if those cold fingers were dragging across it.
She blinked, pushing the thoughts and memories of Soren back and
away, again wilfully forcing her consciousness to swerve around the
wound that his memory evoked.
She knew better than to outright confess. She bit her lip for a mo-
ment. "Soren said we had to do anything, no matter what it took, to save
Luc."
Penny was quiet for a long time. "I don't know how to feel. I know
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I'd be dead if he hadn't come right then . . . but—" Her lips trembled.
"— what if that was a test? All these years of fighting the good fight, but
then in the final moment, instead of staying true, we chose the easy
way."
Helena was glad that she was nearly done working on Penny's leg,
because the conversation was making her hands shake. Easy. She hated
that word.
She swallowed hard. "If one person's actions are enough to damn
everyone, then the gods are terrible, and Sol is the worst of all."
"You don't mean that," Penny said sharply, catching her by the wrist,
clutching at it until her fingers bit into her skin. "Look at me, Helena.
You don't mean that. It works the other way, too. Orion passed the test,
and think of all the blessings that came from that."
Penny seemed desperate to convince her.
"I remember when you first came here. We were in the same dorm.
You said that Paladia was the most beautiful place in the whole world.
The Shining City, you called it. You said that in Etras people didn't re-
ally believe in the gods, but here in the North, you understood why they
did, because how else could a place be so beautiful. Don't you remember
that?"
She found Helena's hand and squeezed it. "That's what you said. I
think you still believe that, deep down. You were just—you were just
scared and you—made a mistake, but you can repent. If you talk to the
Falcon, he makes it all so clear. The journey, all the suffering, it's what
we need. How else can we be purified? Even—even when it's hard, we
have to be grateful for it, because that's what makes us pure."
Penny was smiling tearfully at Helena, fervently trying to convince
her. "That's why it's better for all of us to die true to what we believe
than to live on by betraying and corrupting ourselves. I know you meant
well, saving us, but you should have trusted Sol."
Helena pulled her hand free. "Penny, if I thought we'd all die, I
wouldn't be so afraid of losing. What they'll do to us if we lose will be
far worse than death." She shook her head. "There will be nothing puri-
fying about it."
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690 • SenLinYu
Even after days of chelating treatment, Lila's resonance failed to
return. The Council was trying to keep the news quiet, not wanting to
cause a panic. The chelators were supposed to sequester the metal in
Lila's blood to flush it out, but it wasn't working as effectively as ex-
pected.
Shiseo had said nothing about the message Helena had sent him to
the Outpost with, asked no questions, but he'd looked very relieved the
first time she returned to the lab. It communicated more than words
could.
They spent days analysing and re-analysing the shards and new sam-
ples of Lila's blood, trying to determine what they were missing. Every
time Helena had to leave for a shift, she always returned to find Shiseo
still working. He finally fell asleep, slumped over the workstation.
Helena sat quietly, watching a flame under the glass alembic before
her, steam rising in the cucurbit, collecting in the ambix and running
down the tube into a vial beside it.
Elain Boyle had been made the Resistance's lead healer earlier that
day. It was a new position that Matias had created for her. Elain had
arrived in the hospital wearing a large and ornate sunstone amulet
around her neck, and now her general duties were managing and sched-
uling the other healers' shifts, while she worked exclusively as Luc's
"personal" healer.
Helena told herself she didn't care.
Her chymiatria was becoming the default for the healers. Pace had
quietly created a section in the storerooms for the tonics and medicines,
letting Helena's chymiatria bear some of the load of healing.
Helena curled her fingers into a tight fist. She'd built up a large sup-
ply of ingredients since they'd recovered the ports, but she was worried
about running out now that Crowther had banned her from foraging
anymore. Some could be made using imported materials, but there were
a few things that were hard to get her hands on if she couldn't gather
them herself.
She sighed. She used to love the quietness of lab work—such a stark
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contrast with the hospital—but now it left her to her thoughts, and
everything she pushed away in her mind crowded around, suffocating
her.
She missed Kaine.
Whenever she thought of him, she felt as though a piece of her was
missing.
The war had drilled itself into her bones, carving away at her until
there was hardly anything left except what made her useful, an ideal
component in an elaborate machine, but Kaine had reminded her that
she was human; that not every trait and ability and quality she pos-
sessed only mattered insomuch as it was useful to someone else. That
she was allowed to breathe sometimes.
Now, in his absence, she felt herself suffocating.
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CHAPTER 54
Aprilis 1787
When Helena stood on the dam, staring across the
bridge to the Outpost, she hesitated.
She'd missed Kaine the whole week, but now, returning, she felt
dread. He could be so unpredictable. Every moment of softness be-
tween them tended to be followed by its direct inversion.
She drew several steadying breaths, set her jaw, and made herself
cross. A necrothrall was waiting outside the tenement when she arrived.
Her heart dropped, and she swallowed hard, opening her satchel pulling
out the envelope along with replacements for his medical kit.
Her face was burning, but she tried to control her expressions and
not look directly at the necrothrall as she held it all out.
"Here." She shoved everything into the necrothrall's hands and
turned away.
"Marino."
She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her name. She
whirled around.
The necrothrall was the only one standing there.
"Did you—talk?" She'd never heard a necrothrall speak. Motor func-
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tion was one thing, but reanimation of the language parts of the brain
was too much. Necrothralls didn't talk. They never talked.
"Come," it said.
She followed him warily, relaxing when she realised they were
headed for the panic room. He couldn't have just told to go there last
week?
She was half indignant when she arrived, and then forgot, because
before she was through the door, Kaine had her in his arms and was
kissing her as if starved.
Her fingers caught his cloak and her eyes fluttered closed as she
kissed him back. The whole world dropped away. She felt his teeth,
hungry against her lips and tongue.
His hands found her hips, guiding her backwards. Then his lips were
on her neck as she gasped, the dip of her throat, between her clothed
breasts, and he was on his knees, pushing her back on the sofa, and she
was under him and she had not even put down her satchel.
His hands were sliding under her clothes, lips burning a trail of de-
sire across every inch of skin his mouth could find.
She had never felt so intoxicated.
His resonance hummed beneath her skin, following the pathway of
her nerves and veins, mapping her. Not erotically, but in the same pan-
icked way her own resonance sometimes flared when she was afraid
someone was hurt and wanted to find the injury. It reached all the way
to her toes and then vanished, but she scarcely noticed as his tongue ran
up on her inner thigh, and then a haze of hot pleasure consumed her.
Her shirt was undone, skirts up around her waist, when he sank into
her. She wrapped her arms tight around his neck, pulling him close,
burying her face against his shoulder. The world had reduced itself to a
single point, Kaine, his breath and body and touch.
As they lay entwined on that too small sofa, limbs entangled, it was
like that horrible hungover morning and yet completely new. This time,
they'd gotten it right. Her eyes fluttered closed, tracing her fingers
across his skin, but he sat up after only a few moments.
He was looking her over, his eyes searching.
She lifted her head, still catching her breath. "What's wrong?"
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His thumb found the scars on her ribs. "I worried about you. Had a
lot of time to wonder if I'd done everything right when I healed you."
She caught his hand. "You did everything perfectly."
He still looked worried. "And nothing's happened since?"
"No," she said. "I haven't left Headquarters at all since I got back.
And I—I won't anymore except to come— straight to see you. I'm
not— " The words caught, tangling in her throat. "I'm not allowed to.
Got very strict orders about that, so you won't have to worry anymore."
He gave an audible sigh of relief and sank down against her, brush-
ing a kiss against her forehead.
Helena closed her eyes, trying to let him have this, but her stomach
clenched and her jaw trembled as she tried to swallow her emotions.
"What's wrong?"
She looked up and found him watching her again.
"I—I liked foraging. I used to go with my father, during the sum-
mers."
There was a pause. "I didn't realise it was important to you."
She was silent for a moment. Thinking of the wetlands stretched out
around her, nothing but the wilds and the mountains and the brilliant
blue sky above, the only place where she could breathe without smelling
blood.
"Sometimes it was the closest thing to freedom I still had."
She felt him freeze.
"It'll just be until the end of the war," he said, the words half plea and
half vow.
A bitter laugh caught in her chest as she looked at him. "Just till
then? When'll that be? And what end do you think will somehow go
well for either of us?"
He couldn't meet her eyes.
She looked away, too. "There are things I've been a part of that I
know the Eternal Flame would never officially approve of. I don't know
what will happen if it all comes out."
Her chest tightened as she thought about all those rooms under-
ground where Crowther had taken her so many times now. The blood.
The burns, the flayed body parts, tangled nerves, split open and twisted
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Alchemised • 695
apart in horrible, terrifying ways. Helena's name was beside Crowther's
in those prisoner logs. Her handwriting cataloguing in clinical terms
the injuries she'd healed, the condition of the prisoners when they died
or were placed into those horrible underground cells. She knew it was
intentional on Crowther's part, having her listed as the medical person-
nel on- site. Leverage.
At one point, he might have let it remain a latent threat, but she
expected no mercy now.
If the war was won, without Luc on her side, she had few friends.
Kaine took her hand. "You can run. Say the word, and I'll get you
out."
A craven, exhausted part of her sparked to life at those words. Out.
Free. Away from the war.
She hadn't known how much she'd wanted it until she heard it of-
fered by someone who meant it. She'd been so quick to refuse her father
when he'd wanted to return to Etras, but now she physically longed for
it.
But the war would continue, no matter where she went, and Kaine
would be there. He couldn't run. If she was gone, Crowther would not
keep him alive.
"No," she said, meeting his eyes.
"The offer stands. Say the word, and I'll get you out."
She reached up, combing a strand of pale hair back from his eyes.
"What about you?" she asked.
He grimaced. "If I could run, I would have vanished while my mother
was alive."
"Would you go now, if you could?"
His eyes seemed to ripple with heat. "With you, I would."
She forced a smile. "Then we'll go together. After the war." She
gripped his hand and pressed it against her chest, letting him feel her
heartbeat. "When the war is over. We'll run away somewhere no one
knows us. We'll—disappear forever."
His eyes flickered, but he smiled back. "Of course."
He was lying.
They both were. It was daydream to think it possible.
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696 • SenLinYu
She squeezed his hand tighter until the illusion faded.
She swallowed hard, dreading what she had to say. "The Eternal
Flame has recently obtained new information about the process that
the Undying undergo to gain their immutability. I was asked to ques-
tion you about the details. To verify the information."
Kaine just stared at her for a moment. Then his gaze turned dissocia-
tive.
"Kaine." She touched him, and he started.
"It's a blur," he said quickly. "I don't remember."
"Anything helps. It really does."
He was silent, his chest rising and falling several times before he
spoke again. "What do you want to know?"
"There was an array involved?"
He nodded slowly.
"Could you describe it? Or draw it?"
He shook his head. "I never got a good look at it. I remember there
were nine points, and I was in the middle. I was cooperating, but they
still drugged me and strapped me down so I couldn't move."
He was staring at the far wall.
"They started to bring the staff in. The ones they hadn't already killed.
I hadn't known how it worked, that they were going to—when I asked
what they were doing, I was told I was lucky we had so many servants,
they didn't need to use my mother."
"They used your servants?"
He nodded slowly. "We never had much company in the country-
side. My mother was sick so often, and with all the rumours, my father
didn't trust anyone. He was busy managing the guild, so it was just the
two of us there, and the servants. They were almost like family, some of
them. My mother's lady's maid, Davies, had been with her since she was
a girl, and came with her to Spirefell when she married. After the birth,
when my mother was—Davies practically raised me the first few years."
"I'm so sorry, Kaine."
He was silent for a long time, not looking at her. "There was this
platform over me, and then Morrough was leaning down. He had
something in his hand. The bone shard, I think. I remember screaming.
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When I woke up, there was still screaming, but it wasn't me anymore. I
couldn't hear it, I could just feel it. Like they were sutured inside me, all
mangled but still alive."
She stared at him in horror. "Do you still—hear them?"
He blinked slowly. "They're quieter now."
She swallowed hard. "According to the information we have, the
Undying are a by-product of Morrough's attempts to harness power
without suffering from ill effects."
He was silent a moment. "So if we kill the Undying, that weakens
him."
"In theory, yes. Would destroying the talismans affect the phylacter-
ies? Does that kill the Undying?"
Kaine shook his head. "No. He can make another, but they're—only
slightly more intelligent than necrothralls then."
"There must be some way, though. We'll figure it out."
He looked at her, his expression beginning to clear and sharpen
again. "If the Undying are the source of Morrough's power, that means
this won't be over until they're all dead."
She knew instantly what he was trying to prepare her for. "No. I'll
find a way to reverse it. If it's possible to bind a soul, surely it can be
unbound."
"Helena . . ."
She shook her head. "You already thought I couldn't save you once.
You should give me more credit." She cleared her throat, refusing to
have this conversation.
She stood, dressing quickly. "I have to take this information back to
Headquarters."
She didn't really care at about reporting to Crowther, though. She
wanted to begin reviewing the array that Wagner had sketched. She
needed to do research.
"Wait. I have something for you, although I hope you won't need
them again." Wrapped in oilcloth were her daggers.
She'd been sure they'd been washed downriver.
"How'd you find them?"
"I had spares made. It took long enough to find a metallurgist with
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698 • SenLinYu
a resonance for your alloy. I figured a few extra sets might be wise."
"Thank you," she said, touching them fondly and then putting them
carefully in her satchel before she began to fix her hair.
"I hate your hair like that," he said, startling her.
She looked up. "I could crop it instead."
He looked so offended that she laughed.
"I have to keep it out of the way when working, and I'm always on
call for emergencies. It's practical."
He looked unconvinced. "I want to see you more."
Her fingers stilled. She could see the hunger in his eyes. Possessive.
Ravenous. He would drag her from the war and hide her the instant she
let him. The conflict was visible in his eyes.
Want. Want. Want. She felt it like her heartbeat.
If he couldn't hide her, he would hoard her to himself as much as he
was able to. She'd fallen for a dragon.
"I've always been on call for you," she said, "If you call me, I'll come
here as soon as I can."
He shook his head at that. "No. We can't use the Outpost much
longer. There's plans for repairing it under way."
Her heart sank. "Oh. Then how would we—"
"The Resistance doesn't watch the skies," he said. "Now that Amaris
is older, it's not difficult to fly to the East Island at night. I'm sure there's
a rooftop somewhere. I'll find something before next week. If the ring
activates only once, it's not Resistance-related. Signal back when you're
there, and I'll come for you."
She lifted her left hand. She'd feared the refraction effect might
eventually wear off, but it still held; she could barely see the ring unless
she focused. It was so light, she almost forgot about it at times.
"I thought you said if I ever burned you— "
He captured her hand and pulled her close. His other hand slid pos-
sessively up her throat, fingers tilting her head back, and he kissed her,
long and deep, before he drew back to meet her eyes.
"Call me, and I will come."
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CHAPTER 55
Aprilis 1787
Kaine called her. Often.
Sometimes his duties came to an end in the late evening, but most
of the time it was past midnight. When she wasn't on shift, Helena
would work in her lab until her ring burned.
There were many buildings that were abandoned. Kaine had found
one with a large open roof and working lift. Helena didn't have to pass
through any checkpoints to reach it.
Sometimes Amaris wouldn't even land.
Helena would stand in the open-most part of the rooftop, and silent
as a wraith, Amaris would drop from the sky, Kaine leaning over and
snatching Helena up, and they'd be airborne, riding the wind, climbing
over the buildings without being seen.
They'd land, and he'd pull her off Amaris, checking her over.
"You're all right? Has anything happened to you?" he asked, even
though she'd felt his resonance beneath her skin while they were flying,
and he knew she wasn't injured.
She hadn't expected him to be so obsessively worried. She'd observed
his quick arrival at the Outpost, the careful way his eyes would track
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700 • SenLinYu
her, but she hadn't considered how deep the fear cut into him until he
didn't have to hide it.
They'd go inside, and she'd let him see her in the light, holding her
arms out to prove she was in the same condition she'd been the last
time.
"I'm fine. See? You don't need to worry."
The reassurance never seemed to have any effect. Whatever had hap-
pened to his mother had been hidden, and Enid Ferron had never told
him fully—either because she couldn't, or to spare him.
Withholding it had probably been the worse choice. Kaine was like
her. He obsessed over what he didn't know more than anything else.
She'd meet his eyes, hold his face in her hands. "I'm fine. Nothing
has happened."
Once he was finally convinced that she had no hidden injuries, a
tension inside him would break. He'd gather her in his arms, and she'd
feel his heart pounding.
You did this to him, she reminded herself whenever she was tempted
to grow impatient with the ritual. You guessed where he was vulnerable
and you exploited it.
She'd run her own fingers over him, trying to detect any injuries on
him before he kissed her again.
He'd hide them or ignore them as if they didn't exist unless she man-
aged to discover them. Nullium injuries had begun appearing among
the wounded after battles. Sometimes Kaine would end up with a shard
in his body somewhere, and while its effects on him were limited, when
it entered his bloodstream, it could slow his regeneration for hours un-
less she intervened.
She never had and never would heal anyone the way she healed
Kaine: in his arms, pressed against his body. She'd bribe him into coop-
eration by pressing openmouthed kisses across his shoulders, hands, and
face while her resonance found every place he was hurt, checking him
over meticulously until he'd grow impatient and pin her hands down,
pushing her back on the bed and taking her slowly. It was always de-
liriously slowly.
He'd stare into her eyes until she almost felt their minds touching.
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Alchemised • 701
"You're mine. You're mine." He'd repeat the words over and over.
"Say it. Say you're mine."
He'd entwine their fingers, press their foreheads together, and some-
times his whole body would tremble. She'd wrap her arms around him,
trying to reassure him.
"I promise, Kaine. I'm always going to be yours."
There was a possessive terror in him—in the ways he touched her—as
though he always expected it to be the last time he ever saw her.
When he didn't summon her, time stretched, filling Helena with a
bottomless dread until her ring burned again.
Then she was the one who would desperately demand to know if he
was all right. On the nights she slept alone, she had nightmares of him
killed. Sometimes gone forever, other times as a lich, or discovered and
caught. She didn't know which possibility to fear most.
"Be careful." It was always the last thing she said to him before he
left her on some rooftop. She would hold his face in her hands, staring
into his eyes. "Don't die."
He'd dip his head forward, kissing her inner wrist or the palm of her
hand, his silver eyes locked on her face. "You're mine. I'll always come
for you."
He always did.
Yet each day it felt as though the odds were being pushed higher.
Steeper. The war teetered on the brink of calamity. She wasn't sure how
far the array and his own determination could take him before every-
thing came crashing down.
He was walking a razor's edge.
When he slept, she'd stare at his face and will his survival.
She'd make it happen. They'd go away, across the sea so no one would
ever find them. She promised herself she'd find a way. She promised
him: There would be an after.
"I'm going to take care of you. I swear, Helena, I'm always going to
take care of you." She heard him muttering the words against her skin
or into her hair in such a low voice, she could barely make them out.
Some days the compulsion seemed worse than others.
She heard him repeating it over and over one night. He usually
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702 • SenLinYu
stopped after a little while, but this time he didn't.
She lifted her head and held his face between her hands so that she
could meet his eyes. "Kaine, I'm all right. Nothing's going to happen to
me."
He stared at her with the same bitterly resigned expression he'd
worn while training her and whenever she turned to leave, like he was
bracing himself, waiting for what he regarded as inevitable.
The war was a cage with no escape.
He subsided and rested his head on her chest, listening to her heart-
beat, arms framing her. She tangled her fingers through his hair, and it
was quiet, but she could feel him mouthing the words.
She hesitated before she spoke.
"Tell me about your mother, Kaine. Tell me everything you could
never tell anyone."
He went silent. She slid her fingers over his shoulders, tracing the
interconnected scars from the array. "You can tell me. I'll help you carry
it."
He didn't speak for such a long time, she wondered if he'd fallen
asleep. Then he turned his head, just enough that she could see his pro-
file.
"I'd never seen anyone tortured before," he said at last. "She was—
the first person I ever saw tortured. He—" His jaw trembled as he strug-
gled for words. "—they experimented on her. Even though she wasn't
even—she hadn't done anything."
As he spoke, his eyes grew wide. He stared across the room, his gaze
far away.
Helena watched and she could see him, just sixteen and home for
the summer holidays.
Home, walking unknowingly into a nightmare that he would never
escape.
"I thought— " His voice was suddenly younger. Boyish. "For a while
I thought that if I killed the Principate soon enough, she'd recover. That
I could fix it all. But she was—a shadow of herself when I returned. I
think— I think she tried to hold on over the summer, show a brave face
while I was there, but—
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Alchemised • 703
"I wasn't even gone a month." The words were low, wavering.
Helena laced her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and
drew his chin down, his body contracting inwards.
"After I killed the Principate, it took more than a day to get back,
and they knew I'd done it. They'd heard, but they didn't let her out until
I gave him that fucking heart—still beating. She kept having these fits;
she'd crumple on the floor, or stop breathing, or sit rocking and mutter-
ing. I brought in doctors, but they said there was nothing wrong with
her but a weak constitution and tendencies towards hysteria. They rec-
ommended institutionalising her, or administering all these tonics and
injections that left her in a stupor."
Helena squeezed his hand, running her fingers across the array.
Calculating, Cunning, Devoted, Determined, Ruthless, Unfailing,
Unhesitating, and Unyielding.
To avenge his mother. In penance for all the ways he believed he'd
failed her.
"I'm so sorry, Kaine."
He was quiet. He closed his eyes and drew a sharp breath.
"Then— " His voice cut off.
"Then— " It failed again. "She'd been doing better, I thought she
might even recover, but I—I—We'd taken a new district. There was a
list of families we were supposed to make examples of. Father, mother,
two children. After we killed the parents, they reanimated the mother,
had her with the older girl. I was supposed to come up with something
with— with the father and the younger one. Little thing, wearing two
braids with bows on them. There was a birthday cake. I think it was hers.
Durant dragged her over by her hair and handed her to me—I knew
what they wanted but I ran."
He swallowed. "I booked a ship, passage for two. I thought my
mother and I could just sail away together, and she wouldn't know I
couldn't really go with her until it was too late. But when I went to get
her, they'd gotten there first. They'd brought the corpse."
"Oh, Kaine . . ." Helena was too horrified to say more than that. He
was gripping her hand so hard, she suspected there'd be bruises where
his fingers were entwined.
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704 • SenLinYu
"I tried to find a way to run with her." His voice shifted, starting to
grow familiar as the story moved through his life. Traces of his hard,
controlled tone beginning to emerge. "I had everything prepared, every
detail and contingency, but she wouldn't leave without me. I thought
about forcing her, drugging her, putting her on the boat and sending her
away, but I was so afraid she'd come back for me, and I didn't want to
have her locked away. I didn't want to be someone who caged her again."
His voice grew deadened. "If I hadn't gone home that night . . . she
wouldn't have died. I don't know why I did."
He fell silent.
Helena shifted out from under him enough to sit up. She couldn't
look at him without a tearing pain spreading through her chest.
She touched him lightly on the forehead. "Kaine—I'm not your
mother."
He flinched, opening his mouth to deny, but she continued without
letting him cut her off. "The Eternal Flame is not going to hurt me if
you fail an assignment. They aren't going to torture or endanger me to
punish you. I'm not a hostage. I'm in this war because I choose to be. I'm
not fragile. I'm not going to break. Please." She brushed her thumb over
the arch of his cheekbone. "Believe that about me."
He shook his head. "Let me get you out. I swear it won't affect my
aid to the Resistance. Just let me get you out."
"I'm not going to run while everyone else is fighting. We can do this
together. Let me help you. You don't have to do everything alone now."
Despair flooded across his eyes.
"You can't ask me to run away from the war."
His lip curled. "Why not? Haven't you done enough for them? They
sold you. What if I'd—" His voice cut off, and he couldn't meet her eyes.
"What if you'd had the same offer from someone who'd meant it. You
would have still gone—and if I hadn't trained you, you would have died
rescuing Holdfast."
"And I agreed to it. All of it. No one ever made me. We don't get to
choose when we've done enough and leave others behind to bear the
consequences. There are no civilians in a war like this. If they win"—she
spread her hands—"everyone loses."
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Alchemised • 705
He clenched his jaw, and she knew what he wanted to say, that he
didn't care. He didn't care whether anyone survived except her.
Helena gave a sad sigh and dropped her head, burying her face in his
shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her.
She was almost asleep when she heard the faint whisper of his voice.
"I'm going to take care of you. I swear, I'm always going to take care of
you."
Kaine was Helena's only source of solace as things within the Resis-
tance deteriorated.
When Lila finally recovered her resonance, her long convalescence
seemed to have sucked the life from her. She was unable to spring back
the way she usually did, and the scarring from all the surgery on her
chest and shoulder was so severe that it bound her movement, requiring
extensive healing and therapy to regain mobility.
Helena planned out a potential treatment regimen, but then it was
assigned to one of the other healers. Luc had requested that Helena be
kept away from Lila as well as himself.
Helena sat staring at Pace's desk after she was informed of it.
"You'll still work casualty shifts," Pace said."
"Right," Helena said, in a dull voice. "I take it that means Luc's more
lucid, then? If he's making requests now."
Since Luc was moved to his private quarters, Helena had not seen or
heard a word about him or his condition, although the Council insisted
that he was still steadily recovering.
The matron's lips twitched. "Well, 'lucid' is certainly a word you could
use." She cleared her throat. "I'm sure that with time, he'll even out
again. You don't need to worry about him; there's plenty of other people
doing that. Look out for yourself, Marino."
Helena nodded slowly, but time was not something that the Eternal
Flame had.
Luc was the keystone for the Resistance. Without him, everything
grew quickly volatile. Crowther began leaning more heavily on Kaine,
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using him to seed misinformation and sabotage, as though the Undying
army were a machine to be deconstructed. The envelopes with orders
were thicker every time Helena delivered them.
Kaine made no mention of what he did, but she could tell he was on
the verge of breaking under the pressure. He grew steadily more desper-
ate each time he saw her.
It ate at Helena, watching him erode under everything he was ex-
pected to maintain and produce for both sides while Helena was trapped
in Headquarters like a caged animal.
Without foraging, she filled her hours with new research, Shiseo
taking the lead as they tried to perfect alchemy suppression upon the
Council's request. The Undying were almost impossible to take and
keep captive, but with suppression, it might be possible. She knew from
Kaine that nullium interfered with the Undying's abilities and regen-
eration the same as any alchemist.
Shiseo designed a nullium cuff to create targeted resonance suppres-
sion, locking around the wrist to blur the resonance into a feeling like
static.
Helena tested it, locking one around her own wrist, flexing her fin-
gers, sliding it up her arm. When it was near her elbow, she could push
through the interference. She shook her head. "These don't fully sup-
press the resonance."
She took it off, inspecting the interior Shiseo had lined with nul-
lium.
"If we really wanted to completely erase it, I think it would have to
be internal," she said. "If the nullium were encased in ceramic, that
would prevent the corrosion and biointerference. If you put a thin tube
of it right through the wrist here"—she pressed her fingers against the
space between the radius and ulna—"the cuff could slot around a sup-
pression spike and alchemically lock in place. I bet there wouldn't be any
resonance then."
Shiseo looked so disturbed that Helena realised the reality of what
she was proposing beyond its practical function.
It was one thing to think about cuffing the various Undying, all hid-
den behind their helmets and their dead, but when she thought about
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Kaine, a more likely prisoner, a pit opened inside her stomach.
She shook her head. "Never mind. That's too much. We don't need to
suppress that much."
"It would probably work."
She shook her head. "It's not necessary. This design is good enough."
Sometimes Helena's ring would burn twice, and often when that
happened, Amaris would arrive, and Kaine would practically collapse
off her back. Other times, Amaris would appear alone. Helena would
climb into the chimaera's back, clinging to the harness as the air whipped
around, and they'd fly deeper into the underbelly of the city, to a base-
ment, a wrecked building, or sometimes an alley, and she would find
Kaine. Usually a piece of nullium shrapnel would be buried into him
somewhere, deep enough that he couldn't get it out.
She learned to always have her satchel stocked, medical tools and
bandages and all kinds of different medicines. As the nullium grew in-
creasingly effective, the injuries often required surgery. She grew adept
at manual surgery with only an electric torch for light.
He wouldn't let her knock him out, wanting to keep watch in case
someone came, but he'd often be half delirious, his eyes nearly glowing
silver, muttering under his breath, "I'm all right—I barely feel it. Don't
worry. We'll go soon . . . Got it worked out. Just—a little longer . . ."
She'd sit with his head on her lap, singing softly to him while he
stabilised, holding his hands in hers. Nullium slowed his recovery so
much. He'd have lost so much blood, he'd float on the edge of con-
sciousness or begin trembling and go into shock. She'd run her fingers
and resonance across his palms, and murmur apologies.
You're killing him. You're killing him. This is because of you.
She'd only let herself cry over him when he wasn't conscious to see
it. She gripped his hands in hers, trying to fix him.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she said over and over.
She'd wipe her eyes and then clean up the blood before he regained
consciousness. She'd feel the tension tear through his body the instant
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708 • SenLinYu
he came back to himself and feel him breathe when he looked up and
saw her.
On the long nights, Amaris would curl up behind Helena, nuzzling
at Kaine's limp hands. Helen would sit, tracing her fingers along Kaine's
face, following his every heartbeat and promising, "I'm going to take
care of you. I promise, I'm always going to take care of you."
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CHAPTER 56
Maius 1787
The Undying used the first nullium bomb in the middle of
spring.
The Resistance had known an attack like that was coming; the use of
nullium had been growing ever since the Undying had used it against
Lila, and although the injuries were severe, as a combat weapon nullium
was limited in its utility because of how fragile it was. As a bomb, how-
ever, it was devastating.
A few tiny pieces of shrapnel were all it took to wipe out an alche-
mist's resonance. If it dissolved and was distributed through the blood,
the hospital had to manually suture the wounds, administer chelating
agents, and then wait for the patient's resonance to recover.
Expert alchemical medicine combined with healing had made re-
covery for Resistance fighters efficient; so long as a combatant didn't die
from blood loss, injuries that could take months in other parts of the
world could be recovered from in days or weeks.
With nullium, however, convalescence slowed to a crawl.
The hospital had prepared as much as they could, medics and sur-
geons learning about manual surgery and the chymistry department
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710 • SenLinYu
producing a large supply of chelating agents, but logistics were not
enough to improve morale. People were terrified. Alchemy and reso-
nance were everything; the idea of being without was like returning to
a pre-alchemical stone age.
Ilva, who took so much in stride, seemed knocked permanently off
balance after Luc's capture, failing to comprehend and proactively ad-
dress the fallout. Perhaps because she was a Lapse, she was incapable of
understanding the emotional severity of the mere threat, its impact on
public confidence.
The only bright spot was that Luc seemed to abruptly realise his re-
sponsibilities. Largely cloistered in his rooms, he suddenly reappeared
at an assembly that Althorne had called to soothe Resistance unrest.
Luc appeared dressed all in white and gold, burning with righteous in-
dignation. Physically, he was shrunken. Though his armour concealed
most of it, his features were visibly gaunt. Still, it was as though his body
were merely a shell now, and his soul shone through. Despite his physi-
cal fragility, he seemed to radiate life.
"Morrough, like every necromancer before him, wants the Resis-
tance to be afraid, and for the Eternal Flame's light to be extinguished,"
he said, his blue eyes burning. "We will not give them that satisfaction.
Paladia is ours. We built this city as a beacon; that light has protected
the world from necromancy's stain for generations. The gods are on our
side. Sol is unconquerable. The laws of nature will not give victory to
corruption. We will not fail; we know the rewards our ancestors received
for their faithfulness and bravery, and we will taste the same!"
There was a grimness in his voice, and yet he was strangely breath-
taking as he spoke, like the sun at its zenith. She could feel the mood in
the air shift from uncertainty and fear to conviction. To faith.