Alchemised, page 23
She turned just in time to see a blur. Something struck her.
The breath left her lungs as she was slammed to the ground, head striking the wood floor. The world swung out of view, the arched ceiling a cavernous maw hanging above her.
She lay half dazed, trying to breathe as the thing on top of her righted itself, revealing the face of Lancaster.
“Got you,” he said, panting, his weight pinning her in place. He laughed quietly. “Who knew slipping off to take a piss would make me so lucky? Ferron always has your wing crawling with his thralls. I didn’t know if I’d ever reach you. Had to get a party big enough to keep ’em all busy.”
His thumb dragged across her chin and cheek, his breath hot and thick with wine. “Fuck. Look at you. You’ve filled out since last time.”
Helena’s head was swimming. Do something.
“If I was Ferron, I’d keep you chained to my bed.” A hand slithered down to her breasts, squeezing hard, and then harder. “You were supposed to be mine. I’m the one who caught you while you were busy gutting Atreus. When I saw you in the ruins of the lab, everything in flames, the sky blazing, and all those thralls around you. You looked like Lumithia born from fire.”
Helena tried to shift and twist free but couldn’t make her arms move properly. She wanted to scream, but knew he’d smother the sound too fast. She had to wait for the right moment.
He leaned close, whispering, “I should have been made Undying then; they wouldn’t have caught you without me. But you disappeared. I won’t lose you this time. We’re finally going to have our fun.”
Helena’s heart was slamming against her ribs. She bit her tongue, biding her time.
One chance.
“You’ve heard me scream plenty now,” he said huskily. “I wonder what it sounds like when you do.” He laughed softly. “I guess we’ll have to stay quiet for now. Don’t want Ferron interrupting us again.”
He reached into a pocket, fumbling as he searched for something.
Helena rammed her hips up, knocking him off balance, slamming her elbow into his jaw. She scrambled up, pain searing through her wrists as the core of the manacles bit against muscle and bone. Agony lanced up her arms.
She ran. The door at the end of the hallway was closed. Her hands were on fire, and she could barely feel the knob, fingers fumbling, scrabbling for purchase.
Her head was wrenched back as she was dragged away by her hair. Stars flashed in her vision, and an arm crammed hard over her mouth when she tried to scream, a thick coat muffling her terror.
“Clever little bitch.” He dragged her backwards a little farther and jerked her head to one side. A needle sank into her neck.
Chapter 16
Something wasn’t right about this.
Helena’s thoughts were dim, struggling to arrange themselves as she was dragged across the floor and shoved into a dark corner.
“Don’t make a sound,” someone said.
A shadow closed in. A mouth pressed against hers, thick and wet, the tongue pushing past her teeth until she choked on it. A sharp pain consumed her lip, hot, salty blood filling her mouth.
“I’ve got to get the gate open. Wait here,” said the shadow, but then it lingered, closing in and around her throat.
Her fingers twitched, spasming. Sharp pain like a fresh wound radiated up her arms as teeth sank into the side of her neck. Her body jerked. A hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her scream.
The shadow finally let go. “Wait here. Don’t make a sound.”
She sat. Pain clustered along her neck and shoulders. When she tried to brush it away, her hands grew sticky and wet.
A thought dangled just out of reach as she sat waiting in the dark. The shadow came back. She tried to speak, but the shadow clamped a hand over her mouth and dragged her outside. Both moons were nearly full, hanging like two luminous discs in the black.
Her wrist was yanked, pulling her forward. Pain shot up her arm as she stumbled.
She was dragged through the gravel as a strangled scream escaped her. A gaping mouth loomed over her.
The gate. It was open.
“Almost there. Gods, I’m going to turn you inside out.”
The shadow’s face was close again. She could see it in the moonlight. Red lips and teeth. Lancaster. A grin like a jackal.
She tried to speak. There was something she needed to say, but the words wouldn’t form. They were trapped, pulsing in her throat. There was a sudden jerk. Her legs gave out as Lancaster vanished.
Then a loud crash.
She turned, eyes dazed, and found Lancaster crumpled against the wall as Ferron stood over him, kicking so violently that bones cracked each time.
Ferron picked up Lancaster by the throat until they were eye-to-eye. The moonlight illuminated them both as if they were cast in silver.
“Going somewhere, Lancaster?”
Lancaster’s lungs gave a wet rattle. “I assumed you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed her, seeing how you let Aurelia out to play. I’m the one who caught her. She should be mine.”
“She’ll never be yours.”
Without lowering Lancaster from where he was holding him, Ferron shoved his hand into Lancaster’s abdominal cavity as easily as if his hand were breaking water. He pulled out Lancaster’s organs, winding them slowly around his fist.
Lancaster screamed, his legs thrashing.
Ferron drew out the intestines so far that they twitched, glittering in the moonlight.
“If I ever see you again, I will strangle you with these,” Ferron said in a voice of deadly calm. “Pity you’re not immortal yet. I could do it so slowly then.”
He dropped the intestines so that they hung down Lancaster’s front like watch chains, then pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his hands as Lancaster stumbled through the mouth of the gate, whimpering and trying to stuff his organs back into his stomach.
When Lancaster had disappeared, Ferron turned towards Helena. His face was rigid with fury.
“You idiot—why did you come out tonight?”
Helena just looked at him.
She thought she should say something. What she’d tried to tell Lancaster.
“Ferron always comes for me,” she whispered.
He stopped short. His jaw locked, fists clenching, saying nothing for a moment. Then his throat dipped, and he sighed.
“What did he do to you?” he asked in a low voice, kneeling next to her.
Helena looked down at herself. Her dress was ripped open, her stockings shredded. All her things were ripped. There was blood and white gravel all over.
Ferron reached out towards her, just barely touching her shoulder, and she felt a little flush of warmth. She huddled towards him, but he drew away.
“Drugged,” he said. “Did he make you swallow something?”
She shook her head.
“An injection, then. Let’s go to your room.” His eyes went briefly out of focus, and then he helped her up to her feet. Helena gasped as pain shot up her arms.
Ferron said nothing, but he draped his coat over her shoulders, covering up her ruined dress.
The necrothrall woman was in Helena’s room with a bowl of water and a cloth in hand.
“Clean her up,” he said, going to the window, standing still as a statue while the necrothrall led Helena to sit on the edge of the bed and began dabbing at the gravel and blood.
The necrothrall’s fingers were cold, and she smelled vaguely of raw meat left out too long. Helena flinched away, but every time she shrank back, the woman followed until Helena was trapped against the bedpost. She started shaking.
“Stop,” Ferron finally said, his voice tense.
Helena froze and so did the necrothrall, stepping back as Ferron came over.
Helena stared at his shoes. They were so perfectly polished, they shone.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Lots of things were wrong. More things than Helena’s brain could presently remember.
“I don’t like when people are dead,” she said in a small voice.
He sighed and sat down beside her, taking the cloth away from the necrothrall.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a tense voice. He took her by the shoulders, turning her towards him.
She knew he wouldn’t. He only hurt her on certain days, and this wasn’t one of them, so she sat very still.
Moving slowly, he started along her shoulder, removing the bits of white gravel and washing the wounds before his fingers brushed across her skin. She felt a tingle of warmth as the skin knit together, regenerating into delicate new tissue. He worked across her shoulders and up her neck, to her throbbing lip.
His lips were pressed into a flat line, his expression clinical and intent.
When he finished, his attention turned to her hands. Her wrists were aching, the skin hot and taut.
He turned one hand over. Her palm was scraped raw, pocked with bits of gravel.
It took longer to fix her hands and wrists, and even when the cuts were gone, they still hurt. He kept going over them, making her move all her fingers.
He finally sat back and looked away. “Did he do—anything else to you?”
She shook her head.
He exhaled slowly. He was staring across the room. “I’m required to spend the next several days in the city. I think it’s best that you stay in your room until I return.”
Helena said nothing. Eventually he stood and left. She heard the door bolt for the first time.
She sat staring blankly at the wall, not sure what she felt. Her mind only seemed to work in fragments.
She was dirty.
She went and stood under the water, letting it stream hot down her face and over her shoulders.
She still felt teeth sinking into her skin, the way the flesh tore under the pressure. The places were still oversensitive. She wanted to stick her fingers inside them and tear it all out.
She found a cloth. She scrubbed and scrubbed until all her skin was so raw the water hurt.
There was a white flannel nightgown draped over the chair, and a cup of tisane by the bed. She recognised the scent of chamomile, but when she sipped it, it was bitter enough to make her tongue curdle.
Laudanum.
She drank all of it before sinking into a deep, empty sleep.
* * *
The mental fog was gone the next morning.
Her lungs contracted, chest heaving, panicking over what had almost happened, and her lack of comprehension at the time.
If Lancaster had gotten her out of Spirefell, what would he have done to her? What would she have just lain there and let him do?
She huddled in a tight ball and didn’t get up when she heard the door unlock and the maid come in, setting the tray beside Helena’s bed.
Breakfast and a pot of tisane with the recognisable scent of chamomile. The maid poured a cup and then pulled out a small vial with a few drops of reddish liquid inside.
She shook her head but regretted the choice once the maid was gone and she was left with her thoughts.
She kept thinking about the girls in the repopulation program, lured in by the promise of food and pardon.
If Helena hadn’t been sterilised and missing memories, she’d be there, too.
Compared with what the rest of the survivors suffered, Ferron was almost kind. It was such a horrible thought.
How was it that the High Reeve was somehow one of the least monstrous of the Undying? No. That wasn’t true. She’d witnessed his killing, watched him calmly unspool Lancaster’s organs with his bare hands.
There was plenty of monster in Ferron, lurking beneath the surface.
Her head throbbed, and she closed her eyes.
The door was rebolted each time the servants left, and so Helena made no effort to leave her bed. She lay curled beneath her blankets, smothered in her despair, until the quiet was split by the sudden scream of metal and the door burst open.
Helena shot up to see Aurelia stride in, a newspaper clutched in one hand, the iron short staff in the other. There were several necrothralls out in the hallway. They all moved to follow Aurelia.
Aurelia stopped short, turning back, then she gripped the staff, twisting it against one of the iron bars running through the floor. The door slammed shut, nearly severing one of the maids’ arms. There was a grating sound of metal as the frame around the door warped, sealing the room.
Aurelia turned back to Helena.
“Come here.” Her voice was bright with anger.
Helena slipped out of bed and walked over without a word, heart pounding.
Aurelia was pale. Brittle as a stalk of grass in midwinter. She was impeccably dressed and groomed as always, but there was a sense of unravelling about her. Her earrings, intricate little chandeliers of tiny pearls, trembled.
“Did you know I was the third daughter my mother had?”
Helena didn’t know anything about Aurelia.
“My family’s been pure iron for nearly a century, had a guild member in every generation, but we never got very high. It’s hard, competing with a family like the Ferrons. My father always said that in Paladia, you have to be satisfied with scrap metal until you can make something of it. We were going to make something of it.”
Aurelia drew a quick breath. “People thought there was something wrong with Kaine when he was born. Thought maybe he was a Lapse, or he didn’t have iron resonance. No one was sure, just knew the family was secretive about him. My father saw an opportunity. My mother and father were cousins. He thought they could easily have a girl with pure iron resonance, and the Ferrons would be desperate to marry Kaine to her. To stay in control of the guild.”
Aurelia gave a panting breath, her chest heaving.
“Mother said the first two were tiny. Little bits of things.” Her blue eyes shone. “My father paid a vivimancer to come in early to see if they were girls, but when they didn’t show any signs of iron resonance in the womb, he didn’t let her keep them. If they’d come to term, he said, another iron family might beat us to the marriage contract. I was the third girl. My mother always said the first two babies were hers, and I was—Kaine Ferron’s. She burned them in the fireplace and buried the ashes in the garden. Spent all her time out there with them.”
Helena studied Aurelia in stunned sympathy, but that only seemed to enrage her.
“I know you snoop. Have you seen this story?” Aurelia lifted the newspaper up so that Helena could see the front page.
It was a gruesome photo, even in black and white. Kneeling down, his face plain to see, Ferron was calmly disembowelling Lancaster in the lobby of the Central Hospital.
She could only stare a moment before Aurelia twitched her hand, folding the newspaper away, knuckles whitening as she gripped the short staff. The house groaned, trembling.
“I have to admit,” Aurelia said in a voice of unnatural calm, “when I first heard that Kaine had killed Erik, I was so happy. I thought, He’s finally noticed.”
The chandelier earrings were trembling more visibly.
“I tried to be a perfect wife. I knew it wasn’t a love match, but I thought he’d realise I was made to be his wife. How many men can say that? I did everything, all the things, just the way I was supposed to.”
She tossed her hand, still clutching the paper, her alchemy rings gleaming dully.
“People don’t know, but he didn’t live here. On our wedding day, he left me in the foyer. Disappeared for a whole month before I heard he was back in the city. I thought it was a test. I decorated and threw parties, but he never came to them. Then I thought I’d get his attention if I made him jealous, but he didn’t care. I figured he preferred men or preferred nothing, and I couldn’t do anything about that but accept it.”
The bitterness in Aurelia’s expression grew ugly.
“I accepted it.” Her voice shook with resentment. “Until you came along, and suddenly he moved in, and he turned every inch of this estate upside down for you; took you out for walks and gave you a tour of the house.”
Helena opened her mouth, trying to explain that Ferron was ordered to do all those things.
“Shut up! I don’t want to hear from you!” The newspaper crumpled in her fist. “Then Erik Lancaster started paying attention to me.” Aurelia looked on the verge of tears. “He was so sympathetic, kept me company at all the events that Kaine never showed for. He wanted to know all about me. He noticed all the things I did to impress Kaine. He wanted to see the house, how I’d decorated it. He was the one who said I should throw all the parties again so everyone could see how wonderful I was, even if Kaine didn’t. The winter solstice was all his idea. That big guest list. And all the dinner parties. Even the equinox party.”
Aurelia’s voice trailed off and she stared towards the windows for several moments.
“When I heard Kaine had killed Erik, I thought, He’s finally noticed. He was just busy before. He does care. But then—” A tremor ran through Aurelia. “—then it crossed my mind that Erik approached me the week after that vile article was written about you being here. He was always wanting to come here, even in the winter when it’s ghastly. Then I thought about how he’d disappear. During the solstice party, and the dinner parties, and the equinox. And he’d always be so worked up when he’d come back and find me.”
It was a terrible silence.
“It was all because of you,” Aurelia said at last. “Erik came here because of you. Kaine killed him because of you. Erik was using me! He used me so he could get to you!”
She flung the paper onto the floor, the pages splayed out, revealing Ferron and his pale hair and skin. Hands stained black with blood, and Lancaster’s blank stare, face still contorted.
Kaine Ferron Publicly Kills Initiate
“Why do they care so much about you?” Aurelia demanded, stepping towards Helena. “What’s so special about you that Kaine would move here, into this house he clearly hates? With all these servants he can’t stand to be around but won’t ever get rid of? Why would Erik spend months using me to reach you? Why does anyone care about you?”
