Alchemised, page 35
As she kissed him, she let her fingertips brush the back of his neck, fingers sliding up through his hair, following the curvature of his skull, and then she let a whisper of her resonance slip beneath his skin.
Ferron was not human.
She knew that the Undying were unnatural, but she hadn’t been prepared for how unnatural he would feel.
She could sense him, map him as she might anyone else, the beat of his heart, his nerves, veins, the currents of energy, all the interconnected facets of a body, but it felt wrong. Like trying to touch a mirror’s reflection rather than a person.
Ferron was there, physically. And he was alive, technically. But he was immutable in a way that her mind simply refused to comprehend.
She couldn’t let herself focus on it. She had to pay attention to what she was supposed to be doing, which was kissing him. Yet she found his physiology far more interesting than his mouth.
She let one of her hands slide down, palm pressed against his face, giving herself more direct contact, pulling him closer. She was losing focus, but his body fascinated her.
How was this possible? She couldn’t help but press a little closer.
The tempo of his heartbeat altered and then altered again.
Her mind abruptly recalled the physical reality of what she was doing: Her arm was around his neck, one hand on his face, body arched against his to counter the height disparity.
He jerked away from her.
It startled her, but she dropped her hands immediately, trying not to breathe hard or seem as disoriented as she felt. Had he noticed her resonance? She searched for signs of suspicion or anger in his expression.
His eyes were darker, and he looked significantly less composed with his hair rumpled and falling over his face.
“Well.” He blinked and shook his head. “That was certainly—something.” He ran a gloved thumb across his mouth.
“You are full of surprises,” he added after a moment, voice lower than before.
Helena wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she just said the first thing that popped into her head. “Do you say that to every girl?”
He huffed a laugh and ran his hand through his hair to brush it off his face. “No, I can’t say I do.”
There was a pause.
He’d probably been expecting her to bite him.
Heat rose across her face. She wished she had, but his physiology was so interesting. She couldn’t just encounter something like that and ignore it.
He cleared his throat. “I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket and tossed an object to her.
She caught it reflexively, studying it. It was a tarnished silver ring; she knew it by both sight and resonance, although her silver resonance was minimal, not high enough for her repertoire to be considered noble. However, this ring was hand-forged rather than transmutationally crafted; she could see the hammer marks that had beaten a scaled, almost geometric pattern onto it.
A bizarre thing for an iron alchemist to have.
“A symbol of our relationship,” Ferron said, and when she looked up sharply, he raised his right hand to indicate a matching band on his index finger. “There’s a mirrored entanglement in them. If I do anything to mine, you’ll feel it. I’ll transmute it to warm briefly if I need to meet. Twice if it’s urgent. I’d advise coming very quickly if it ever burns twice.”
She inspected the ring. Mirrored entanglement was the way her call bracelet from the hospital worked. It was a form of transmutation that was incredibly rare. Few alchemists had the ability to manage it. It made the pieces very valuable, but they were only useful as long as the entangled pieces were accounted for.
The Eternal Flame kept a strict tally of everyone who carried one.
She tried slipping it on the forefinger of her left hand since it was her non-dominant transmutation hand but found it too small. She resigned herself, sliding it down her left ring finger.
“My resonance for silver is only passable, but I think I can manage a temperature shift. Do I call you the same way?” she asked.
“No,” he said sharply, his voice startlingly vehement. “You don’t ever summon me. You burn me, ever, and this deal is off. I’m not a fucking dog. If you want me, you can come here and wait or leave a note, and I’ll get around to it when I have time.”
The viciousness was startling after all his mocking calm. Crowther was right: Ferron didn’t want to be ruled by anyone. It was power he craved.
“Well, I can’t always come immediately,” she said. “It could be noticed if I’m going out at odd times. Barring emergencies, it’d be better if we stick to a schedule.”
“Fine.”
“Every Saturnis and Martiday I go out for medical supplies just before daybreak. No one will notice if I come back a little later. Would that work for you? I could do different days, if you’d rather.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s fine. If I can’t make it for some reason, come back again in the evening.”
“What if I can’t?” Helena asked, not understanding why he was so averse to using the rings for more than basic signalling. The trek to the Outpost was hardly short enough to be worth making unnecessarily.
“I’m sure I can figure it out,” he said, lip curling as he looked at her. Then he reached into his coat and pulled out two envelopes, selecting one.
“My first instalment, then,” he said as he held it out.
She took it from him. It was addressed to an Aurelia Ingram.
“Crowther has the cipher already,” Ferron said as she stood, studying the address. “I trust he has the sense not to use everything at once.”
“Your service will be one of the Resistance’s most carefully protected secrets. We’re not going to do anything that might risk compromising you.”
He gave a vague nod. “Then I’ll see you on Martiday. Now get out, and make sure you take a different route when you leave.”
Chapter 26
Februa 1786
“What do you mean your resonance felt wrong?” Crowther said when Helena finished reciting all that had happened. He’d summoned her to his office the moment she’d walked through the gates.
Helena crossed her arms, hugging herself.
“I assume it’s because he’s Undying. It was different than I expected. I’m not sure if I can transmute him. He looks identical to his student portrait; maybe he can’t be changed. He doesn’t feel like it’s possible, and even if it is, I’m not sure I can do this subtly enough.”
“Would a test subject help?”
She stared at him in blank horror. “What? No.”
“It would be effective, wouldn’t it?”
“No,” she said again. “I’m a healer, I’ve taken oaths—”
“No, you’re not,” Crowther cut in, a susurration in his voice like the snap of scissors. “Not in this room, not on this assignment. I don’t have any use for a healer. I need a vivimancer who will do what is necessary. Heroism is something for others to perform for the masses. Intelligence work—our work—is breaking people open by whatever means necessary to reach their secrets. That is what you are a part of now.”
Helena glared at him. “I know how to perform the physiological aspects; it’s the regeneration that I’m not sure about. Unless you have one of the Undying on hand, a test subject isn’t any use.”
Crowther sat back and looked sour. “Not at present, but it’s possible if need be.” His eyes narrowed. “Did he give you that ring?”
Helena slipped it off, sliding it across the desk. “It’s entangled. He intends to use it to summon me in emergencies. He was very specific that the deal’s off if I ever use it in reverse. You were right about him, he’s incredibly prideful. Just the idea of being called by me practically threw him into a rage.”
Crowther scrutinised the ring, rolling it between his fingers. “Is this silver?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “He must have inherited it from his mother. She was a silver alchemist here at the Institute. Minor noble family but passable talent. Atreus was quite taken with her for a time.”
“You knew them?” Helena stared curiously at Crowther.
“Of them. The sentiments among the guilds towards sponsored students were no different then. Everyone assumed it was a brief infatuation. A Ferron would hardly stray outside his resonance to that degree. It was a shock when Atreus quietly married her, obviously out of obligation. I can’t imagine how an ambitious man like Atreus chafed from his entanglement, but he could hardly afford the social and religious condemnation of putting her aside.”
Anyone who studied metallurgy knew that silver and iron were incompatible metals. They couldn’t be alloyed. Silver was a noble metal, however, which would have placed the wife above her husband in station if not fortune.
“Kaine was conceived out of wedlock, then?” she asked hesitantly.
Crowther shook his head. “No, he came sometime later. Enid had—difficulties. There were miscarriages, clearly an unfortunate combination of resonance. When Enid was brought to the hospital, pregnant, the doctors had reason to believe her condition showed clear signs of vivimancy in the child. The Ferrons were warned of what she carried, and advised, but Atreus was desperate for an heir. They disappeared to their country estate. A few months later Atreus was caught employing vivimancers to help manage the pregnancy and arrested for several weeks. By the time he was released, Kaine had been born.”
Crowther set the ring on his desk.
“They lived very quietly at their country estate after that. The birth was said to have been so traumatising for Enid that she never went into society again. Atreus rarely spoke of her. Rumours sprang up among the guilds that Kaine was a Lapse and the family was endeavouring to hide it. Eventually the belief grew so widespread, Atreus had no choice but to present him to guild society, but he was controlling of the boy. Like a dog on a chain. He knew that if there were any signs of vivimancy, the Eternal Flame would act. Atreus had paid so dearly for his heir, he could hardly afford to lose him. It was something of a surprise when Atreus enrolled him in the Institute, but what else could he do? If Kaine couldn’t disprove the rumours about his abilities and earn the certification, the family would have lost control of the guilds.”
“How do you know all this?” Helena asked, slipping the ring back on.
Crowther raised an eyebrow. “Why do you think I was brought onto the faculty and made Kaine Ferron’s academic advisor?”
Helena’s eyes went wide. “You were watching him for signs.”
Crowther gave a short nod. “Yes, he was one of the students I was asked to observe. Unfortunately, I was reassigned to investigate rumours in the city. If I’d been here, I would have noticed something was amiss when he returned after his father’s execution. Everything might have been quite different then.”
* * *
When Helena arrived at the tenement the next week, she pulled her gloves off and paused, pressing her hand against the door, using her resonance to sense the mechanism inside. Even though the unit looked abandoned both inside and out, she could tell the door contained an intricate lock.
The best locks were a mix of metal and rare compounds, often tailored to the owner’s particular resonance, and usually included some inert metals as well, all intended to create blind spots. To unlock it, the alchemist had to know how the movement of the mechanisms was supposed to feel, and which ones to manipulate.
She left her fingers on the panel as she knocked. She was tracking how they spun, so focused on the pattern they followed that she wasn’t prepared when a pale hand shot out, catching her by the wrist and dragging her inside.
The door slammed behind her and Ferron had her backed against the wall.
So much for his promise not to touch her.
He leaned in and pressed his palm against the side of her neck, fingertips tracing the ridges of her spine. She forced herself to tilt up her chin as his head dipped forward towards hers.
She started to inhale but couldn’t move. Her heart stalled as she registered it.
Ferron drew back, studying her with flat, emotionless eyes.
Her lungs were already starting to burn as she tried to work out exactly what he’d done to her. Experienced as she was as a healer, she’d never had anyone use vivimancy on her.
He tilted his head, holding her upright against the wall by one shoulder. “Do you have any sense of self-preservation? I could have killed you fifty times in this building alone.”
Helena couldn’t respond. Her eyes were beginning to bulge. Her heart still worked at least; it was racing inside her chest. Her eyes must have looked terror-stricken, because he chuckled.
“Don’t worry, I won’t take advantage of you,” he said softly in her ear.
His fingers just barely moved and the paralysis on her lungs disappeared, but only her lungs.
She drew a ragged breath through her teeth because it was the closest she could get to screaming.
She couldn’t find a way to untangle her body from his control, couldn’t even find her own resonance. He’d caught her completely off guard by making her think he meant to kiss her.
“I’m going to show you something interesting now. I’m told it’s one of my special talents.” His free hand pressed against her forehead, obscuring her vision.
That was all the warning she got before his resonance pushed into her mind like a large needle puncturing her skull.
Her body jerked.
She could feel him. His resonance hit the forefront of her consciousness like a bolt of lightning, and her memories sprang up before her eyes like a zoetrope.
It was as though she was reliving the moment: her shoulders against the wall, his body leaning in, tilting her face up; then time skipped back and her hand was pressed against the door; then she was finding her way through the tenement and the claustrophobic nearness of the buildings.
Ferron moved deeper into her memory; she watched herself strapping on her medical satchel to head out.
He could read her mind.
She couldn’t let this happen.
She struggled, trying to get free, to rip her consciousness out of his control.
He delved further.
She was in an empty chymistry lab transmuting several rare compounds into an elixir. She coated his ring with it, careful not to disrupt the mirrored entanglement.
Ferron let go very suddenly, and the paralysis vanished.
Her knees gave out and she slid down the wall, her head throbbing so violently that she could barely see straight.
“What did you do to my ring?” he asked, standing over her.
“What did you do to me?” she retorted, her voice tremulous.
“It’s a trick I learned from Artemon Bennet,” he said, stepping away from her. “He calls it animancy. When we take Resistance fighters alive, it’s not unusual for us to examine their memories. So if you’re ever captured, there’s a chance it’ll happen to you. Which makes you a liability for me.”
Helena closed her eyes, struggling to compose herself. The Eternal Flame had no idea such a thing could be done. What kind of defence was possible?
“Now, I’ll ask again.” Ferron’s voice was implacably cold. “What did you do to my ring? Where is it?”
She swallowed, forcing herself to speak steadily. “It’s an elixir that’s bonded to the surface. The coating bends light to make things hard to notice unless you know to look for them.”
He crouched and lifted her left hand, his thumb sliding across her fingers until he found the ring by touch. His eyes narrowed. He tilted her hand this way and that.
His eyebrows went up.
She could tell he could see the ring again.
He was silent for a long moment. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before.”
“It was never fully developed.”
An eyebrow rose as he met her eyes. “Yours?”
She gave a reluctant nod. “One of my undergraduate projects. Never got it to work well on things much bigger than this, though. The refraction grows irregular.”
He stood, pulling her to her feet.
She struggled not to flinch away now that she knew what he could do with that touch.
“I’m not having my cover blown because you’re incompetent,” Ferron said.
Helena had never been called incompetent in her life, and she bristled. “I wasn’t aware that immunity to mind-reading was something you expected from a war prize.”
“It’s not mind-reading,” Ferron said, looking derisive. “What I did was simply a minor manipulation of your brain. It might feel as if I’ve reached in and seen your thoughts as vividly as if you were reliving them, but unless I’m being exhaustive and replaying them, there’s only glimpses; most of it is lost in the noise. It’s only the things you focus on that are clear enough to decipher easily. If you’re ever caught, don’t let your interrogator trick you into thinking they saw more than they have.”
“So, what did you see?” she asked, trying to understand.
He smirked. “Mostly your terror. Disorienting you with fear made you vulnerable. You weren’t coherent enough to do anything to resist. Then it was a blur. The two clarity points were when you were analysing the door, and the ring. You were so focused on them, you weren’t thinking about anything else that would have blurred the memories. The mind is excellent at betraying its priorities.”
So an interrogator couldn’t see everything, just all the important things. Lovely.
“What do I do, to protect myself?” She hated that she had to ask him. “How are you expecting me to prevent that?”
“An interrogator won’t stop until they have valuable information. If you’re captured, there’s nothing you’ll be able to do to stop it, but if they think you’re weak they won’t look carefully. You have to give up something valuable enough that it seems legitimate as a way to keep the things that matter most hidden.”
