Alchemised, page 64
“By the time I realised I’d miscalculated, you’d already forced your way in. You were so obvious, but that only made it worse; knowing you’d let me do anything to you in the hope it would save everyone else, even the people who’d sold you in the first place. At least when I sold my soul, my mother prostrated herself, begging to take my place. I suppose, in some regards, I am luckier than you.”
She gave a low sob.
“After you nearly bled to death here, I thought, at least I can keep her alive. She deserves to have someone who cares enough to try to keep her alive. I thought eventually you’d give up. But you will do anything to save the people you feel responsible for. Of course you’d weaponise your guilt in order to use mine.” He gave a low bitter laugh. “I’m sure there’s something poetic in it all, but right now all I feel is a new set of manacles.”
He let go and stepped away from her, heading for the door. “So forgive me if I dislike looking at you. I’m still adjusting to the ways these new ones chafe.”
* * *
Soren was sitting next to Lila when Helena returned to the hospital, heart dead in her chest.
In her absence, nothing had happened except meetings and arguments in which no one agreed about what to do. Helena had known it was Luc who held everything together, but it was startling to see how fast it all crumbled.
Lila’s hair was cropped short like a boy’s, the area near the wound was shaven. Her face was so swollen and bruised, she was almost unrecognisable. Maier’s careful sutures had tried to rejoin the torn skin, but that scar would stay with her for the rest of her life.
“She’s younger than me, you know,” Soren said. Helena nodded. “No one ever guesses that.”
He leaned forward and whispered something in Lila’s ear, his voice so low Helena couldn’t make out the words. Then he straightened, walking out.
Helena followed him. The hollow under his remaining eye looked like a crater. His face was drawn, pain lines visible around his mouth and the corner of his eye. Someone had removed his cast already. Elain.
“Come on,” she said, taking him into a curtained-off area and making him sit down.
She worked on his arm and hand first. The bone had been mended well, but it was a new injury, which made it more at risk of being broken again. She knew he wasn’t going to be careful. He’d be out in the field as soon as there was word. The best she could do was heal as far as she could, imitating the way Kaine’s body regenerated, not merely to “fixed” but all the way back to its prior state.
“I need your help,” he said as she placed new gauze over his eye.
Her hands stilled. “For what?”
“I need a healer, and you’re the best.”
She drew back, tilting his head to study his face even though his expressions were always evasive. “Soren, what have you done?”
He raised his eyebrow. “Nothing…yet.” A helpless smile just barely touched the edge of his lips. “You have to promise to help first before I can tell.”
Helena hesitated. With Luc or Lila around, Soren had never needed to create his own trouble. He was, Lila once joked, like a cat, feigning indifference but somehow always in the same room with you.
Soren alone was a mystery. She didn’t know what he might do when all the choices were his to make.
“All right. I promise. Tell me.”
“Not here,” he said, standing up.
They left Headquarters, wound through several alleys, and entered an abandoned shop.
“I got a healer,” he said as they entered the back room, his hand on Helena’s shoulder to push her through the door as if she might bolt otherwise. Which she might have, given how clearly planned her presence was.
Waiting there, fully armed, stood the two remaining members of Luc’s unit, Alister and Penny, as well as Sebastian and Crowther’s informant from the hospital, Purnell, who carefully avoided Helena’s eyes.
“Marino?” said Alister. “I thought you were getting a medic.”
“A medic’s not good enough,” Soren said as he walked up to the table in the centre of the room. Helena hung back. “We need a healer. Helena’s the best.”
“Maybe…” Alister said, dubiously, “but she’s never been in combat. She’ll be deadweight in a fight. Same as this one.” He pointed at Purnell. “You’re going to get us all killed if we don’t get this perfect.”
“We don’t need her to fight. We can fight. The thing none of us can do is make sure we can get Luc out alive. Hel’s the best bet for that. We don’t know what kind of condition he’s going to be in when we find him. She can fix anything.”
Helena wasn’t sure she appreciated the degree of confidence Soren was placing in her.
“Have you ever been to the front?” Alister was staring at her.
“No.”
“This is insane,” Alister said. “I’d follow you anywhere, Soren, but this is not a good plan. What if Luc’s in a bad way, and all we have is her; is she going to carry him out?”
“I’ll help!” Purnell spoke up abruptly. “After I show you the way, I can help with Luc. I’m good in the hospital.”
“Soren.” Helena’s voice was tight. “Can I talk to you?” She dragged him back outside. “What are you doing?”
“We’re getting Luc back,” he said.
“Yes, I’ve gathered that,” she said, shaking him, not caring that he was injured, because he was about to go commit suicide. “You’re barely recovered. Why is Purnell here?”
“Sofia?”
Since when was Soren on a first-name basis with a hospital orderly?
“Yes, the orderly. Do you know who she is?”
“She’s the one who knows where Luc might be.”
Helena stared stunned as it dawned on her why Purnell was there. This had Crowther’s fingerprints all over it. This wasn’t Soren’s rescue, this was Crowther, pulling the strings once again.
But then, what was he planning to do with Kaine? Was Kaine a distraction? Or was this because Crowther hoped to avoid losing Kaine prematurely?
Helena’s molars ground together.
“And how would she know that?” she asked, trying to get Soren to see how insane this all was.
Soren gave a tight smile. “Crowther uses her to keep an eye on us, but she doesn’t like it. She came clean with Luc a while back. She’s seen maps for a secret prison that can be accessed from the West Island’s waterways.”
“Soren.” Helena exhaled, closing her eyes. “Why would she have seen maps like that?”
Soren shrugged, not seeming concerned about it. “Crowther uses her for carrying messages. I guess she peeked.”
If Crowther was the mastermind behind this, Helena wanted him directly involved, giving clear instructions about how he thought it was going to work, not some shadowy an orderly saw a map sleight of hand.
She was sick of how Ilva and Crowther both defaulted to manipulation to get their “miracles” to show up. As if people couldn’t be counted on unless they were tricked.
“If that’s the case, then that means Crowther knows about this prison, and he might have a lot more information than just a map. We should talk to him.”
Soren immediately shook his head. “No. The Council is adamant that no one can take any action until they ‘know’ who has Luc. Ilva somehow thinks she’s going to negotiate a trade to get Luc back. No mention, though, of what she possibly thinks we could offer.”
Helena knew exactly what it was that Ilva probably had in mind.
“My duty is to Luc,” Soren was saying, “not the Eternal Flame. As long as Lila’s out, I’m primary. The Council doesn’t command me, my duty is to my vows and my vows are to Luc.”
She’d thought they wanted Kaine to rescue Luc—to risk his cover to spare their own troops. But if that failed, Ilva would sell him out without a second thought.
Which meant Crowther was being forced to go behind Ilva’s back. That was why he was using Sofia Purnell to pass the relevant information to Soren, the one person with the ability to act on his own.
“All right,” Helena said, nodding. “I’ll come.”
Soren looked startled, then sagged with relief. “Good. I don’t think I can do this without you.”
Helena scrutinised him. “What do you mean?”
His eyes were heavy-lidded. When he was pensive, they got soulful. Now there was just one, but she still recognised the expression.
“I need you to do anything, Hel, whatever it takes, to save him. No matter the price. Anyone in the Resistance would die for him; I need you there because it might take more than that.”
Her eyes went wide. “Do you realise what you’re asking?”
He held his head high. “My vow is to protect my Principate with my life and my death. You’re the one who said that if someone’s willing to die, why not give them a chance to keep fighting.”
Her hands had gone numb. “You can’t volunteer the others for a mission like that. Are you planning to tell them that’s why I’m here? That you chose me because you want necromancy as your backup plan?” Her voice dropped to a furious whisper as she retreated, but he caught her by the arm.
“That’s not the only reason,” he said. “You are the best. I’m not volunteering them, just me. If something goes wrong, you do anything you have to to get them out. This is me giving you permission.”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know if I can. I’ve never—”
“We both know that if someone can do vivimancy, they can do necromancy. And if there’s anyone who can figure it out on the fly, it’s you. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I just—” He swallowed. “I need to know this is going to work. Hel, this has to work.”
She wavered a moment longer, but what were the alternatives? Every choice had become unbearable. And this was the price she’d already offered to pay.
“Fine.” She swallowed. “For Luc.”
“For Luc. Come on.”
Helena wanted very much to corner Purnell and interrogate her about exactly what Crowther knew, and how he expected the mission to unfold, but Purnell was constantly in motion, moving around the room, staying out of reach.
“How do you know all this?” Helena asked pointedly, after she was told about the location of the prison and how there was a floodwater cathedral that they would use to reach it.
“I know people who use them. The scouts—and others, when they need escape routes and safe places to go,” Purnell said.
“Why aren’t they more patrolled?”
Purnell shrugged. “It’s a maze. The greys can’t see in the dark, or they get lost, and the Undying don’t like crawling in sewer water.”
Helena’s own throat convulsed at the thought. “I see.”
“It won’t be bad, though. It’s flood season now,” Purnell said. “The water will mostly be mountain water. It’ll be cold, but nothing like it is in the summer.”
Small mercies. Helena was well acquainted with how cold the river snowmelt was; the mere thought of crawling through it was enough to make her bones ache. “And these tunnels are connected to where Luc is?”
Purnell was avoiding Helena’s eyes again. “A lot of old access points to the sewers were built over, but they’re easy to reopen if you have the building schematics. Someone investigated it a few months ago. It’s very high-level compared with the other prisons, but almost completely empty. Like it’s being reserved for something.”
“If Luc’s there, then this means his capture is something they’ve been working towards for a long time,” Sebastian said in a tight voice.
Fear sliced down Helena’s spine. “Why are you so sure Luc’s there?”
“If it’s a secret they have him, they’d have to put him in a secret place,” was all Purnell said.
Helena couldn’t help but feel that the girl’s involvement had already destroyed Crowther’s chance at plausible deniability. Surely he could afford to be less opaque.
“If he’s not there, no one will even know we went in,” Soren said. “We have to go tonight. Ascendance is tomorrow; the floodwaters are already high, and none of us will be clearheaded enough to go. We’d have to wait two more days, and Luc can’t afford that.”
Helena hadn’t considered that aspect. They captured Luc just before Ascendance. Why? Just to increase the complexity of the rescue efforts? Or was it a coincidence?
The plan was only the vaguest shape of a plan. Get in, find Luc, get out.
Helena’s job was to keep Purnell close and out of the way. The others would deal with any fighting. When they found Luc, she’d examine him, make sure he was still alive, and, if necessary, heal him as rapidly as possible. Then she would get him out. Purnell would help her carry him if he couldn’t walk on his own.
Helena’s job was getting him back to the East Island by any means possible. If she had to leave everyone else behind, she was to do that. Once Luc was safe, the others would scatter and regroup.
“Let’s go,” Soren said, pulling on his armour as Alister and Penny snapped to attention.
“Wait!” Helena said, fighting to keep her voice steady, overwhelmed with the feeling that the plan was wrong. “I need to get my medical kit.”
Soren’s eye narrowed with suspicion. “Don’t you just use your hands?”
She shook her head. “No. If Luc’s really hurt, there’s elixirs and salves, restoratives that will make him recover faster. Relying on vivimancy would—drain him or me. If I have my medicines, we’ll have a better chance of him making it out if he’s badly hurt.”
Soren relaxed marginally. “All right. Go fast. If you don’t come back in fifteen minutes, we’ll leave without you.”
She ran out the door, straight to Headquarters and the Alchemy Tower. The lift had never felt so slow as it cranked upwards.
“Please be there, Shiseo,” she prayed as the doors opened and she hurried to her lab, beginning to doubt whether she was making the right decision.
Shiseo was there, synthesising chelators when she burst in.
“I need your help,” she said as she rushed to her satchel. She went to the cabinet filled with all her medicine and snatched up vial after vial, enough doses for everyone twice. She found needles, bandages, manual medical tools, then packed everything she could into waxed, water-sealed bags and put all of it into her satchel until it was full to bursting.
Then she opened a small drawer that held her knives and started strapping them on.
“You got the titanium-nickel,” Shiseo said, watching the knives mould against her skin. “May I see them?”
“Not now,” she said, pulling the satchel over her head and buckling the extra strap to her waist so she could run with it. “I need you to do something for me. I can’t tell you all the details, but I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”
She snatched up a piece of paper and started scribbling notes. Everything she knew, all the relevant details. Location. Strategy. Exit.
Written out plainly, it was obvious there was no way it would work, but she didn’t know what else she could do but go along with it.
She looked up. “Do you know the way to the old factory Outpost?”
Shiseo nodded. “Yes. I visited when it was operational.”
She nodded shakily. “I need you to go there, as quickly as you can. It’s—enemy territory, but if you see a necrothrall, say ‘Helena sent me’ and they should leave you alone. Take this route.” She sketched it roughly on a slip of paper. “You’ll find a tenement building with the iron symbol on it. On the second floor there’s a door. Shove this under the door and then come back. Or—if you don’t want to do any of that, give this to Ilva. I can’t—I don’t know how to make this choice.”
She held the paper out.
Shiseo looked from her to the paper, an odd gleam of interest in his dark eyes. “I always knew you were very interesting.”
“I have to go,” she said.
He took the paper, and she turned and ran, not waiting to see which choice he made. She kept running.
Soren and the others were emerging from the shop as she careened down the alley.
“Thought you’d split,” Alister said, giving her a sideways grin. He seemed to have accepted her presence now.
“No,” Helena said, breathing raggedly. “I’m all in.”
Chapter 50
Aprilis 1787
Accessing the West Island’s flood cathedral was a mission of its own. There were Resistance patrols they had to hide from until they finally found a weak point in the wall that Alister could open. They crawled through, straight into ice-cold floodwater. The spring floods had started early, and with Lumithia at near Ascendance, the tributaries had climbed out of their banks and threatened to drag them all downriver. They had to cling to the wall as they made their way to a crossing point, one of the old pre-war bridges which was nearly destroyed. It swayed dangerously, threatening to collapse as Helena crawled across it, not daring to look down at the swirling, freezing death below.
Things only got worse once they were across. The flood cathedrals were immense towering underground rooms, designed to fill with several storeys of water and redirect it downriver, and they were filling. The grate to access one was half covered in floodwater and made of inert iron, which required time to break through to reveal a terrifyingly deep drop. Even with electric torches, they couldn’t see the bottom. The roar of water rose from the dark.
The others were unfazed. They were used to traversing the city levels, rappelling up and down dozens of storeys during combat. Their armour had harnesses built in, with spools of wires and hooks to anchor themselves.
Penny, a reconnaissance scout, went first. She was terrifyingly quick. In seconds, she was anchored and dove headfirst into the dark without a backwards glance. For a minute, there was nothing but the taut wires; then they slackened and drew tight again, and began to vibrate at intervals.
