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She'd hoped he wouldn't ask that. "No."
"You'd do better with something with a longer, then." He flipped it
in his hand, catching it deftly; slicing through the air, it morphed into a
curving blade. "If anything gets close enough for you to use this, you're
already dead."
The Resistance was not going to give a noncombatant anything but
a basic weapon. "But . . . anything bigger is more noticeable. I'd be more
likely to get stopped."
"Mmm," was all the answer she got as he transmuted the blade back
to its base form.
"Any news about the chimaeras?"
He handed back the knife. "Four are already dead. They don't tolerate
the cold very well." His mouth twisted with amusement. "Bennet's in
high dudgeon."
"Where did the animals come from?" Crowther had told her to ask.
"He's using whatever he can. Domestic animals are the most easily
accessed, but larger predators are preferable. I believe there've been a
few hunting trips into the mountains. There was also the zoo."
"It seems a lot of work just to have them die in the wetlands."
Ferron gave an absent shrug. His eyes avoided her, instead looking
almost anywhere else in the room. "There's not much else that they're
good for. They're not manageable. There are rumours the High Necro-
mancer feels misled about the project's potential and the resources in-
volved."
He pulled out an envelope, but rather than handing it over, he set it
on the table and left without another word.
It was the same routine for the next several weeks. Ferron would ar-
rive, occasionally answer a few questions, and then leave. Sometimes he
was there for less than five minutes.
There was no more mention of any training. Each time, Helena had
to admit to Crowther that she had no progress to report. Ferron's infor-
mation continued to be good, but Helena was little more than a glori-
fied mail carrier.
She kept training the other healers, and working in her lab, where
she now had an unofficial assistant. Shiseo was a small, balding man
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Alchemised • 371
with dark eyes. He could read and understood Northern dialect fluently
but spoke very little.
He caught on to the techniques of chymiatria quickly but kept to
himself, shadowing Helena at a conscientious arm's length. Helena
knew she should appreciate him—after all, she had asked for help—but
with the trainees and now a lab assistant, there was nowhere left for her
to go where she wasn't reminded that the accommodations were there
because her priority was supposed to be Ferron.
Everything else was theatre now, a cover for a mission she was fail-
ing.
Ferron was late again. He was often late, but he'd never left her wait-
ing this long. She dreaded the thought of going back completely empty-
handed, but at least the trip hadn't been a complete waste of her time.
She'd resumed foraging. The chimaeras had mostly died, and it felt
criminal to miss the entire spring harvest. The river was rising, the
floodwalls were marked to track the steady creep of Lumithia's Ascen-
dant phase, and the mountain wind was losing its icy edge, which meant
that soon the snowmelt would come rushing into the basin and the
wetlands would be left underwater until nearly summer.
She opened her satchel and started sorting her harvest, blinking to
concentrate.
She'd been so tired lately. Hospital shifts sometimes left her so ex-
hausted, she could barely make it to her room.
She knew it was a sign she was over-expending herself healing, but
she'd always healed that way, and it had never bothered her before. She
couldn't understand it. The Toll wasn't supposed to take effect so sud-
denly, but she couldn't think of what else it could be.
She stared stupidly at the bundles of gathered herbs. Eventually, she
leaned forward, resting her head on her arms. Her eyes fluttered shut.
The mechanism in the door startled her awake. She jolted upright.
How long had she been asleep?
A gear in the door spun, but the lock didn't click and the door didn't
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372 • SenLinYu
open. There was a pause.
Helena shot to her feet as she heard the gear begin moving again,
grinding slowly, as if the lock were being picked.
She fumbled for her satchel, digging for her knife. As her fingers
wrapped around the hilt, the door swung inward. A stripe of red ran
down the centre of it, topped with a scarlet handprint.
Ferron stood, swaying in the doorway.
His face deathly pale, his eyes out of focus.
The knife slipped from her fingers. "What happened?"
He looked at her as if confused to find her there. "Ss-nothing." He
waved her off with his right hand as he got clear of the door, more blood
spattering on the floor. There was a trail running down the hallway.
"You're . . . you're injured?" It was half a question. She didn't know he
could be injured. Wasn't he supposed to be instantly regenerative? How
could he be bleeding like this?
She started reaching for the clasp on his cloak, trying to see the ex-
tent of the wound.
He shoved her away, recoiling. "What are you doing?" No pride now,
he moved like a stray expecting to be beaten, the whites of his eyes glar-
ing.
Her fingers where she'd touched him were wet with blood. "You're
hurt."
He slumped, looking down slowly. "Be fine—" His words slurred.
"Jsst—need a minute . . ."
He slumped against the wall. Blood was trickling in a constant
stream from his left sleeve, forming a pool on the floor. Just the sight of
it threatened to send Helena into a frenzy.
Blood loss was dangerous. The Resistance lost more people from
exsanguination than anything else. Stanching a bleed was something
everyone was expected to know how to do properly and efficiently. Too
much blood loss and even plasma expanders and saline wouldn't be
enough.
How much blood could Ferron lose? Immortal or not, surely it
couldn't be infinite.
She held her hands apart, palms showing, her voice placating. "I'm
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Alchemised • 373
a—medic, Ferron. Let me help."
He stared at her, dazed, as if he needed time to process the informa-
tion.
"What happened?" she asked, risking a step closer.
Blood was still flowing at an impossible rate.
Finally, he shook his head. "Just lost my arm."
As if to prove it, he unclasped his cloak. Both it and his grey coat fell
off, revealing that there was nothing but scraps of burned fabric be-
neath, and a haemorrhage of blood where his left arm should have been.
He swayed, his eyes losing focus. "It'll grow back. But it's—taking a
while."
Helena had never seen the Undying regenerate in person. Combat-
ants described it as nightmarish and rapid, bones shooting out, muscles
and tendons wrapping around, and then pale skin emerging from the
raw tissue like mould.
All her time in the hospital testing the bounds of regenerated tissue,
it was hard for her to believe that anyone could regrow an entire limb.
She'd tried growing back fingers once, but the amount of spontane-
ous regeneration it required was simply too much. Healing had hard
limits. The Undying seemingly did not.
Ferron's arm looked as if it had been torn off. She stepped towards
him, but he tensed again. She halted, mind spinning. Maybe she'd try
talking again first. He seemed responsive to questions.
"I thought regeneration happens right away."
"Sometimes—takes longer," he said through gritted teeth, walking
over and dropping into a chair. His head lolled back. "Lot of dam-
age . . ."
"There was more?"
His face, tight with pain, pulled into a taut smile as he looked at her.
"I have command of a new district . . ."
His voice trailed off. He straightened as if trying to rouse himself,
blinking several times. "Previous commander—rather attached to it."
He gave a lopsided shrug. "Insulted his mother—few times. Insinuated
some unfavourable things about his wife and a certain horse." His head
lolled back again. "Didn't like that. Duelled to the death. Well—close as
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374 • SenLinYu
we can get. I won, so now I get his command posts."
The last words were garbled. He was mostly talking inside his mouth.
He gave a barking laugh so abrupt that Helena jumped.
"He was a pyromancer, though. The arm's nothing compared with
the burns. They were—worse. Gone now. Usually I can—" He gestured
at himself. "But I'm—"
Whatever he was, his voice trailed off before he could specify.
She never would have thought that pain and chronic blood loss
would be the trick for making Ferron talkative, but it was far more
words in succession than she'd heard from him in weeks.
His eyes went out of focus. His breathing had grown shallow, almost
stopping. He was going into shock.
"Why are you here? You didn't have to come." She stepped tenta-
tively closer, prepared to be shoved away again.
He blinked slowly, staring up at her. His pupils had dilated so much,
the black nearly swallowed the irises.
"Marino . . ." He sighed, as if it were obvious. He was still talking
inside his mouth, lips barely moving. "Once I'm done here. I intend to
drink so much I won't remember my own name for the next three days.
I have a map—somewhere." He patted awkwardly at himself with his
remaining arm and only then seemed to realise that his clothes were
ashen scraps. "Fuck . . ."
Helena steeled herself and stepped closer.
"Ferron," she said gently but firmly. "I have medical experience. I'm
going to check you and see if there's anything I can do to help."
He didn't seem to hear her, and didn't resist as she pressed fingers
against his neck under the pretence of taking his pulse, cautiously using
her resonance to find out what was wrong with him.
However unnatural he had felt the first time she'd used her reso-
nance on him, it was a thousand times stranger this time. He was losing
so much blood, he should be dead, but somewhere in his chest, a power
source like a beacon was radiating out, regenerating him faster than he
could die.
The lumithium talisman. That must be it. The source of the Undy-
ings' power.
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Alchemised • 375
Nonetheless, his body was trying very hard to die anyway.
Helena could recognise newly regenerated tissue, and he was cov-
ered in it. Most of his torso and face had been regenerated all the way
down to the bones. Several of his organs seemed new as well.
However, it was the nonstop blood loss that was the problem. The
body was not made to produce blood at even a fraction of the rate he
was losing it. It was stripping him of resources to pull blood out of no-
where, all so that he could dump it out on the floor. A nonstop destruc-
tive loop. His body was so preoccupied with making more blood, it
couldn't expend the resources necessary to regrow his arm and thereby
end the blood loss.
Apparently somewhere in his anomalous regenerative abilities, the
concept of blood clotting had been lost.
Helena drew a careful breath and spoke with as much assurance as
she could manage.
"Admittedly, you're the first immortal person that I've treated, but
you really need to stop bleeding this much." She pulled at the remaining
tatters of his shirt. It crumbled away.
She didn't think that stanching the blood loss would cause regenera-
tion issues.
"Let's get you onto the table," she said, pulling his existent arm over
her shoulder and dragging him to his feet. It was fortunate that he was
all limbs, because he was a deadweight to get up and onto his back. His
eyes had fluttered closed, and he was nonresponsive, his chest barely
rising.
She doubted he was conscious, but she maintained the charade of
being a medic just to be sure. Using the heels of both hands, she pressed
down on his shoulder to conceal her resonance as she constricted the
veins and arteries in his arm.
It was remarkable how quickly that alone stabilised him.
Once he was no longer bleeding to death, his arm immediately
started regenerating. She watched, mesmerised, as the bone burst out,
expanding, muscles wrapping around it, regenerating his biceps, the
elbow, the radius, and the ulna.
She couldn't help but release her resonance a bit more as she watched,
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376 • SenLinYu
trying to get a feel for—whatever he was. Wanting to understand how
it worked. His body had already stopped feeling like it was on the verge
of death.
The bones in his hand unfurled, and the veins and muscle tissue
wrapped around it, and by the time it was done, she would never have
known he'd lost the arm.
She eased the pressure of her hands off his shoulder as she reopened
the arteries and veins, letting the blood rush through all the new tissue.
The muscles in Ferron's arm rapidly evolved into established tissue.
She'd never considered regenerating more than new tissue, but as she
felt Ferron's body reverting itself to its former state, she wondered if she
could. There was no reason she had to stop there at basic regeneration.
The power radiating from inside Ferron's chest faded until it was
barely discernible. A vague knot of energy and lumithium. It felt tiny
for something with so much power.
She didn't dare push deeper, but she didn't pull her hands away.
Of all the contexts in which she'd imagined Ferron half naked in her
presence, healing or medical care had not crossed her mind, although it
was infinitely preferable to kissing him.
She was comfortable with this kind of physical contact.
She studied him as his heartbeat finally dropped to a steady rhythm,
colour slowly leaching back into his body as the blood loss faded away.
He was— even in the most generous terms—gangly. There was
hardly a trace of body fat on him. She could see his ribs, the jut of his
sternum, bony shoulders. He had long limbs and knobby elbows.
Stripped down, he looked so young.
It was no wonder Ferron wore a good three layers of uniform in an
effort not to look so overtly juvenile.
Her fingers traced absently across his now unmarred skin.
She couldn't imagine being trapped in the body of a sixteen-year- old
for eternity.
"Do you leer at and fondle all your unconscious patients, or am I
special?" Ferron's voice was as unexpected as a bucket of ice water.
Helena started, her heart slamming into her throat as she snatched
her hands away, her face scorching hot.
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Alchemised • 377
"I was not," she said, her voice tight and rising, even though she had
no excuse for touching him that way. "I was just wondering about your
body fat ratio."
"Of course you were," he said, sitting up with a suggestive smirk.
She could probably heat the entire tenement with the amount she
was blushing.
"I wasn't leering at you," she said forcefully "You look scarcely grown.
I don't fancy boys."
The smirk vanished. He stared at her for a painfully long moment
and stood up. "As I recall," he finally said, his voice clipped, "I never
asked you to look at all."
He went over and picked up his cloak, which was the only part of his
clothing that wasn't nearly burned to ashes, and pulled it on. It smeared
him all over with blood.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to— "
"Your meaning was incredibly clear," he said in a cool voice, his jaw
set.
"Ferron," she said, the idea abruptly occurring to her, and she won-
dered why she'd never thought to ask before. "Was it a punishment for
you— being made Undying?"
He glanced at her, his face empty. "How could immortality be a pun-
ishment? It's what everyone wants."
Helena felt haunted by Ferron when she returned to Headquarters—
not only by his answer, but by everything about the interaction.
For months, he'd been something bloodless and soulless. Not a per-
son, but an evil to endure and an obstacle to overcome. Seeing him in-
jured, stripped of the shell of a uniform that he hid inside, had altered
her perception of him.
There was a fragility that she had been unprepared for.
He'd seemed so human, and she didn't like thinking of him as human.
Undying. Murderer. Spy. Target. Tool.
That was how she needed to view Ferron.
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378 • SenLinYu
Not as someone who could be hurt. Not as someone who didn't un-
derstand blood loss and who rambled explanations. Not as someone
who assumed a hand extended was meant to hurt him.
For so long, all she'd seen was his pride and anger. Now she couldn't
help but feel that there was something terribly tragic about him, strain-
ing beneath the surface.
She felt an urgent need to smother that feeling.
Kaine Ferron was the enemy. The war was his fault. He'd murdered
Luc's father.
She washed his blood off her hands, getting ready for her shift in the
hospital before remembering that she was off that day. She sat on her
bed, staring at her notes, trying to make sense of the tangled contradic-
tory emotions inside her.
The door opened, and Lila strode in, decked out in practice armour.
She stopped short at the sight of Helena.
"You're here."
Helena closed her notebook. "Pace is having one of my trainees
cover my shift today. She wants to see how they'll perform on their
own." Her lips pursed. "I'm not allowed to be there because apparently
I glare and it makes people nervous."
Lila nodded, propping her weapon against the wall and then
straightening her braid and cracking her neck in both directions as Hel-
ena winced.
"You do glare," Lila said, unclasping her armour. "You're going to get
loads of wrinkles right here." She touched the spot between her eye-
brows.
Helena rolled her eyes and dropped her notebook casually into her
trunk, her fingers bumping against the amulet. It felt strangely warm. A
familiar solace. She almost picked it up but then turned her hand, star-
ing at the scars on her palm instead.
"Not really something I worry about," she said quietly.
"Hel . . . you all right?"
Her head shot up. "Yes. Why?"
Lila shifted, her unfastened armour clanking. She was always in ar-
mour. She even slept in a light mesh set, saying she felt naked without
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Alchemised • 379
it, but Helena knew she was afraid of making the mistake her uncle
Sebastian had as Principate Apollo's paladin, of believing that anywhere
was safe for Luc.
"You've seemed off lately. I thought you'd be glad about the new
healers, might relax a little bit, but you seem—" Lila hesitated. "With-
drawn. You're always disappearing. Luc's noticed."
"I just worry, is all," Helena said. "Any luck killing the chimaeras?"
"No. We did go out yesterday, but they're freakishly fast. I had one
almost cornered, but it smelled atrocious. Worse than the greys. I could
have killed it, but my gods, I couldn't even see straight and then—" She
shook her head abruptly. "Why are we talking about chimaeras?"
Helena averted her eyes.
"Screw you." Lila gave a huff of exasperation. "Don't distract me by
changing the subject. I don't want to talk about chimaeras." She walked
over, her right leg clicking with each step until she was standing over
Helena. "You've been off and you haven't been in meetings lately. I fi-
nally pried what happened out of Soren yesterday. So good job to you
all, that was an impressive amount of secret keeping."
Helena went tense. "Does Luc know, too?"
"No."
Helena released a breath. "I don't want to talk about it."
Lila said nothing for a moment. "Couldn't help but notice you picked
a day when Luc and I weren't there."
"I would have said it anyway," Helena said, picking at her cuticles.
The skin around her nails was cracked and ragged from constant wash-
ing, and there were still traces of Ferron's blood under them. "But I was
glad Luc wasn't there. I didn't want him trapped in the middle of some-
thing. I knew they'd say no. I just—I needed to say it. Soren said that
was a good battle for all of you, but in the hospital—we ran out of ev-
erything. Beds, bandages, laudanum, and antiseptic. And bodies kept
coming, and I couldn't— I couldn't make up the difference."
Lila sat on the edge of Helena's bed. "Are you—" Lila wasn't looking
at Helena and seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "Are you not
all right anymore? Is that why you spoke and why there's all the trainees
now?"
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380 • SenLinYu
There was a pause. Helena looked sharply at Lila, but Lila was fo-
cused on unfastening a buckle and didn't meet her stare. It had never
occurred to Helena that Lila might know of the Toll.
It was more than she could handle thinking about just then.
"No. I'm fine. The trainees are because Matias hopes to get rid of
me."
"Oh, good. I mean, not good, but that makes sense," Lila said, and
cleared her throat. "I can see why you're not thrilled about them, then."
Helena forced a laugh. But the tension, the new undercurrent be-
tween them lingered. It was Lila who spoke again.
"You know, you can talk about— anything with me, if you want."
"No," Helena said. "I don't need to talk. There's—no point in talking,
and as I have now been reminded publicly, I'm not a fighter. I don't know
anything about what war really is. So—what would I even have to say?"
Lila's prosthetic leg clicked as she shifted and then said, "I think the
hospital's worse than the battlefield."
Helena went very still.
"I realised it when I was in there for my leg." Lila's gaze was faraway,
eyebrows furrowing. "At the front—everything's so focused, you know.
The rules are simple. We win some. We lose some. You get hit some-
times. You hit back. You get days to recover if it's bad. But—" She looked
down, her fingers tapping absently along the place where her prosthetic
was joined to her thigh. "—in the hospital, every battle looks like losing.
I can't imagine what that's like, for it to be like that all the time." She
looked at Helena. "All you see in there is the worst of it."
Helena said nothing.
Lila sighed and unclasped more pieces of her armour, leaving them
all over Helena's bed. "When Soren told me what you said—I don't
agree, but I get it."
Helena didn't answer.
Lila nudged her with her elbow and stood. "Even if the trainees are
just because of Matias's meddling, I'm glad you're getting more time off.
I think you've needed that—some space from it all."
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CHAPTER 31
Aprilis 1786
Ferron was waiting for Helena when she opened the door.
The room had been cleaned, the floor, table, chairs, all spotless. Not even
a trace of blood.
His mouth was set in a taut line as she walked in.
As she closed the door, he shrugged off his cloak. "Let's see how you
fight, Marino."
He lunged so fast, his body blurred.
There was no time for Helena to go for her knife. She swung her
satchel at his head.
It bought her a split second, but he snatched it out of midair, ripping
the strap from her fingers, and threw it across the room.
She heard the glass vials shatter as she scrambled away. There was
nowhere to run.
The door was too complicated to unlock.
She managed to get to the other side of the table, trying to create a
barrier between them.
He kicked the table. The legs screamed across the tile as it flew to-
wards her. She dove. The table struck the wall so hard, the top split.
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382 • SenLinYu
She hit the floor, her left hand bending the wrong way, a bone in her
wrist cracking against the stone. Pain exploded up her arm.
She cradled it against her chest, trying to scramble to her feet.
"Ferron, stop!"
He didn't stop. He grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against
the wall, squeezing. His expression was void of emotion.
She clawed at his grip with her uninjured hand, fingernails carving
grooves into his skin. She tried to knee him in the groin, and he kicked
her foot out from under her and brought her to the floor.
The force knocked her breath out. She saw stars.
He pressed his knee into the middle of her chest, bearing down
enough to make the bones strain. "Anything?"
She couldn't breathe, her lungs spasming. She writhed, trying to
twist out from beneath him, scrabbling at every part of him that she
could reach.
He grabbed her hand in his, his eyes glinting. She tried to pull away,
but he squeezed tighter. Pain shot down her right arm, the metacarpals
grinding against each other.
"Don't break my hand! You can't—hurt my hands!" She screamed
the words at him in pure panic.
He leaned closer. "Then fight me off."
Both of her arms were on fire. She could barely breathe. He was
seconds from caving her chest in. Struggle again and she was certain all
the bones in her right hand would snap.
She went limp.
He held her for several more seconds, as if expecting her to suddenly
spring into action. Confusion flashed across his face for a moment as he
exhaled, then his expression hardened again.
"You're pathetic," he said, adding more weight to her chest. Her eyes
watered but she didn't make a sound. "I could do anything I wanted to
you, hurt you in ways you cannot even imagine, and you couldn't do
anything to stop me. I wouldn't even need my resonance. I could do it
with my bare hands. That's how weak you are."
He sneered and let go. His hands were streaked with blood, but the
marks she'd gouged were already gone. He stood, pulling out a handker-
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Alchemised • 383
chief to wipe the blood, straightening his clothes.
Helena remained gasping on the floor. Her spine and the back of her
head throbbed. When she tried to brace herself into a sitting position
with her right hand, she nearly cried.
Pain was radiating through her hands. There was blood and skin
under her fingernails, staining her fingertips.
Her left wrist was beginning to swell. Her right hand was hardly
better: When she tried to curl her fingers into a fist, pain burst like a
halo up to her elbow.
"For the record," she said, struggling to keep her voice steady, "this
qualifies as interfering with my work. If you want to hurt me"—her jaw
trembled uncontrollably—"it can't be my hands."
So much for claiming she could say no about things.
Ferron said nothing, just walked over and pulled his cloak back on
without looking at her again.
Helena stayed where she was. She'd known this was a possibility, but
he'd lulled her into a false sense of security, waiting until she let her
guard down to finally hurt her.
It was crueller than if he'd done it from the start.
"Do I get to know why?" she asked, still staring dully at the floor, ribs
aching with every breath. "Did I— did I d- do something?"
"You exist, Marino. I think that's reason enough."
She had no response to that. She got up slowly. "Do you have any
information today?"
He gave a thin smile. "No. That was all."
She retrieved her satchel without a word, gingerly hooking an arm
through the strap. She couldn't get it up to her shoulder. Broken glass
tinkled inside.
She'd added an emergency kit after last week, thinking that if Ferron
were ever hurt again, she would come prepared. The waste of medicine
it represented was almost as painful as her ribs, and the broken glass and
contents would have contaminated everything she'd foraged that day.
Hours wasted.
She went to the door and tried to flex her fingers enough to open it,
but all she could feel was pain.
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"Will you"— her voice finally betrayed her and shook—"will you let
me out?"
If she'd hurt anything but her hands, it would have been easy to
follow Crowther's instructions and hide the bruises before she returned
to Headquarters, but there hadn't been any contingency plans made
beyond that.
Once she was off the Outpost, Helena wandered up and down along
the dam. She was functionally useless without her hands. If she tried to
get back to Headquarters looking as bruised as she was, there could be
questions that she couldn't answer.
Finally, in desperation, she scrambled down the embankment to-
wards the marshes. Without her hands, she was clumsy, quickly covered
with dirt. She crawled back to the firm ground, drenched and muddy,
smearing at her face and throat so that any bruises would be covered.
At the checkpoint, they recognised her and pitied her enough that
they didn't ask many questions. When she reached Headquarters, she
was forced to go to the hospital because she couldn't use the lift.
"What happened?" Matron Pace came to meet Helena as she arrived
at the doors.
"I fell in the marsh," Helena said without meeting her eyes. "Sprained
my wrists."
"Both of them?"
Helena didn't look up as she nodded.
Pace didn't move for a moment but then recovered. "Let's get you
out of these muddy clothes and see what needs to be done." She led
Helena towards one of the private rooms usually reserved for the high-
ranked members of the Eternal Flame, shooing away anyone who came
towards them.
Helena had always appreciated how professional Pace was. No mat-
ter the circumstances, she was unflappable. Helena's hands were too
swollen and cold to manage buttons or clasps. Pace didn't say a word
about all the mud that spread to her apron and sleeves and hands as she
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Alchemised • 385
helped Helena undress.
"It's a novelty after all the blood," she said dismissively when Helena
tried to apologise, squeezing out a wet cloth. "Now let's get you clean,
and see what the damage is. Elain will be the best choice for your
hands."
Helena tensed, but there was nothing to be done. Once the bruises
were visible, Pace would realise that Helena had not sprained her wrists
by tripping, and Elain, while the most competent trainee, was a terrible
gossip.
Pace paused the instant Helena's throat was clean enough to make
the bruises ringing it unmistakable. Before Helena could think of any-
thing to say, there was a knock on the door.
Pace pressed her lips together and went to answer, her body blocking
out the hospital ward beyond.
"What is it, Purnell?" Pace said.
A hushed voice replied, "Message. Said it was urgent for you."
Pace took something and then shut the door. She unfolded, read,
and then ripped up a slip of paper as she walked back to Helena.
"I have instructions to send you to your room. Immediately," Pace
said, her cheeks a furious red. "But I think I can get you a little cleaner
first."
Once she was clean, Helena was bundled up as though she were
hypothermic, and Pace accompanied her to the Alchemy Tower.
Crowther was waiting as they exited the skybridge. Pace stiffened at the
sight of him.
"Matron Pace," he said. "What can I do for you?"
Broken blood vessels stained Pace's cheeks. "I came to be sure that
Marino is being looked after."
Crowther's eye twitched. "Of course." He looked at Helena. "I pre-
sume, then, that you're in a condition that requires healing?"
Helena had been considering the question. "If I have my left hand
treated, I think I can manage the rest after that."
"I'll send for someone. Stay out of sight until then. Matron, you're
dismissed." He turned and walked away without another word.
Pace didn't return to the hospital; instead she went with Helena to
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386 • SenLinYu
her room, and stayed even after Helena was in her bed.
"You know, I knew a few healers when I was a midwife," Pace finally
said, sitting down at the foot of Helena's bed and looking around the
room. "City-trained doctors didn't care much for working in the moun-
tain villages. The ones I knew didn't always call themselves healers, they
just thought it was intuition. They were mostly older women who'd
thought for a long time that they had a good sense for bodies. When I
was told there was a healer coming from the mountains, I expected
someone my age." She finally looked over at Helena. "You're so young.
You don't even know how young you are. You're sacrificing things you
don't even comprehend the value of."
Helena's emotions were a tangle inside her. "No one's forcing me to
do anything I didn't—agree to."
"What have you ever said no to?" Pace asked. Before Helena could
reply, she continued, "You think a man like Crowther hasn't noticed
that?"
Pace might have said more, but the door opened, revealing Crowther
with a young girl beside him.
"You may return to the hospital, Matron," Crowther said pointedly,
holding the door.
Pace patted Helena on the knee and stood, glaring at Crowther as
she passed. Crowther closed the door firmly before turning to Helena.
"This is Ivy; she'll do as instructed to get your left hand working."
The girl stepped forward. She moved haltingly, like a deer, but her
eyes were sharp and foxlike. She was perhaps fifteen, but Helena
doubted she was even that. She'd never heard of a vivimancer so young.
As Pace had said, typically it manifested later in life.
The war had prematurely aged people in all kinds of ways.
Ivy didn't say a word as Helena gestured at her left wrist and ex-
plained in the simplest terms what she thought was wrong with it, what
needed to be done, and what to be careful of. Helena had never been
healed by anyone except herself, and she shot several panicked looks at
Crowther as Ivy reached out and touched her arm.
The girl was startlingly adept with her vivimancy, but her resonance
was not subtle at all.
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Alchemised • 387
The pain and swelling in Helena's wrist and fingers rapidly vanished,
and Ivy searched for the fracture in Helena's wrist. In a matter of min-
utes, Helena could move her fingers again without much pain and begin
to feel her resonance.
"Thank you," she said, drawing her hand away as quickly as she could.
Ivy's hand dropped to her side. She watched Helena, an uncanny
look of curiosity in her eyes. "My sister likes you."
"Oh. Does she work in the hospital?"
"Ivy," Crowther said sharply, "out now. And not a word about this to
anyone."
Ivy gave a careless nod as she left.
Crowther closed the door again. Helena wanted to ask who the girl
was, but she dreaded the conversation and turned her attention to her
right hand. She blocked the nerves at the elbow and began a cautious
examination.
"What happened?"
"I think Ferron was upset about last week," she said, glad she had
something to focus on so she didn't have to look at Crowther. "You
know how prideful he is. I don't think he liked that I'd helped him. I
barely arrived and he said he wanted to see me fight."
She glanced up in time to see Crowther's lips disappear into a thin
line.
"Did you reveal your vivimancy?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
Crowther nodded, still looking sceptical.
"Who was that girl?" Helena asked.
"Orphan," Crowther said, "Found her in the slums." He made a
sound of irritation. "You'll say you caught a cold. You can have a few
days off. But you can't be seen returning to Headquarters like this again.
There's a drop location a little way away; it's kept stocked with clothes,
basic supplies. In the future, you'll go there for things like this. If you
don't turn up here, that's where you'll be looked for."
Helena gave a dull nod as the swelling in her right hand was finally
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388 • SenLinYu
reduced to the point that she could use it to examine Ivy's work on her
left hand.
She had nothing to do while her hands finished recovering. Having
days off was overly cautious, but better to be safe. If she ended up with
nerve damage in her hands, she'd be rendered almost useless.
She preoccupied herself by sorting through the contents of her
trunk. There wasn't much inside it but old notebooks from her classes at
the Institute. Most of her possessions had been left behind in Etras
because the Institute had small dorms and strict dress codes. Inside a
small box lay a tintype of Helena with her father just before she'd begun
at the Institute. Ten years old and in uniform, her expression so eager.
Her father had worn his white medical coat for the picture, even though
he wasn't licensed in Paladia. He'd wanted to look professional when he
brought her.
She closed the box and picked up the amulet, letting the rays align
with the scars in her palm.
She went over to the window, still holding it, as she clambered out
onto the roof. It had been Luc who'd shown her how to climb from the
windows and onto the gently sloping roof below the Tower beacon.
The fires of the Eternal Flame glowed overhead as she stood there
alone, a low iron railing the only barrier between her and the lethal
drop.
She wished she could shut her mind off for a little while. The redi-
rection technique could only create a little space, but her misery just
kept seeping back.
She stared at the suncrest as the white flames overhead glittered
across its surface. She almost let it drop it off the edge, wanting to watch
it fall until it vanished.
She felt ashamed every time she looked at it, embarrassed by how
much meaning she'd thought it had.
She let the chain slip through her fingers but stopped.
No. This amulet didn't represent Ilva, it stood for Luc. Ilva had ex-
ploited that, but it wasn't Luc's fault. Helena was doing this for him, and
he was worth it.
She pulled the chain back over her neck, hiding it beneath her
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Alchemised • 389
clothes, and sat staring across the city as the gold grew warm against her
heart.
When she went back to the Outpost the following week, there were
contingencies in place. The drop point in an abandoned basement would
function as a makeshift safe house. If injured beyond her healing abili-
ties, Helena would go there. There were basic medical supplies and a
shortwave radio. A coded message would have Ivy dispatched.
Ferron was late. Again. He was often late, but she was too anxious to
wait this time. She was pulling her satchel onto her shoulder just as the
door opened.
She flinched when he stepped into the room, closing the door be-
hind him. Her heart lurched when she heard it click and lock.
"I'm late," he said.
Helena had to focus and make herself breathe before she could
speak. "Are we—t- training again this week?"
"No," he said quickly. "No. I won't do that to you again."
She gave a short nod, but she knew better than to believe him now.
He'd redefine the terms of the deal every time it was convenient to him.
She watched him warily.
He started to open his mouth but then stopped, his hand curling
into a fist.
"What?" she snapped, glaring at him, sick of waiting for what he'd
do next.
He avoided her eyes, looking at the floor.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said.
She gave a brittle laugh. "Well, I always expected you would."
Anger flashed in his eyes as he looked up at her.
She was beginning to make sense of him now. He thought he was
better than the other Undying. He resented anything that lumped him
in with them. That was why he'd backtracked and tried to pretend that
she had autonomy in the arrangement. But no matter he wanted to tell
himself, he was cut from the same cloth as all the rest of them.
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390 • SenLinYu
She glared at him. "If anyone had died last week because I was too
injured to work, that would have been on your head."
He scoffed. "Is that supposed to matter to me?"
"It would, if you were human."
His jaw clenched. "Well, if we're being honest today, you're pathetic
at self-defence. Worse than I expected. Which is saying something, be-
cause I have a very low opinion of you. I assumed they'd keep all their
medics somewhat combat-ready."
"The hospital is protected. That's more practical than expecting the
medical staff to be trained and practicing for combat situations."
She could tell Ferron disagreed.
"Well, you're not in the hospital right now." He walked around her
slowly. "You're too scrawny. No muscle at all. I don't think I can even do
anything with you in this state. I'm going to need to start you with cal-
listhenics before I can even get anywhere with you."
Helena's least favourite class at the Institute had been callisthenics.
"Even if I exercise, you can't train me in anything that could hurt my
hands."
He paused. "If you get hurt, I'll fix it."
Helena's head swam. It hadn't occurred to her that if he wanted to,
he could hurt her, heal her, and hurt her again, leaving no trace.
He pulled out an envelope, extending it, but when she tried to take
it, he held on, studying her. "Are there food shortages?"
She said nothing, just held on to the envelope, waiting for him to let
go. Crowther had been clear that Ferron should glean no intelligence
from her.
His mouth hardened into a flat line. "The transport information I
included for the southern quarter is likely food supplies. If they manage
to seize them, tell Crowther to increase whatever your rations are."
A week later, one of the scouting teams managed to capture and kill
a chimaera, although they admitted it had already been nearly dead
when they cornered it.
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Alchemised • 391
The corpse had been brought back for analysis, and after some de-
bate, Helena was assigned the job of dissecting it.
The chimaeras were made with vivimancy, therefore a vivimancer
would be needed to understand the process. It was the duty of the Eter-
nal Flame to study the practices of their enemies.
The remains already smelled terrible, as though the chimaera had
been in an early stage of decomposition when it died. In the process of
creation it had been vivisected, flensed, and skinned, its muscles filleted
and intermingled with the parts of other creatures. Several of the organs
had been replaced. It had the skull of a reptile, but part had been hol-
lowed out and made to accommodate a larger mammalian brain.
It wasn't created using necromancy; reanimating animals had been
attempted many times in the past and never worked. The chimaera had
been alive when it was made, but Helena couldn't imagine how it had
been kept alive.
Shiseo was on standby as she worked, handing her tools as she
needed them. She didn't understand why he worked with her as an as-
sistant. He was too educated for it; the breadth of his metallurgical
knowledge would have put many grandmasters to shame. Ilva's request
was in insult.
While she was writing up the report, Shiseo busied himself with
sketching compound arrays for metal-infused tinctures they'd been dis-
cussing. Silver and copper and iron all had medicinal uses and could
boost the efficacy of certain extracts.
"Shiseo," she said, looking up, "do you have a workspace of your
own?"
He paused. "No. I was meant to perhaps teach at the Institute, but—"
He shook his head.
She shifted, feeling awkward about how long it had taken for her to
realise why he'd taken the post. "I should have said something sooner. If
you want to work on your own projects, you're welcome to use this
space."
He gave a vague smile, inclining his head, but she could tell imme-
diately that he wouldn't take her up on the offer.
Perhaps she was wrong. Had Ilva guilted him into the position? Of
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392 • SenLinYu
course. He'd come seeking political asylum, and Ilva had called in that
debt. It would explain why he was so carefully inoffensive. She felt
guilty, but she did need him.
"I should warn you, I technically stole this lab," she said, looking up.
"I mean, obviously it's always been here, and no one was using it, but I
did just move in and start making things without permission." She
shrugged. "Everyone just assumes someone else must have approved it.
So if you don't like—ill-gotten laboratories, I understand, but you are
welcome to use the space for whatever you're interested in."
He looked at her with his impassive, guarded face, and then the cor-
ners of his eyes crinkled. "Perhaps there are a few things."
In the weeks that followed, Ferron's liaising grew sporadic. Helena
dutifully performed callisthenics, per his instructions, but he often
failed to appear. Sometimes there'd be an envelope left on the table;
other times, Helena would wait and eventually leave empty-handed.
Her ring would burn at odd hours, and she would be forced to hurry to
the Outpost, only to find a letter or map left, Ferron already moved on.
The information seemed useful, but she could tell that Crowther was
giving up on her, treating her as a write- off.
She was startled when she opened the door of the tenement and
found Ferron waiting for her again.
He was sitting at the table with a silver coin in his hand, spinning
and flipping it idly when she entered.
There was a long silence before he spoke without looking over at her.
"The High Necromancer will be out of the country for the next week.
He's travelling into Hevgoss. There have been extensive preparations
made for it. Nearly a third of the Undying will be travelling with him.
The trip has been kept secret; only a few know."
There was a pause.
Ferron pocketed the coin. "He's never left like this before. If the
Resistance has been waiting for an opening, this would be the time. The
Undying are unlikely to coordinate well because they'll all want the
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Alchemised • 393
credit and glory for themselves."
"And I assume you're among those going," she said, because of course
he'd leave the city to burn, and for the blame to fall, and only come back
to reap the rewards.
This was what he'd been working towards from the beginning. His
long game. The Resistance was playing right into his hands, and there
wasn't anything Helena could do about that, because they had to seize
an opportunity like this, or they might as well surrender now. They
wouldn't last to the end of the year.
He said nothing.
"Anything else?"
He shook his head as he stood and walked to the door, pausing just
before he opened it. "I think we might as well plan to skip the next few
weeks. I don't expect to make it."
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CHAPTER 32
Maius 1786
The news that Morrough would be gone along with so many
of the Undying was the opportunity the Eternal Flame had been wait-
ing for. Like a machine springing into action, the Resistance rapidly
began preparing to attack.
Crowther had been disseminating Ferron's intelligence over the last
several months, attributing to various sources his maps, the information
about patrols and rotations, chains of command and the hierarchies of
who'd be called on first, and how'd they'd counterstrike if the Resistance
attacked.
The battalions were raring for the fight.
However, a relentless sense of dread lurked beneath Helena's skin,
growing with each passing moment. What if it was a trap? What if Fer-
ron had lied, hidden a noose within his information? She kept thinking
about how strange he'd seemed.
The hospital waited tense, strangled between hope and dread. Then
the sirens started, and the lorries began to arrive, bodies flooding in,
filling the hospital and lining the halls. There wasn't room for all the
wounded.
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Alchemised • 395
Helena had no opportunity to more than register her despairing
guilt as the fallout of the battle filled the hospital. She had to work.
Your fault. You should have known. Ferron's a monster. A born traitor,
just like his father. She had never done so much healing, working in such
a frenzy that the amulet around her neck almost burned against her
skin. Two of the trainee healers collapsed, their resonance shot from
burnout.
It was more than a day before someone told her they hadn't lost. The
attack was not a failure but a spectacular success. The Resistance had the
ports; they'd retaken most of the East Island. Battles were still raging in
south- west corner, but they expected to retake the entire island.
Even once it was confirmed, Helena still barely believed it. The inju-
ries just kept coming.
The Resistance found prisons filled with dissidents. One of the larg-
est buildings near the ports had been a laboratory. The Resistance
brought back lorries filled with medical supplies and tools that Helena
had not laid eyes on in years. Real anaesthetic and antiseptics. Cases
upon cases of opium resin. Gauze and fresh bandages.
But the elation that filled the hospital as all the supplies poured in
vanished as the victims from the laboratory began to arrive. Medics and
nurses who'd worked unflinchingly for years had breakdowns over the
victims and had to be excused.
The laboratory had not only been making chimaeras with animals.
The victims arriving were nearly unrecognisable, experimented on in
ways that defied reason. Bodies methodically dismembered and reas-
sembled. There were so many.
Trying to treat them fell to Helena. The surgeons were at a loss, and
the trainees couldn't take it. There was nothing Helena could do, either.
No matter what she tried, they all died.
For their combat forces, the Retaking was over quickly. What the
Undying had spent years slowly carving into, recovered in one coordi-
nated sweep. It was regarded as a military triumph for the ages.
For the hospital it was an unending nightmare.
Reports that Morrough had returned were followed by rumours of
extreme upheaval among the ranks as blame fell. Then came the coun-
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396 • SenLinYu
terattacks and attempts to retake the ports.
It took weeks before things finally calmed, the hospital shifts slowly
resumed the normal rotation, and more trainee healers were brought in.
Crowther and Ilva somehow knew exactly who possessed the latent
resonance for it, even when the girls themselves did not.
Helena was so exhausted by the end that she could barely talk for
several days. As if she'd forgotten how to be human anymore.
Pace kicked her out of the hospital when she found her in the supply
room, mechanically taking inventory, saying that barring an emergency
Helena was not to come back for four days at least.
Helena didn't know what to do but resume her old schedule, and so
when Martiday arrived, she rose with the dawn, took her satchel, and
went out of the city. The spring flooding had ebbed, and the wetlands
had come into bloom.
There were flurries of insects dancing in swarms, light glistening on
their wings. Sun limned the eastern stretch of the mountains, turning
their ridges gold. The wind no longer rattled the dead reeds but whis-
pered through marsh grass. The air was filled with warbling birdcalls.
The wetlands were lush with new growth, brimming with life. Helena
could have harvested for hours and still left plenty behind. She took
only what she thought was most valuable before she washed her hands
in an alga-green pond and headed to the Outpost.
She'd barely had time to think about Ferron, but she figured she
should at least check and see if he'd left any messages. She'd received no
instructions from Crowther since the attack.
She caught sight of him the instant the door opened. He was leaning
his hip against the table. His shoulders were stooped, arms hanging
limply at his sides.
"You look awful," he said as she came through the door.
She stopped short. "You look worse."
He gave a strained laugh. "Do I?"
She was too shocked to reply.
His face had grown gaunt, as if he'd lost almost all his remaining
weight, the bones of his skull jutting starkly though his skin.
He looked—
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Alchemised • 397
— like a corpse.
Her heart lurched into her throat.
His skin was grey and papery, eyes sunken. His dark hair hung limp
around his face. Dirty and uncombed.
He didn't appear to have eaten, slept, or bathed in all the weeks since
Helena had last seen him.
"Are you—are you a—are you dead?" she forced herself to ask. Could
he be killed and then made into a lich using his own body. Was that
possible?
He cracked a smile that made his lower lip split, a trickle of red
blood running down his chin. It healed instantly. "You'd think that,
wouldn't you? No. Still—alive."
"What happened?"
She went forward was afraid to touch him. He looked like he might
crumble into dust.
He drew a shallow breath. "Well, you may have noticed, the High
Necromancer wasn't pleased about the ports." He drooped, his head
dipping, but then he jerked up sharply, face contorting in pain. "Bad
luck— for the commander in charge."
Helena's head went light. No . . . that wasn't possible. He'd been
gone, with Morrough and the others to Hevgoss.
She shook her head. "But you're not in command there. It's—they
were commanded by— by— "
She couldn't remember the name, but it was someone else. She would
have remembered if Ferron had been the one in charge. He wasn't
ranked high enough for a position like that.
"It was a recent change in leadership," he said. There was hoarseness
to his voice. "Doesn't matter. Did it work? The attack? Obviously, you
got the island, but— " He swallowed. "— you'll keep it? You have enough
men for that still?"
She wasn't supposed to tell him anything, but he was so clearly in
pain, she couldn't help herself.
"More than we hoped," she said.
He swallowed and gave the barest nod. "Good." His eyes fluttered
closed for a moment. "That's something, I guess."
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398 • SenLinYu
He drew an unsteady breath. "I should go. Just— wanted to know . . .
Won't be making this trip again."
He tried to straighten but collapsed. He caught the chair and fell
onto it. A low, almost screaming gasp escaped him. He tried to stand
again but couldn't seem to put weight on his arms. His breathing grow-
ing increasingly ragged.
"Ferron, what's happened to you? What's wrong?" Her voice rose
sharply as she hovered, not sure what to do.
His eyes shut. He was breathing shallowly. "F-Fuck off, Marino."
She approached like he was an injured animal, her hands out-
stretched and visible.
"Ferron—I know you're hurt. Maybe I can help," she said as gently
as she could.
He gave a rasping laugh. "There's nothing you can do."
"Let me try." She was close enough now to see the veins beneath his
skin along his neck, not blue but almost black like poison. "I'm not
going to hurt you."
His eyes snapped open, anger lighting his face.
"Don't pretend to care," he spat. "You expect me to believe you didn't
know this would happen?"
She shook her head. "I didn't. I would have come back sooner if I'd
known."
Based on his appearance, this was not quick deterioration he was
suffering from. He'd reached this point slowly, over the course of weeks.
If he was telling the truth, if he'd been in command at the ports dur-
ing the attack, then all the information he'd passed on would have been
to his knowing detriment.
"Please." She held out her hand. "Let me try to help."
"Your marsh herbs aren't going to fix this," he said grimacing as he
tried to stand again. "A medic like you can do fuck-all."
She swallowed hard.
"That'd be true if I actually was a medic." She touched his cheek with
her fingertips, and didn't hide her resonance.
She knew that she was sabotaging her mission, but that wouldn't
matter if he died, the mission was already a failure on every level. When
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her resonance connected with his body, she almost snatched her hand
back. The talisman in his chest was emitting so much power, it threat-
ened to burn her nerves touching him. Every cell in his body was singed
from it.
He was dying. Over and over. His body pushed so far over the edge
that it failed, only to be instantly regenerated, and fail again. He was
simultaneously dead and alive because it was a sort of repeating cascade
of regenerative failure.
Ferron jerked away as if he were the one burned. "You conniving
little bitch. I knew I felt your resonance when I lost my arm."
She let her hand drop, avoiding his accusing glare. "I was ordered not
to tell you."
"And now?" His eyes were narrowed into slits.
"I don't think it matters. If I don't do something, you're going to die."
"I doubt I'm fortunate enough to manage that," he said in a dull
voice.
She reached out, just barely touching his arm. "Ferron, what's hap-
pened to your back?"
His eyes fluttered closed as if he was too exhausted for the conversa-
tion. She could see the black veins even in his eyelids.
"See for yourself," he finally said, "Since you're so determined."
Very slowly and carefully she unfastened his cloak and lifted it off.
He flinched but didn't utter a sound. The miasma of old, fetid wounds
filled the air as she unfastened the buttons of his shirt. Stepping behind
him as gently as she could, she drew the clothing off his shoulders.
There were no bandages underneath. His entire back was a rotting
wound, lacerated surgically from his shoulders down past his ribs.
There was an alchemical array carved into his skin.
He inhaled and she could see the white of his ribs, scored with
grooves.
The incisions over his shoulders were the worst of it. Not merely cut-
ting to the bone but into the bone, carving into his shoulder blades, a
lumithium alloy welded in, bonded with the bone to keep the array in-
tact and activated.
Whatever regenerative abilities Ferron had, it was not enough to
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400 • SenLinYu
counter an injury of this magnitude.
Arrays could be simply illustrative, to record or visually calculate a
process, but they were also used for transmutation or alchemisation
when the process was too complex for simple resonance manipulation,
or when working with organically derived compounds that tended to be
volatile. Drawn with chalk or charcoal, or etched into a surface with a
stylus. But Helena had never seen anything like what had been done to
Ferron.
"Why—" Her voice failed. "—why would they do this to you?"
"Well . . ." Ferron said slowly, his voice far away. "There were lots of
ideas about what to do with me—all manner of punishments were dis-
cussed for my— failure. Bennet was put out over losing his lab, all those
subjects and experiments of his. He's been wanting to experiment on
one of the Undying. He said that as the one who'd suffered the greatest
loss, he should be allowed to punish me."
He was silent for a moment and added, "The High Necromancer
says if I survive, I'll be forgiven."
Helena couldn't tear her eyes away from the wound. The skin around
the incisions showed signs of septicaemia. Tendrils of infection were
spreading beneath his skin, leaching into his blood.
Too afraid to touch near the array, she placed her hand on his arm.
He flinched at the contact. His body was still trying to regenerate, to
heal the wounds that made up the array. The nerves were all intact. He
had to be in an incomprehensible amount of pain.
She didn't know where to begin, but she couldn't just stand there
looking at it. She tried to numb the area, to work inwards, but it didn't
last. Anywhere with enough living tissue to numb, his regeneration re-
versed it. She couldn't even spare him the pain.
Working as close as she dared, she could feel the metal welded into
his shoulders was a lumithium-titanium alloy, its resonance so sharp
that Helena could feel it in her teeth. She had no idea how Ferron was
even sane while having it adhered to his body.
Lumithium's effects were so intense, most alchemists couldn't stand
to be too close to it for long.
This was beyond the scope of her abilities, more than anything had
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Alchemised • 401
ever been before.
"I'm sorry, I can't heal this."
He gave a dry laugh. "I know."
"But— " She swallowed hard, still thinking. "—I think I could help
contain it, and reduce the strain it's putting on you. It might—give you
a chance of surviving. That's the condition, right? If you survive, they
won't do anything else to you."
Ferron gave no response.
Starting on his left shoulder, she followed the veins with her reso-
nance, her fingertips a breath away from his skin, drawing the blood
poisoning back to the incision. Pus and blood that was nearly black
trickled down across his back. She used the corner of a handkerchief to
wipe it away as gently as she could, to keep it from getting into the
other wounds.
Ferron's whole body shook, and he gave a soundless rasp.
"What are you doing?" he ground out through his teeth.
"These incisions are poisoning you. You've been dying and your body
is pulling resources from everywhere it can to regenerate and revive you,
but it's running out of places to draw from. This is like when you lost
your arm. You couldn't regenerate until you stopped bleeding. If you
want to recover, we have to deal with this infection and work backwards
from there."
He dropped his head, exhaling unevenly. "How fortunate that you
got such a thorough overview of my physiology while I was passed out."
"Yes, it is," she said curtly, and pulled out more poison.
He moaned through his teeth, his hands spasming repeatedly when
the handkerchief brushed his back again.
He hadn't even made a sound with his arm ripped off.
She paused, hands hovering.
"Would a sedative work on you?"
"No," he said dully. "Everything wears off. I can barely get properly
drunk."
She tentatively touched the base of his skull.
"I usually work locally when blocking pain, but there's a place here in
your brain. If I stimulate it, it'll put you to sleep. You won't feel anything.
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402 • SenLinYu
Your body shouldn't interpret that as tampering since I'm not blocking
anything. Do you want me to try?"
"You can—" His voice caught. "You can do that?"
"Yes. I think so."
He was silent. She watched the flutter of his ribs as he breathed
unsteadily.