AL
PROLOGUE
Helena wondered sometimes if she still had eyes. The
darkness surrounding her never ended. She thought at first if she waited
long enough, some glimmer of light would appear, or someone would
come. Yet no matter how long she waited, there was nothing.
Just endless dark.
She had a body; she could feel it wrapped around her like a cage, but
no amount of effort or determination could make it move. It floated
inert and unresponsive except when jerking violently as the surges hit—
jolts of electricity tearing through her, beginning at the base of her neck
and making every muscle in her body seize violently. As suddenly as
they came, they'd be gone. They were her only sense of time.
They were done to ensure her muscles couldn't deteriorate altogether
while she was in stasis. Helena remembered that detail. Remembered
that she'd been placed there as a prisoner, kept preserved, but someday,
someone would come for her.
At first, she'd counted the time in between surges to calculate their
frequency. Second by second. Ten thousand, eight hundred. Every three
hours without fail. Always the same. Then she'd counted the surges, but
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4 • Prologue
as the number grew and grew, she stopped, afraid to know.
She forced herself to focus on other things, not the wait. Not the
endlessness. Not the dark. She had to wait, so she gave herself a routine
to keep her mind fresh. Imagined walks. Cliffs and sky. Visited all the
places she'd ever wandered. All the books she'd read.
She had to endure. To stay alert. That way she would be ready. She
had to stay ready.
She would not let herself fade away.
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CHAPTER 1
When light came, it nearly split Helena's brain open.
There was screaming.
"Fuck! How's this one awake?" A voice broke through the sensory
agony.
Light was stabbing her. A spike driven through her eyes, burrowing
into her skull. Gods, her eyes.
She writhed. The brightness blurred, careening. The burn of fluid
rushed down her throat. A roar in her ears.
Slick fingers dug into her arms, against bone, dragging her up. Air
hit her lungs, sending them seizing as the fluid came back up.
"Fuck this stasis gel. Can't get a decent grip. Make her shut up! She's
about to drown herself."
Her head slammed into something as she was dropped. Rough stone
tore her hands. She scrabbled blindly, trying to push herself up. Her
eyes squeezed shut, but the light was still a knife in her skull. A hard
object was ripped off the back of her neck, and something warm and
wet ran across her skin.
"How the fuck is she awake? Someone must've fucked the dosage on
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6 • SenLinYu
this one. Don't let her crawl off."
Her arms were gripped again, and she was heaved up from the
ground.
She tore herself free, forcing her eyes open. All she could make out
was blinding white. She lunged towards it.
"You fucking bitch, you cut me!"
Pain exploded across the back of her head.
There was still light when she regained consciousness.
It came slowly, as though she were underwater, swimming towards a
surface that rippled just beyond reach, consciousness seeping back in.
Her eyes were closed; the light was just beyond them. She could feel the
pain of it already.
She was lying on something hard. A cold table, its metal inert be-
neath her fingers.
She could dimly make out voices, muffled but close.
"Well?" A woman's voice. "Any others?"
"No." A man's voice. That first voice from earlier. "We've pulled the
rest out. It was just this one stored wrong."
"And she was conscious when you opened the tank?"
"Sure was. Started screaming when we lifted the top and pulled her
up. Gave me a heart attack, I can tell you. Willems was so startled, he
nearly drowned her, and when we did get her out, she was fucking feral.
Scratched the shit out of me until we got her knocked out. Had the
intravenous and all, but the sedation was turned off. Someone must've
bumped it."
"That doesn't explain the lack of records for this one," said the
woman. "Seems odd."
"Probably done in a hurry. Couldn't have been kept for long. Even
the ones properly done are mostly dead. Lot of the tanks are just soup
and bones." The man laughed nervously.
"We'll know more once I have her in Central," the woman said. She
sounded disinterested. "You were right to call this in. It's anomalous.
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Alchemised • 7
Let me know how many of the rest wake. Any corpses intact enough for
reanimation go to the mines. The living stock goes to the Outpost."
"Of course. And you'll put in a good word for me, right? It would
mean a lot if it comes from you." The man sounded hopeful, and his
chuckle was forced. "Not getting any younger, you know."
"The High Necromancer has many petitions to consider. Your work
will not be forgotten. Have a lorry made ready for transport."
There were retreating footsteps followed by an irritated sigh.
"There's no need to feign unconsciousness; I know you're awake.
Open your eyes," the woman said. "I've altered your senses, so the light
shouldn't be too much."
Helena peered cautiously through her lashes.
The world around her was greenish dusk, every form shadow-like.
The vague shape of a person moved on her right side.
Her eyes followed sluggishly.
"Good. You're following instructions and tracking motion."
Helena tried to speak, but a low gasping emerged.
There was a click of a pen and papers shuffling.
"So, Prisoner 1273, or are you Prisoner 19819? You have two inmate
numbers, and there's no record of either in this facility. Do you happen
to have a name?"
Helena said nothing. Now that the mere concept of light was not a
terror, she could think a little. She was still a prisoner.
The woman gave an impatient huff. "Do you understand me?"
Helena gave no response.
"Well, I suppose I can't expect much. We'll know soon anyway. You,
bring her."
The shape blurred away, and new figures appeared. Cold skin pressed
against her wrists. The stench of chemical preservatives and old meat
burned in her nose. Necrothralls. She tried to make out the faces, but
her eyes kept sliding off, refusing to focus.
The table began vibrating as it was rolled across a stone floor, radiat-
ing through her skull into her teeth.
Then it was so bright, it was like needles being driven into her reti-
nas. She gave a muffled scream, squeezing her eyes shut again.
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8 • SenLinYu
There was a nauseating lurch upwards, and everything grew darker
again, a motor rumbling to life somewhere beneath her.
She needed to escape. She tried to shift and felt the clank of metal.
"Lie still." The woman's voice was suddenly back. Very close.
Helena jerked away, breath coming in rapid pants and her hands and
feet twisting against the restraints. She had to run. She had to—
"Don't make my day harder," the woman said, her voice icy.
Fingers gripped the base of Helena's skull, and a pulse of energy
flooded through her brain.
Darkness again.
Jolting agony and sudden terror ripped Helena back into con-
sciousness.
She lurched upwards, eyes wide, just in time to see a syringe pulled
away. There was a snap of chains, and she fell back, heart racing, every
beat a throb of pain as though it'd been stabbed through.
"There now." There was the clatter of the syringe being dropped onto
a metal tray somewhere to her right. "That should get you lucid and
talking."
It was the woman from earlier.
Helena was no longer on the table or in a lorry. There was a hard
mattress under her, and the strong sterile scent of antiseptic everywhere.
A dim grey ceiling loomed overhead.
Through the pain, energy was suddenly roaring through her veins,
growing into a searing heat that burned in her hands as they flexed. She
could feel her consciousness sharpening and everything growing
brighter, clearer. She twisted, and metal bit into her wrist.
"None of that. You'll break your bones before you break out of those
shackles. Answer my questions and I might let you get up before that
drug wears off. I understand it can be quite painful otherwise."
Unable to move, Helena felt her mind begin to race instead. An in-
jection, some kind of harsh stimulant. Trapped inside her, the energy
poured into her brain, and her scattered, panicked thoughts were nar-
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Alchemised • 9
rowing into crystalline focus.
"Helena Marino. You"—there was a sound of shuffled pages—
"should be dead according to your 1273 file. You were marked for cull-
ing, due to unspecified 'extensive injuries.' But the 19819 designation
means you were selected for stasis." More pages were shuffled. "How-
ever, there's no record that you ever arrived there or underwent process-
ing." The woman sucked her teeth. "You have not existed anywhere in
our file system since Augustus of last year. Fourteen months. And now
we find you in the very stasis warehouse you never arrived at. How is
that?"
Helena blinked slowly, trying to process the information. Fourteen
months?
"Obviously no one can survive in stasis that long. Even at six months
with perfect conditions it's nearly impossible, and you weren't even
stored properly. So where did you come from? And who put you there?"
Helena turned her head away, refusing to answer.
The woman hummed, stepping closer. "You're not in any trouble. Tell
me the truth and this will all be over. Where were you before you were
placed in stasis?"
The question was enunciated slowly.
Helena said nothing, although her jaw was burning to move. Her
body started to tremble as her heartbeat drove the drug deeper into her
veins.
There wasn't anyone left to protect, but she refused to cooperate with
her captors. To make anything easy for them, even their filing system.
Besides, she hadn't been anywhere else.
"Where. Were. You. Before stasis?" The woman was speaking loudly.
Helena's throat tightened, trying not to even think about the answer,
because it tore her apart to remember.
Before the warehouse, she'd been captured along with everyone else,
crammed into cages outside the Alchemy Tower, where all the prisoners
had been brought so they could witness the "celebrations" of the war's
end.
She could still smell the smoke and blood in the summer heat, hear
the raucous cheers as Resistance leaders died, their screams fading.
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10 • SenLinYu
Watching them die, and knowing it was still not over, even then.
Some necromancer in the crowd would hurry forward, eager to show
off, and in a matter of seconds that dead body would get up again.
Someone Helena had trusted or served under, brought back with reani-
mation. A necrothrall, an empty automaton corpse. They'd be slit open,
their skin in ribbons, organs excised, eyes blank, face slack, and they
would be used to kill the next "traitor" in an even more brutal way.
The executions had not stopped until the air was red with a mist of
blood.
General Titus Bayard's dead body was used to kill his wife. Slowly.
Making him eat the strips of her as he cut them off.
Each death had carved out a piece of Helena until there was a cavern
of grief inside her chest. When there wasn't anyone left worth publicly
killing, they'd put her in that stasis tank.
The other prisoners had been unconscious as they were paralysed,
needles inserted in their veins, tubes shoved down their noses, breath-
ing masks adhered to their faces. Not Helena.
She had been kept awake, aware of the claustrophobic horror of all
that was happening to her, as she was locked inside her body and left in
the dark. Waiting for someone to come for her.
No one ever did.
Fingers snapped in front of Helena's face, jolting her from her mem-
ories. The woman was glaring at her.
"I'm not having a filing error damaging my reputation. If you won't
answer, I'll stop doing this the easy way."
Helena flinched.
"See? You do understand me."
Her stomach shrivelled, but she locked her jaw.
The woman stepped closer. Helena's eyes strained to make her out. A
squarish face with impatiently pursed lips. A medical uniform.
"Perhaps an example is in order." The woman's hand pressed against
Helena's neck. Helena gave a sharp gasp as burning-cold energy surged
through her, towards her spine.
It wasn't an electric jolt like in the tank; it burrowed from the wom-
an's hand and into Helena like a needle. The channel of energy sang
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Alchemised • 11
through her like a tuning fork, until both resonated along the same
wavelength.
The woman clenched her fingers. Pain burst through every nerve in
Helena's body. She gave a gasping, garbled scream, body seizing, hands
wrenching at the cuffs.
"Be still."
A flick and Helena went limp. She couldn't feel anything below her
chest. As if her spine were severed. Her blood roared in panic.
A wave of the woman's hand, and the void of numbness vanished.
Soap- roughened fingers trailed dangerously along Helena's arm.
"Understand now?"
The woman's resonance was still running through her like a current,
a visceral warning. Helena managed to nod shakily. She should have
realised: The woman was a vivimancer. Necromancy's inverse twin,
wielded on the living rather than the dead.
"I knew you'd catch on. Let's try again."
Helena's throat grew thick, her eyes burning. Every nerve twinged,
her blood roaring in her ears. What was the harm in answering?
"Where did you come from?"
"Wsss— th— w- housss—" Helena fought to make her tongue coop-
erate.
"None of that foreign nonsense. Speak Paladian," the woman said
sharply.
There was no such thing as a Paladian language; the woman was
speaking in Northern dialect. Helena wanted to tell her that but didn't
think it would help. She swallowed and tried again, but her tongue
slurred everything together.
The woman sighed. "Why do you Resistance fighters always waste
my time? Perhaps if we jolt your brain, you'll remember how to speak a
proper language."
She gripped Helena's head this time. A wave of resonance surged
through from both sides like cymbals slammed together.
Everything went red. The scream wrenched from Helena's throat
was animal.
The hands were snatched back. "What on earth?"
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12 • SenLinYu
Helena wasn't sure if the woman was running in circles overhead or
if the room was spinning.
"What is this? Who did this to you?"
Helena stared dazedly up as the red faded from her vision. Her
hands were twitching and spasming, convulsively jerking against the
chains. She didn't know what the questions meant.
"Something has been done to your mind," the woman said, sounding
bewildered but also strangely excited. "Some kind of transmutation. I
have never encountered anything like it. I'm going to have to report this.
I'll need a specialist. You have—" The woman paused. "There's no name
for this! I'll have to come up with a name . . ."
She seemed to be talking mostly to herself. "Transmutational barri-
ers inside a brain. How is that possible? I have never—there are—
patterns in it."
She touched Helena again. Helena flinched, but the resonance was
not for torture this time, just a frisson of energy through her brain that
turned everything luridly red again.
"This is elaborate, beautiful, professional work. A vivimancer manu-
ally rewiring the human consciousness."
Helena lay there, not understanding.
The woman's face came close enough that Helena could make out
blue eyes with deep creases between them and around the mouth. She
stared at Helena with avid fascination, as if she'd been given an unex-
pected gift.
"If Bennet were still here, he would marvel at the precision of this
work." Resonance ran through Helena's mind as tangibly as if fingers
were gliding inside her skull. The woman's pale eyes lost focus as she
worked. "The smallest mistake anywhere, and you'd be vegetative, but
whoever did this kept you almost completely intact. This is genius."
"Whaa— tt?" Helena finally managed a clear word.
"I wonder . . . What does it look like?" The woman walked away, then
returned a minute later, carrying a sheet of glass.
Helena squinted and recognised the object. A resonance screen. They
were frequently used for academic presentations and alchemical medi-
cal procedures. The gas used reactive particles to mirror the shape and
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Alchemised • 13
pattern of a resonance channel.
The woman held the glass overhead, her other hand resting on Hel-
ena's forehead, and ran resonance through Helena's skull. Her vision
turned red again, but Helena squinted through and watched as the dim
cloud between the panes morphed into the vague shape of the human
brain and then into an incomprehensible spiderweb of lines that wound
all over.
"I doubt you understand any of this, but imagine your mind is a—a
city. Your thoughts run along various streets to reach their destinations.
Those lines you see are your streets that have been rerouted. There are
barriers, transmutationally crafted, and so instead of following a natural
pattern through the brain, someone has created alternative routes. Some
areas are cut off entirely. I can't even imagine how . . . The skill this
would take . . ."
Her words trailed off. She set the screen aside and peered probingly
at Helena.
"Who worked on you?" The question was loud, slow, and over-
enunciated.
Helena just shook her head.
The women's expression hardened dangerously, but then she seemed
to reconsider. "I suppose you wouldn't know, given the state of your
brain. You're probably lucky to remember your own name. You were an
alchemy student, I presume." She idly tapped a metal cuff around Hel-
ena's wrist.
Helena gave a wary nod.
"And foreign. Obviously." She gave Helena a pointed once-over.
Helena swallowed. "Etras."
"Ah, quite far from home then. Do you remember your resonance
repertoire?"
"Div . . . erse."
"Hmm." The woman's eyebrows furrowed, and she studied Helena
more carefully. "Wait. I remember hearing about you. You're that little
savant the Holdfasts sponsored. That must have been more than a de-
cade ago, so you must be what, twenty-something now?"
Helena's eyes burned, and she gave a stilted nod.
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14 • SenLinYu
The woman raised an eyebrow. "Do you remember what happened to
your sponsor, Principate Apollo?"
"Killed."
"Mhmm. And the war. I'm sure you remember that. Did you help
the Holdfast boy burn down the city? Your darling Luc, as you all liked
to call him?"
Helena's throat tightened. "I didn't—fight."
The woman gave a small sound of surprise, and her eyes narrowed.
"But the final battle? I assume you remember that?"
Helena's mouth parted several times, her tongue struggling to un-
tangle. "We—the— the Resistance lost. There were—executions. M-
Morrough came—at the end. He—he had Luc. K-Killed him—there.
Then— then they— they took me to the warehouse."
"Who's they?"
Helena swallowed bitterly. "L-liches."
The woman chuckled. "I haven't heard anyone dare use that word in
a long time. All of the Undying, regardless of their forms, are the High
Necromancer's most ascendant followers. Their immortality is the re-
ward for their excellence. In this new world, death claims only the un-
worthy. No matter what insults you attempt, it is your friends who are
nothing but ashes to be forgotten."
She tapped Helena's forehead. "You do seem mostly intact, though.
So why go to all the effort? And who could have even—?" The woman
picked up the resonance screen, glancing at it once more, and then dis-
appeared through the curtains.
Helena was relieved to see her gone.
Her memory or mind had been altered?
She would have thought it a trick, but she'd seen the resonance
screen. She knew what a brain should look like. It would have required
a highly specialised and extensive degree of vivimancy to transmute a
mind into that state.
It wasn't something a person would forget having happened to them.
Yet she didn't feel like she'd forgotten anything, except the mention
of an extensive injury.
She couldn't remember any injury, just shock, and grief, and horror.
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Alchemised • 15
She swallowed and blinked hard, trying not to think about it.
Looking around, she tried to make out her surroundings. Whatever
she'd been injected with was a brutally effective drug. There was a sharp
bruise forming on her chest where the needle had punctured its way to
her heart. It hurt with every beat.
She looked down. There were bars along each side of the bed, and
the metal cuffs around her wrists were shackled to them. The skin was
raw and bruised, and beneath the cuffs chaining her to the bed, a green-
ish band of metal was also locked around each wrist.
Those at least were familiar. They'd been snapped around her wrists
during the celebration.
In the darkness, thick with blood, with little torchlight and too many
bodies in a cramped cage, she'd barely been able to make them out. But
she remembered them.
Inside the stasis tank, she'd been constantly aware of them clamped
around her wrists. Their existence had persisted along the edge of her
consciousness, an inescapable presence that stifled her resonance, pre-
venting any transmutational manipulation that might have let her es-
cape.
Even in the tank, she could feel the lumithium inside them.
By its nature, lumithium bound the four elements of air, water, earth,
and fire together, and in that binding, resonance was created.
The Sacred Faith held that resonance was a gift, intended by Sol,
godhead of the elemental Quintessence, to elevate humanity. Reso-
nance was a rare ability in many parts of the world, but not in Sol's
chosen nation of Paladia. The pre-war census had estimated nearly a
fifth of the population possessed measurable resonance levels. The num-
ber had been expected to rise further with the next generation.
Usually, resonance was channelled into the alchemy of metals and
inorganic compounds, allowing for transmutation or alchemisation.
However, in a defective soul which rebelled against Sol's natural laws,
the resonance could be corrupted, enabling vivimancy—like what the
woman had used on Helena—and the necromancy used to create necro-
thralls.
As the element of resonance, lumithium could increase or even cre-
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16 • SenLinYu
ate resonance in inert objects through exposure, making them alchemi-
cally malleable. However, pure lumithium was too divine for mortals;
overexposure caused wasting sickness, and for individuals with reso-
nance, direct exposure could result in a raw, metallic pain within their
nerves.
The lumithium in the manacles didn't seem to make Helena sick.
Which meant that something had altered it. The sharp energy inside
was keyed into her resonance, but rather than turn it raw, it blurred her
senses. She could feel her resonance, but when she tried to control it, the
cuffs were like static in her nerves. No matter how she tried, she could
not push beyond it.
All she knew was that as long as those manacles remained locked in
place, she wasn't an alchemist at all.
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CHAPTER 2
There was a necrothrall somewhere nearby. Alone and able
to focus, Helena could smell the rotting meat and chemical preserva-
tives. The Undying used the dead like puppets to perform any undesir-
able or menial tasks. Chained and waiting, she wondered what this one
was being used for. She peered around, looking for any shadows beyond
the curtains.
"Marino?"
Her name was whispered so softly, it could have been a breeze.
Turning, Helena made out a face peeking through the dividing cur-
tain. She squinted hard, and her eyes managed to focus enough to make
out a pale face and hair.
"Marino, is that you?"
Helena nodded, still trying to make out who it was.
"It's Grace. I was an orderly in the hospital." She crept through the
curtains as she spoke. She had a heavy Northern accent, the kind that
pulled hard on the consonants.
"Sorry, I'm—disoriented," Helena said.
"I didn't expect to see you here." Grace came closer, youthful yet
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18 • SenLinYu
sunken features emerging from the dimness, her expression both fright-
ened and curious.
Helena's eyes widened.
Grace's face was disfigured with scars, long cuts that bisected her
cheeks and chin and nose. Not the accidental marring of injury. They
were intentional.
Helena tried to lift a hand, but the shackles on her wrists were too
short. "What happened?"
Grace looked confused, and then—following Helena's stare—
reached up to touch her face. "Oh, the cuts? We all have them."
"What? Why would the liches—"
Grace shook her head sharply. "Keep your voice down." She glanced
around quickly, sniffing at the air before looking back at Helena again,
her eyes angry. "They use the greys for listening sometimes. There's one
in here, can't you smell it? You can't call the Undying liches." The word
came out barely a whisper. "If they hear—there'll be—consequences."
Helena nodded quickly, afraid Grace might flee if she wasn't careful.
Grace crept closer.
"The Undying didn't do this." She gestured at her face. "We did it
ourselves. The Undying can do anything they want to us—to anyone
labelled Resistance. It's the thing nowadays to keep greys instead of
staff. Other times—they just want something to play with. At a party
or—after a night out." Her face twisted. "No one interferes. Even the
ones who aren't Undying or in the guilds will go along with it because
they all hope it'll give them a better chance of earning immortality, too."
Grace gave a jerky, stilted shrug. "But if you're messed-up looking,
they won't keep you for long." She drew a shaky breath and then peered
hard at Helena. "Where have you been?"
Helena shook her head, trying to absorb everything Grace had said.
"They took me to a warehouse—after— "
Grace's eyes narrowed.
Helena stared at her searchingly. "Is the Eternal Flame still—"
"No." Grace shook her head violently, and her expression turned
angry. "They're all dead. Every one of them. After Luc was dead, they
sent the rest of us out to the factory Outpost below the dam. Most of us
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Alchemised • 19
can't leave. Takes months of good behaviour to get permission, and we
have to wear these." She held up a wrist cuffed with a copper band,
brighter and more fitted than Helena's. "We have to check in morning
and night. There's a curfew. If anyone's missed for more than twenty-
four hours— " She swallowed. "If they don't turn up, the High Reeve's
sent to hunt them down, and they're always dead by the time he brings
them back. The Warden likes to string them up, leaves them hanging for
days sometimes, and then when they're starting to rot, she'll reanimate
them and have them 'work' with us for a while before they go to the
mines. Says it's so we don't forget the rules."
"Who— " Helena forced herself to ask, even though she was afraid to
know.
Grace hesitated, eyes softening slightly. "Lila Bayard was the first
one he brought back."
Grace was saying something else, but Helena couldn't hear her. All
she heard was "Lila Bayard was the first," over and over.
Not Lila . . .
Grace's voice came slowly back. "The Warden had her put into pala-
din armour and stationed at the gate. She'd been dead awhile already.
Must've gotten pretty far. More than half of her face was missing, and
she didn't have the prosthetic leg anymore, so they welded a steel bar on
to keep her upright. She—It can't really move. Just stands there. We go
past every day." Grace seemed to finally notice Helena's expression; she
looked down. "She's mostly bones now. The Warden thinks it's—funny."
Helena shook her head, struggling to accept it, but of course Lila
was dead. For Luc to be captured and killed, his paladins had to be
killed. That was the oath they took, to die for the Principate.
Helena swallowed hard. "But surely somewhere—the Resistance—"
"There's no Resistance!" Grace said in a harsh whisper. "You think
the rest of us were going to keep fighting, with everyone in the Eternal
Flame dead? There's no point. The High Reeve kills everyone. Any hint,
even whispers get people killed. He has this—this monster he uses for
hunting. There's no point in running away or resisting or organising un-
less you want to be the next corpse."
Helena fell silent. Grace watched her warily, fidgeting and seeming
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20 • SenLinYu
ready to bolt at any moment.
"Who's the High Reeve?" Helena hoped it was a safe question to ask.
She didn't remember the title.
Grace shook her head. "I don't know. He still wears a helmet the way
the Undying did during the war. The High Necromancer's too impor-
tant for public appearances, so he sends the High Reeve instead. He's
some kind of vivimancer, but not like the rest. He kills people without
even touching them."
"Resonance doesn't work like that," Helena said, correcting her re-
flexively. "Without an array, a stable channel has to be formed through
contact, and then—"
"I know how resonance works," Grace said sharply. "But I've seen
him do it. Last week—" Grace's voice failed; her throat bobbed several
times. "There was a smuggling ring. There's been a grain shortage. Most
of what we get on the Outpost is rotten. A few people were bringing in
extra food. It wasn't even a lot, but the Warden heard rumours about the
prisoners organising. Ten people in all. Public execution. The High
Reeve did all of them at the same time. Did it 'clean' so they'll last in
longer in the lumithium mines."
Grace seemed to shrivel as she spoke, as if the memory were enough
to paralyse her. "All there is now is surviving. That's all that matters." She
whispered the last words as if they weren't for Helena, but for herself.
"Why are you here, Grace?" Helena asked, glancing half-blindly
around. "This isn't—we're not at the Outpost, are we?"
Grace shook her head. "No. They call this Central now. Houses all
the Undying's experimentation. I—" She choked. "I have three brothers.
They're littler than me. None of them were old enough to enlist, so they
weren't in the Resistance rosters. My brother, Gid, he'll be old enough
to work soon, and he can come off the Outpost. He'll get real wages
when he does. We—we just have to make it till then."
"Grace . . ."
"They're offering really good money for eyes. Just one, and it'd cover
us for months."
Helena looked at her, bewildered. "What do they want eyes for?"
Grace shook her head. "I don't know. I just want the money."
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Alchemised • 21
If she weren't chained to the bed, Helena would have reached to-
wards her.
"Grace, if you do this—that's not ever going to be healable—"
Grace gave an abrupt, almost wild laugh. "I know eyes don't grow
back. That's why the pay's good."
"Yes, but— "
"Why should I keep them?" Grace sounded nearly hysterical. "So I
have two eyes to watch my brothers starve? There's no food!" She wasn't
whispering anymore. The scars on her face reddened, growing stark.
"You don't know—you don't have any idea what it's like now. Where
have you been? Why didn't you save Luc? You were supposed to, but you
didn't. He died! We all watched it. And the Bayards are dead. And ev-
eryone in the Eternal Flame is dead—except you. And you think I
should care about my eyes?"
Before Helena could answer, or Grace could say more, the sound of
footsteps drew close.
Terror washed across Grace's face, and she fled.
The curtains on Helena's other side were shoved aside, and several
figures filled the space. As one came towards the bed, Helena recog-
nised her interrogator. The lines on the woman's face were stark with
tension.
Helena couldn't make out the others behind her, but they were an
unnatural grey that instantly made her skin crawl, the space within the
curtains filling with the smell of preservatives.
"It's this one," the woman said. "Quite secure, as I assured you." She
glanced nervously towards the figures, which seemed to move as a col-
lective.
Necrothralls. They were all necrothralls.
She looked at Helena. "The High Necromancer has sent for you. He
wishes to watch your examination personally."
Helena's chest clenched, and she pulled against the restraints. "No."
She couldn't. She couldn't see him again. The only time she'd ever
seen the High Necromancer, Morrough, he'd killed Luc.
Luc, who'd been the whole world to her.
Helena had enlisted in the Resistance and sworn fealty to the Order
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22 • SenLinYu
of the Eternal Flame—not out of faith, but because of Luc Holdfast.
Because she might not believe in the gods, but she had believed in him,
that he was good and kind and cared about everyone.
She'd promised she'd do anything for him.
But he'd died before her eyes.
Her throat was closing. "No," she said again as the bed jolted and
began to roll, her captors paying her no mind.
It was at the lifts that Helena recognised her surroundings, realised
what Central was. The murals and art had been scraped from the walls,
the portraits and gilding all gone, leaving the interior brutal and raw,
but she knew the intricate metalwork of the lift gate.
She'd seen it every day since she was ten.
She was in the Alchemy Tower. In the very heart of the Alchemy
Institute that the Holdfasts had founded.
This was Central.
"What did you do?" Her voice shook with horror and grief. "What
did you do?"
"Calm down," the woman said through gritted teeth, glaring at Hel-
ena. She kept glancing at the necrothralls around them.
Helena couldn't be calm. It was like coming home and finding all the
comfort it had once offered torn apart, the beauty flensed, everything
once familiar peeled off into ruin.
Helena had come halfway across the world to study in this Tower.
Luc had been so proud of the Institute his family had built. It had been
the heart of Paladia. She'd known it through his eyes, all the history and
meaning of it. Now it was ravaged and mutilated.
The breadth of Luc's loss was more than she could hold, but some-
how she had the capacity to grieve this fragment of it. A sobbing,
screaming moan tore from her.
Fingers gripped the base of Helena's skull until nails bit into her
skin.
She was spiralling down. Down.
A long tunnel. Twisting darkness.
Cold dead hands and the smell of death.
When her mind cleared, she was strapped down on a table. A bright
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Alchemised • 23
light hung overhead, the beam directed at Helena so that the room
beyond disappeared.
There was a small man beside her with a pinched nose, and he kept
touching Helena's face with sweaty, damp fingertips, prodding between
her eyes, at her temples, poking through her hair to her skull.
"This is—quite a marvel of human transmutation, I must say," the
man was saying in a high, rapid voice. He had an accent—not the
Northern dialect, but something more western sounding. "Vivimancy
of this skill is—miraculous. Very right to call me."
There was a long, oppressive silence.
He coughed. "The—the thing is. This is— impossible. This—can't be
done."
"It's obviously possible. The evidence is right here," the woman said
sharply from Helena's other side, barely visible in the severe shadows.
"Yes, quite right, Doctor Stroud. Of course, it is as you say. But—the
use of vivimancy on a brain has always been a most delicate procedure.
Transmutation of this scale and complexity is beyond all known scien-
tific possibility. Memory is a mysterious thing, very changeable as it's
moved around. Not a place, it is—the mind's journey. A path. The more
important, more journeyed, the stronger the path. The less journeyed"—
fingers fluttered—"it fades."
"Get to the point," said the woman—Doctor Stroud.
"Yes, yes. There are areas of the brain that can be altered. In the labo-
ratories, we have vivisected countless human brains and reassembled
them in various ways, to some success and also . . . failure. This transmu-
tation, however, is upon—thought. M-M- Memory. What has been
done here— " Something wet fell onto Helena's face, and she realised
the man was perspiring on her. "This is alteration of the unalterable.
Someone— has disassembled the pathways of her mind and created al-
ternative routes for them. How could it be done without knowing all
her thoughts and memories? No. No. This is scientifically impossible."
"I thought the mind was your specialty." A voice emerged from the
darkness, low and rasping.
The man whimpered and looked ready to weep. "The—the brain is,
Your Eminence." He bowed towards the shadows. "But this work is
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24 • SenLinYu
beyond me. Bennet and I, you remember our labours for your cause? I
hope . . . Memories cannot simply be regenerated; the mind and spirit
must forge them. The spirit cannot be altered by external force—the—
the fevers— "
"Is there any way to uncover what is hidden?"
The man opened and closed his mouth as if he were a fish, staring
into the darkness as though he expected to be swallowed by it.
"The Holdfasts are dead," the rasping voice said, "the Eternal Flame
erased from this earth. What would they have hidden within her mind?"
The question was met with silence.
"Who placed her in that warehouse?"
Stroud stepped forward. "There's nothing confirming it, but based
on the records, Mandl was overseer at the time. It was shortly before her
ascendance and transfer to the Outpost."
"Send for her."
Stroud nodded and disappeared. As she did, the shadows moved.
Helena could only see from the corner of her eyes, but she could not
fail to notice when Morrough emerged from the darkness.
The High Necromancer was not what she remembered. When he'd
killed Luc, he'd been human. Now he was mutated. His limbs stuck out
in ways that were impossibly jointed, and he was nearly the size of two
men.
She thought, at first, that he was wearing a mask. The High Necro-
mancer had been masked during the celebration, wearing a huge golden
crescent that concealed half his face like an eclipsed sun.
As he drew nearer however, she realised it wasn't a mask she was
staring at. Morrough's face was skull-like, his features so sunken, the
skin so translucently pale, that she could see through to the bone.
Where his eyes should have been were two blackened, empty hol-
lows, as if they'd been burned out with live coals.
Somehow, he still seemed to see Helena.
He walked forward, one hand outstretched, but there was something
wrong about it, the skin bizarrely stretched and over-jointed. Too many
bones inside it. Before his fingers grazed her skin, the pain of his reso-
nance lanced through her skull.
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Alchemised • 25
Her vision turned red.
Screaming surrounded her, blistering her eardrums and going on
and on as her memories detonated inside her brain. A cascade of images
tore through her consciousness.
Everywhere she looked, people were dying. Her hands were covered
in blood. There were bodies everywhere.
She was kneeling on the floor, holding together torsos and faces and
limbs, trying to put them back together, knitting them into wholeness.
Again and again and again. Bodies raw with burns, so consumed by fire
that she couldn't find their features.
Always another body, and another.
The resonance burrowed deeper and deeper, and the screaming grew
louder.
She saw Luc. Vivid as if he were there with her. His beautiful face,
and eyes as blue as a summer's sky, golden sunlight reflecting in them.
Then Luc was gone. Blood was everywhere. All she could see was a
reddened light, fractured and disjointed, swimming overhead. And the
screaming.
Her screams. Her vocal cords were shredded, raw pain tearing
through her lungs and throat. A lancing pain through her heart each
time she gasped for air.
The small man was muttering, "I wouldn't recommend—" over and
over with his arms cradled defensively around his own head.
There was a knock on a door, and Stroud reappeared, barely glancing
at Helena.
"Mandl is on her way. And—" She hesitated. "I brought Shiseo. I
thought he might have some insight into our prisoner. He did consult
with the Eternal Flame. She needs a new nullification set anyway; I
thought he might apply them before his departure."
There was a quiet shuffling in the dark. Helena craned her neck as
much as she could, eyes straining for a glimpse of the traitor.
A round-faced man with dark hair emerged, carrying a small case.
He paused to bow reverently before the High Necromancer.
Morrough waved him towards Helena. "What kinds of vivimancy
did the Eternal Flame utilise?"
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26 • SenLinYu
Shiseo drew closer, and Helena realised he was Eastern. Far Eastern.
He only met Helena's accusing stare for a moment before he averted his
gaze.
"I am sorry." He bowed slightly once again. "I was only consulted on
occasion due to my metallurgical knowledge."
Helena released a small breath of relief.
"Surely you know something—you did work in their laboratories."
Stroud said, impatiently. "Do you recognise her at least?"
Shiseo barely glanced at Helena.
"I believe she was a healer," he said quietly as he returned his atten-
tion to his case.
Helena fought back a wince.
Stroud looked sharply at Helena, her eyes narrowed.
"Really? A healer, you say?" The way Stroud spoke was venomous.
She cleared her throat, glancing around. "Of course, I knew there were
vivimancers who supported the Eternal Flame. As if martyring them-
selves could earn acceptance, even though the Faith spurned their gifts
as an abomination." Her eyes were scathing. "I just didn't realise this was
one of them."
No one said anything. Stroud's face reddened. "I'm sure I would have
realised if I'd had more time to retrieve the Resistance's records. But
why would someone transmute a healer's mind?"
Shiseo bowed to Stroud now. "I could not say."
A growing sense of agitation permeated the room.
Morrough sighed like a gusting bellows. "He knows nothing. Apply
the nullification and get him out."
Shiseo bowed and lifted Helena's hand as far as it would go, inspect-
ing her wrist and the cuff around it. He had soft hands for a metallur-
gist.
"These are— a very old model. They do not fully suppress the reso-
nance," he said. He slid the manacle up Helena's forearm as far as it
would go, and it was as if the static of the suppression was pushed up
towards her brain along with it.
His fingers pressed deftly along her arm, finding the dip just below
her wrist between the two bones of her forearm.
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Alchemised • 27
Her pulse beat against his fingers. He felt it for a moment and moved
his fingers away from it, squeezing briefly before he turned to Stroud.
"Just here."
Stroud's dry, hard fingers wrapped around her wrist. Helena felt a
brief tingle of Stroud's resonance before all sensation from hand to
elbow vanished and her body went limp with paralysis. Without expla-
nation or warning, Stroud plucked something out of the case. It gleamed
in the light, revealing the bulbous handle and long pointed spike of an
awl.
With practised ease, Stroud drove the tip straight through Helena's
wrist. Helena felt nothing, but her throat closed, stomach inverting as
she watched Stroud work the awl in slow circles as it sank between the
bones, the tip emerging on the other side.
When Stroud pulled it out, there was a drop of blood on the tip and
a hole running straight through Helena's wrist. The wound was blood-
less, all the torn skin, muscle, and broken vessels instantly closing in the
process.
Setting the awl aside, Stroud manipulated Helena's hand, bending
and arching it back, checking for range of motion. Sensation returned,
but the paralysis lingered.
"Nerves and veins are all intact," Stroud said, letting go.
Helena could do nothing but watch as Shiseo stepped over and
pushed a tiny, notched tube through the hole now running through her
wrist until the ends protruded on each side. The moment the tube
slipped into place, the blurred sense of resonance in Helena's left hand
vanished completely.
It was as if one of her senses had been ripped out.
She could feel the tube inside her, a deadening sense of inertia ema-
nating from it.
Shiseo pulled out a ribbon of metal. It was smooth and shining on
one side, grooved on the other. He slid the groove over one notched end
of the tube before wrapping the ribbon around her wrist and sliding it
over the other, locking the tube in place before he wrapped the rest of
the metal ribbon around and around.
He inspected the tension and fit, lined up all the layers, and with
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28 • SenLinYu
little more than a flick of his fingers, the layers morphed into a solid
ring of metal, perfectly fitted.
No lock, no way to open it without resonance.
Shiseo slid a strangely shaped wire into a tiny opening on the old
cuff. A mechanism inside clicked, and it fell off.
He picked it up as if it were a curious antique and put it in his case
before moving around to Helena's right side.
Helena grasped desperately at her dim sense of remaining resonance,
trying to focus, to remember the sensation of who and what she was,
knowing it would be gone in minutes.
Shiseo was just removing the second old manacle when the door
opened and a guard entered.
"Warden Mandl."
A woman in uniform strode into the room with a quick, confident
step that faltered when her eyes landed on Helena.
She had a wide mouth, and it dropped open in shock.
"What did you do to this prisoner, Mandl?" Morrough asked. He
had disappeared back into the shadows, but his voice emerged, even
more dangerous now.
Mandl flung herself prostrate, disappearing from Helena's range of
vision.
"Your Eminence . . ." Her pleading voice rose from the floor.
"I saved you from the Holdfasts and the Faith. Saved all the necro-
mancers and vivimancers like you who lived like rats fearing the Eternal
Flame's punishment for your 'unnatural gifts.' I let you ascend above
those who had sought to subdue you. Now I learn you betrayed me?"
"No! It was not a betrayal! I am loyal. Loyal to our cause, and loyal
to you! It was my foolish desire for vengeance—I confess it. I wanted
her to suffer. But I would never betray you."
"Explain yourself."
Mandl pushed herself up, still kneeling, her head bowed but her
voice shaking with emotion. "She is a traitor to vivimancers! She tor-
mented me! Thought herself better than me for having been a part of
the Holdfasts' Institute, her vivimancy blessed by the Eternal Flame.
She had to be punished!"
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Alchemised • 29
Helena stared at the woman in dazed bewilderment.
"You tampered with a prisoner and her records out of—jealousy?"
Stroud looked astonished. "Why didn't you report her abilities?"
Mandl shrank back. "I feared that she would be favoured if it was
known. That you might find her useful and not punish her as she de-
served to be punished."
Stroud leaned over her. "And what kind of punishment did you think
she deserved?"
Mandl swallowed nervously. "I—left her conscious—in the stasis
tank. I intended to return. I wanted her to be trapped, knowing, and
dreading what I would do to her, but then I was assigned to the Outpost
and selected for ascendance. I was afraid my temporary lapse in judge-
ment would disappoint, so I did not disclose it. But I would never be-
tray our great cause!"
"She has been in that warehouse for the fourteen months since you
were reassigned. Why are there no records?" Stroud sounded highly
sceptical.
"I'd intended to complete her records once I was—done with her.
When I left, I assumed she would die and then no one would ever know.
Forgive me! I did nothing else, I swear it." Mandl flung herself back
down onto the floor.
"I see now I have been too generous," Morrough said. His nightmar-
ish face and looming eye sockets emerged from the shadows. He tilted
his head as though staring down at Mandl. "You were not worthy of my
gift."
"Please! Your Eminence, I beg of you—give me—"
Mandl stopped speaking as she was jerked up onto her feet by an
unseen force. The front of her grey uniform tore open as her ribs un-
furled in a gush of blood, her chest rent apart.
Helena's skin crawled, terror slithering like a worm through her gut
as the warm wet smell of fresh blood and exposed organs permeated the
room. There was a sensation like a hum in the air that she could feel all
the way into her own lungs.
But Mandl, split open as she was, was not dead.
Her hands rose up, and she tried to claw her ribs closed with one
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30 • SenLinYu
hand and ward off Morrough with the other, her exposed lungs pulsing.
"Another chance—please! I will not fail you! I swear. You will not regret
it."
"No, you will not fail me again." Morrough said, his rasping voice
almost gentle as he reached into Mandl's open chest, fingers sliding
beneath her lungs and extracting a gleaming piece of metal from some-
where near her heart. Little tendrils of viscera were wrapped around it,
clinging to both the metal and Morrough's fingers as it was torn free.
When it came loose, Mandl's body dropped to the ground. Silent.
Dead.
Morrough gave a low sigh and seemed to shrink momentarily as he
stood, cradling the metal in his hand. Through the blood, the piece had
a sharp, bright, lumithium gleam.
He gestured with his other hand. A necrothrall crawled from the
shadows like an animal. It was a young woman in the early stages of
necrosis, still wearing the tattered remains of the Eternal Flame's hos-
pital uniform. Her expression was blank. A rip in the unform exposed a
chest latticed with blackening veins.
When the corpse reached Morrough, she stood, and he shoved the
metal piece into her. There was a soft crunch of breaking bone that left
a hole purpled with old blood in the centre of her chest.
The corpse-woman shuddered, and then her expression morphed,
the blankness vanishing.
She stumbled and gave a wild screeching moan as she looked down
at her blackened fingers and deteriorating body.
"No! Please, no—it wasn't my—"
"Do not fail me again, Mandl," Morrough said, "and in time perhaps
I will permit you a better reliquary. Perhaps your original."
He gestured at Mandl's corpse on the floor. The air hummed again
as his fingers curled, and the ribs closed. Mandl's body stood. The front
of the uniform was ripped open, exposing her, and she was covered in
blood. The skin knit back together, but her face showed nothing. The
corpse-woman fell to the floor moaning and pleading, clawing at the
oozing wound in the middle of her chest as if trying to rip the metal
back out while Morrough walked back towards Helena.
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Alchemised • 31
Stroud kicked her. "Thank the High Necromancer for his mercy in
allowing you a vivimancer's corpse, that you might earn a chance at
forgiveness and a return to the Outpost, Warden."
The corpse-woman gave one last guttural moan and struggled to her
feet.
"Thank you, Your Eminence," she rasped, and stumbled from the
room.
Stroud joined Morrough, appearing unfazed by what had transpired.
"Is it possible for someone to survive fourteen months in stasis?"
Stroud asked.
Morrough said nothing, but the nervous, perspiring man spoke up
from where he'd been cowering against the wall. "Ac-Actually that idea
does have some potential," he said, stepping forward and then shrinking
back as Morrough's eyeless attention turned to him.
He adjusted the collar on his shirt several times. "Our good friend
from the Far East"—he gestured towards Shiseo, who was absorbed in
cleaning his awl— "mentioned that the suppression she was wearing
was an old model, without a complete resonance block. Perhaps that
explains both her mind—and her survival."
Stroud's eyes narrowed. "How?"
"The transmutation done to her isn't something another person
could do. Those memories are too deeply enmeshed with her mind.
However, if you had someone capable of such complexity—a healer, as
our friend says she was—perhaps she . . ."
"You're saying she did this to herself ?" Stroud gestured towards Hel-
ena with scathing disbelief.
He choked on his saliva. "Well—it seems the most likely explana-
tion. In my opinion." His face was gleaming with perspiration.
Stroud sucked on her teeth. "And the survival?"
"She— did not let herself die. Per-Perhaps a low level of internalised
resonance in a competent healer would provide a sufficient means of
self-sustenance when ordinarily a body would perish under such condi-
tions."
"That's absurd!" Stroud snapped.
"That is immaterial. Can we recover the memories?" Morrough said.
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32 • SenLinYu
"The Eternal Flame would not go to such lengths unless the informa-
tion was of vital importance."
"Your Eminence." Stroud sounded pleading. "The Order of the Eter-
nal Flame is gone. Their ashes are all that remain."
"I did not ask you," Morrough said, his focus on the man, who'd
turned a sickly green.
"I don't— believe— "
"Get out." The air hummed.
The man blanched and bowed repeatedly, thanking Morrough for
his mercy and patience as he walked backwards out of the room with
visible relief on his face.
"What are you hiding?" Morrough loomed above her.
Her heart beat faster and faster. She had no answer.
Stroud leaned over as well, eyes narrowed in appraisal. "Your Emi-
nence, perhaps if we removed the frontmost section of her brain, we
might be able to penetrate some of the memories before the fevers be-
come detrimental," she said, trailing her finger thoughtfully across Hel-
ena's forehead. "Or it might alter the pathways enough to revert things.
I would be honoured to maintain her vitals while you perform the vivi-
section."
Terror sliced through Helena as Morrough nodded. Stroud stepped
to the side, adjusting the light overhead, as though intending to begin
immediately.
"Pardon," a soft voice interrupted, and Helena felt a rush of relief
until she realised it was the traitor, Shiseo, standing with his case gripped
in his hands. "I have just remembered one small thing. There was a
General Bayard. His head was injured in the war."
"Yes." Stroud seemed irritated by the interruption.
"The brain was healed, but"—he paused as if struggling to find the
right words— "it blocked him from who he was—his mind, his true
self."
"Yes. We are aware of what happened to Bayard. Nonverbal. Depen-
dent. His wife had to care for him like a child," Stroud said, her voice
waspish.
"Of course, I apologise. It was probably nothing." Shiseo bowed and
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Alchemised • 33
appeared to be on the verge of leaving.
"Wait." Stroud sounded conciliatory. "You've begun now. Tell us
what your point is."
Shiseo stopped. "I don't know all the details, but I believe they pur-
sued a cure for him late in the war. A complicated procedure of the
mind."
"By a healer or by a surgeon?" Stroud leaned forward.
Shiseo tilted his head as if trying to recall. "A healer."
Stroud pursed her lips. "Elain Boyle, I imagine."
Shiseo tilted his head, no recognition in his face.
"She was Luc Holdfast's personal healer. The Eternal Flame was
rather lax in their record keeping, but Elain Boyle's name appeared fre-
quently in the last year of the war. She seemed to have become unusu-
ally distinguished." Stroud tapped her fingers on her lips, sucking at her
teeth again.
"Where is Boyle now?" Morrough asked.
"Killed when we seized the Institute. I believe her body was sent to
the mines. We could see if there are any remains." Stroud's attention
returned to Shiseo. "What did the Eternal Flame do with Bayard that
you think is somehow relevant?"
Shiseo bowed again.
"I was only aware of this because they hoped there were similar tech-
niques used in the Eastern Empire. The healer, I was told, had a special
ability to—to alter not just the brain but the mind. They proposed to
enter the mind of Bayard and heal him from within."
The mood in the room suddenly shifted, growing electrified.
"That would be animancy, not healing," Stroud said with slow incre-
dulity.
"I do not know, the words were—different," Shiseo said. "The mind,
I was told, resisted another's presence, but this healer believed that with
many small treatments, it was possible. Like learning to tolerate a poi-
son."
"Mithridatism," Morrough said slowly. He straightened into his full,
tremendous height. "Soul mithridatism . . ."
He advanced on Shiseo as if intending to rip the answers out of him.
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34 • SenLinYu
"The Eternal Flame found a way to make living subjects survive soul
transference? And you never thought to mention this?"
Helena thought she was about to watch another rib cage be torn
open.
Shiseo remained eerily calm and bowed again. "I apologise. They
asked me many questions. It is hard to remember."
Morrough seemed appeased by this excuse and turned back, consid-
ering Helena once more as if still inclined to vivisect her in search of
answers.
"If the Eternal Flame did have an animancer who developed a tem-
porary transference method . . . could that explain this form of memory
loss? If another person could enter someone's mind like that, they might
be able to alter thoughts and memories, just as we see here. It would
explain everything," Stroud asked, gesturing at Helena. "And . . . I must
say it seems more likely than far-fetched notions of self-transmutation."
"If the Eternal Flame discovered a viable method of transference,
that has more significance than mere memory loss," Morrough said.
Helena could feel his resonance in her marrow, as if it were burrowing
into her flesh, attempting to peel her apart, layer by layer.
He looked towards Stroud. "Record every detail Shiseo remembers
of this procedure before his departure east. We will begin testing this
gradual transference method. I want it perfected. If it is possible, we'll
use it to remove the transmutation on her and see what the Eternal
Flame was so desperate to hide from me."
Morrough drew a breath that rattled as he turned away.
"Your Eminence," Stroud said, her voice nervous. "This transference
procedure you wish to begin testing, it would require an animancer, I
believe?" She gave a weak cough. "I'm sure Bennet would have been
thrilled by the opportunity, but unfortunately souls are not within my
resonance repertoire, and there's only one other. Would this be some-
thing that we—" Her voice lifted hopefully.
"Let the High Reeve manage it."
Stroud's face fell. "But I found h—"
"I have other work for you."
Stroud straightened but still looked disappointed.
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Alchemised • 35
"The High Reeve was Bennet's favourite after all." Morrough waved
a dismissive hand as he vanished into the shadows. "It's time he's given
more to do than hunting."
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CHAPTER 3
When Helena was rolled back into the lift at Central,
she counted the floors of the Tower as they passed.
The Alchemy Tower had been an architectural wonder for centuries.
It was only five storeys when initially constructed as a memorial to the
first Necromancy War. Back then, alchemical resonance was an arcane
ability, regarded as magic. Its practitioners figures cloaked in myth and
mystery, like Cetus, the first Northern alchemist.
The Holdfasts and the Institute had changed that, establishing al-
chemy as the Noble Science, something to be studied and mastered.
When the Alchemy Institute threatened to outgrow the Tower, it was
raised with alchemically wrought pulley systems to add additional sto-
reys to the base. It had stood as the tallest building on the Northern
continent for almost two centuries, growing ever taller as the city around
it expanded and alchemists flocked through its gates.
The study of Northern Alchemy itself was entwined with the Tower
structure. The lowest five levels with the largest lecture halls were the
"foundations," filled with initiates still discovering their resonance and
mastering basic transmutation principles. Annual exams were required
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Alchemised • 37
to ascend. After five years, most students would depart with their certi-
fication to join the guilds, with only qualifying undergraduates ascend-
ing to the next tier in the narrowing Tower to study more technical
fields and subjects. Even fewer would rise past the graduate and re-
search floors to achieve the rank of grandmaster.
The lift stopped somewhere amid the former research floors.
Helena strained her eyes, forced to peer through an aura of pain
steadily fogging her vision. The walls blurred, her eyes failing to focus
until she was rolled to a stop in the centre of a sterile room.
It had probably been a private laboratory once.
The straps pinning her in place were unfastened, and Stroud paused,
checking Helena's wrists.