“I don’t have time to play nurse,” Ferron said, sneering at him. “Your cure was nearly as bad as the disease. At this rate, I can’t see how she’ll survive long enough for me to find anything. Getting her to tolerate transference and manage a full reversal of what’s been done to her memory will only be the first steps. I’ll still have to find the information. That could take months. I will not be set up for failure because you’ve decided something is ‘immaterial.’”
The man shrivelled, his neck seeming to sink into his chest cavity, shoulders rising past his ears. “I assure you, High Reeve, the arsenic is unlikely to kill her. She may begin to show symptoms of poisoning, but based on our theories, this procedure will be complete before she develops any serious necrosis or—significant liver damage.”
“How do you know how long this procedure will take? We don’t even know if it worked on Bayard.” Ferron’s voice had grown deadly. “If you’re certain that she will not die before the High Necromancer has his answers, and I am to follow your advice, then you will go attest to this, now, before our preeminent leader, and make clear to him that I am acting on your advice and assurances.”
The man lost all remaining colour. “W-Well, when considered in that light, it’s possible that if the sessions were spaced out more generously, we might reduce the side effects and brain fevers. But I would not dare make recommendations on my own. I’m no expert in this new science. This would be for Stroud or the High Necromancer himself to decide.”
“I was sent you. I’d expect you to at least have enough expertise to have an opinion,” Ferron said.
The man mopped his forehead. “I will strongly advise Stroud to visit so that she can make a recommendation,” he said, avoiding Ferron’s stare.
“Get out!”
Helena flinched.
Ferron watched him disappear through the door before glancing scathingly down at her, as if it were all her fault.
He reached towards her and she shrank back, but his hand passed harmlessly and slid under the pillow instead, searching the bed to ensure she hadn’t managed to squirrel away any of the arsenic. She glared at him until he was satisfied that she had no poison hidden anywhere and left again with a slam of the door.
Her legs were wobbly when she got up. She had to sit on the floor under the shower spray because it was too tiring to stand, but she felt vaguely human again when all the sweat and smell of poultices had washed away.
The awful red dress had been washed, pressed, and put away in her wardrobe, along with several more dresses, also all red. Some were almost burgundy, while others were luridly bright. Freshly dyed. There were hints of the original sage green and pale pink barely visible along the hems.
Clearly Aurelia did not move on once she had an idea in her head.
STROUD ARRIVED THE NEXT DAY, followed into the room by a dead servant and Mandl, or rather the corpse that Mandl now occupied.
The servant was an older woman, dressed as household staff of some kind. She had light-brown hair that was neatly combed back and age lines around her mouth and eyes. Her eyes had an eerie lack of focus which contrasted sharply with the glowering resentment in Mandl’s new face.
“Sit up,” Stroud said to Helena, setting a medical bag on the table.
Helena obeyed without a word, remaining impassive while Stroud prodded her, noting the way Helena’s wrists had shrunk inside the manacles, and checking her vital signs, tsking with irritation.
“Well, this is disappointing,” she said at last. “I’d really hoped you’d handle it better.”
Helena said nothing, a gleam of triumph rising in her chest.
“I suppose it was too much to hope you had the physical resilience of a man like Bayard,” Stroud added with a disgruntled huff after another minute of running her resonance intrusively through Helena’s organs.
She pressed her fingers against Helena’s head, pushing a little frisson of energy into her mind, making Helena wince. Her mind still felt raw. “This degree of inflammation after seven days is worrying.”
She sucked her teeth and glared at Mandl. “A pity you didn’t report her at the time. This would all be so much easier.”
Mandl bobbed her head stiffly, which was not enough penitence for Stroud.
“You should be grateful that I haven’t pointed out to His Eminence that if we’d learned about her sooner, we might have retained Boyle’s corpse and had an animancer for one of the Undying to use.”
“I said I was sorry,” Mandl said. “I don’t know what else you want me to do, or why you dragged me here.”
“You were gifted ascendance on my recommendation. If I am going to be inconvenienced by this, then so will you,” Stroud said. “And if this costs me anything, I will see that it costs you more.”
Stroud turned back to Helena, examining her again with an increasingly sour expression. “We’ll need to delay the next procedure until she’s stronger. If she dies prematurely, we’ll lose the information.”
She turned to the other necrothrall in the room. “High Reeve!”
The servant turned her head, cloudy eyes focusing on Stroud.
“I will speak with you. Privately.”
The necrothrall servant nodded and gestured towards the door.
Of all the uses of necromancy that Helena had witnessed, the creation of the Ferrons’ servants seemed a particularly vile choice. In a war, she could see the horrific rationale leading to the act, but the servants in Spirefell were all civilians, murdered for the sake of cheap convenience.
With every minute she spent in the house, her hatred of Ferron deepened, because she knew his history—the luxury and privilege of his family. His easy life. The Ferrons would have been nothing without the Holdfasts and the Alchemy Institute; their wealth would never have existed.
They should have been grateful, loyal to Luc for what his family had enabled them to become, but they’d turned traitor and chosen Morrough.
Perhaps that ouroboros dragon was not merely a pretentious decoration but something the Ferrons prided themselves on. An omen of a destructive, insatiable hunger which left nothing but ruin in its wake.
FERRON STRODE INTO HER ROOM the next day. Helena’s body went rigid, dread sweeping through her like a tide. The physical pain of transference twinged inside her psyche like an aftershock.
He stopped at the door, and his pale eyes slid over her, flickering as they paused on her fingers, which spasmed uncontrollably when she was startled. She hid them behind her skirts.
“Stroud wants you going outside,” he said. “She believes fresh air will improve your constitution.” He tossed a bundle towards her. “Put it on.”
Helena unfolded it and found it was a thick cloak, dyed crimson. She grimaced.
“Something wrong?”
She looked over. “Is red the only dye you have in this house?”
“It’ll make you easy for the thralls to spot. Come!” Ferron stalked into the hallway.
She followed tentatively. The sconces in the hallways were lit, driving back the shadows as he headed to the far end of the wing, descending a new flight of stairs to a set of doors that opened onto a veranda in the courtyard.
It was raining, and a gust of wind swirled along the house, whipping across her face. She gave a startled gasp.