She just kept drowning.
She’d wake, choking and gagging as her body tried to expel the phantom water from her lungs. She couldn’t make her mouth work. Her vision was upside down.
She recognised the voice of the stuttering mind specialist, saying things about the mind being complex and not fully understood, that Helena’s condition was unprecedented, and there was little to be done but wait and see what would happen.
When she finally began to recover, she felt as though a part of her had died.
Ferron’s encroachment was inevitable, progressing a little further with each month, the cracks in her mind widening to accommodate him. She had neither the strength nor the will to keep resisting.
The war was lost. Her suffering would not bring anyone back, not any more than Luc’s had saved them.
When she was no longer bedridden, she braved the cold and went out to the stables. The side door was unlocked, and she entered quickly before the thralls could stop her.
It was empty. Death slipping from her fingers again.
The winter deepened, sinking into an oppressive cold that crawled into the recesses of the house, the iron acting like veins, carrying the midwinter frost into every hallway and inner room, leaving the house frigid no matter how much the radiators hissed.
The Ferrons fled to the city, leaving Helena behind. In their absence, the meals were improved by the lack of table scraps, and the bread was less stale, although the inclusion of protein was scarcer.
For several weeks, newspapers became her only glimpse into the world beyond. The repopulation program, which had initially been treated as an economic necessity, was gradually reframed as the new scientific frontier. New Paladia would forge its own future; no longer would alchemical repertoires be left to chance. Parentage in the program was to be selected based on the strength and variety of resonance. Tests were being done to discover the ideal combinations.
The guild families, editorials effused, had the right ideas about marrying into resonance. Without the interference and backwards notions of the superstitious, there would be a new world order. Resonance-based abilities would achieve heights never before seen.
Scientific terminology and the overuse of words like genius and groundbreaking tried to frame the program as if it were an obvious next step. There were never any explanations about where these assets would go, or who’d raise them, or that they were people, just that they would exist and be industrially and economically valuable resources.
New Paladia sounded more like a factory than a city, intended to produce exactly the variety of alchemists the guilds wanted.
The society pages, which Helena had taken only a passing interest in, gradually became the sections that she read most avidly as she noticed a pattern. Over the course of several weeks, several familiar names vanished. Paladian guild society only had so many visible members, which made their abrupt disappearances noticeable, especially when pages usually brimming with gossip were reticent to speculate about their whereabouts.
Helena couldn’t help but wonder if it was a sign of a growing insurrection. Perhaps New Paladia’s cracks were finally beginning to show.
She began having dreams of herself sitting across from Ilva Holdfast, with Crowther beside her. Her eyes darting back and forth between Ilva’s strained expression and Crowther’s appraising stare.
She could feel that they were waiting for her to say something, but she always woke before she’d answered.
As Helena was left to her own devices, Spirefell became her domain. With Aurelia gone, she spent little time in her room, accustomed to ignoring the necrothralls’ constant orbit around her. She avoided the largest rooms and spaces with deep shadows, and it became an ingrained habit to open the doors and pick things up gingerly so that it didn’t agitate the manacles.
Her familiarity was fortunate, because when Aurelia returned from the city, Helena knew every hidden alcove and servants’ passage to hide in.
Aurelia had not come alone. She’d brought a companion, the same broad-shouldered man Helena had glimpsed during the solstice party. The first time Helena encountered them together, Aurelia was entirely naked, splayed out across a bearskin rug, giggling beneath the body of her paramour. Ferron was still in the city, and they seemed to be taking liberal advantage of his absence.
It was more than a week before Helena finally saw the pair of them fully clothed. At the rear of the house sprawled an enormous hedge maze. Helena would sometimes pass the time trying to navigate through it with her eyes. She was nearly to the centre when Aurelia exited the maze, her companion close behind.
Aurelia was speaking animatedly, the first time Helena had ever seen her happy, while her companion seemed absorbed by the house, peering up and giving Helena a clear look at his face.
Lancaster.
Helena shrank from sight instantly.
Lancaster was Aurelia’s lover? The same person who’d just happened to find her room during the party.
That couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.
Could he—
Helena was afraid to even allow the possibility to exist in her mind where Ferron might return and discover it, but she couldn’t stop herself from wondering.
Could Lancaster be a spy? What if he was from the Resistance and that was why he’d looked for Helena? Was that what he’d been trying to communicate to her?
Was he a piece of her hidden memory? He must be. It would explain his surprise when she didn’t recognise him.
She went back to the window, but he and Aurelia had moved on.
Helena began watching for Lancaster, growing increasingly convinced that he had ulterior motives in visiting. He’d often try to slip away from Aurelia, eyes and attention constantly wandering.
Helena weighed the risk of approaching him. If her suspicions were correct, it would be vital that she escape before Ferron returned. If she acted prematurely, she might doom them both.
Better unconfirmed suspicions than anything concrete for Ferron to discover.
She was grateful for the choice when Ferron returned without warning.
He seemed tired. A sense of exhaustion hung about him, but he grew sharp and focused once Helena was in his sights.
“Stroud will be here tomorrow,” he said at last. “She’s concerned about your physical condition.”
Helena stiffened. “I’ve been walking. There’s been nothing different.”
“She’ll arrive after lunch,” was all he said before leaving. “Make sure you’re in your room.”
Stroud arrived without Mandl and made Helena strip to her underclothes and stand shivering in front of her. Stroud walked around her, fingers trailing over Helena’s shoulders, resonance sinking into her skin.
“Don’t they feed you?” Stroud finally asked, sucking her teeth as she paused, squeezing Helena’s arm and then pushing two fingers against her stomach. “You’re showing signs of malnutrition. What are you eating?”
Helena’s skin hurt from the cold, the air piercing straight to her bones. “K-Kitchen scraps,” she said, shivering.
“What?” Stroud drew back, looking Helena up and down. “Describe exactly what you’ve been eating.”
Helena swallowed, trying to concentrate. “Um. It’s all boiled together, some grains, vegetable peels, cores, and sometimes meat trimmings. When they’re here, I think what’s left on the plates is put in, too. But they haven’t been, so there’s not been much meat lately.”
“That’s what we feed the thralls. Why are you eating that?”
Helena blinked at this revelation. It made sense, but she was too cold to muster emotion at the news. “Because I’m a prisoner. I don’t think they thought it necessary to feed me well.”