CHAPTER 57
Maius 1787
ACCORDING TO RECORDS, LILA BAYARD CONTRACTED A bad case of bog cough after helping deliver supplies to the water slums at the south end of the island.
Bog cough tended to crop up every year in the early summer after the floods, as the air grew warm and damp, and the dark, recessed levels of the city, far from sunlight, found their interiors blackened with mould.
The symptoms were a deep cough coming from low in the lungs, and an occasional rash. While mostly dangerous to children and the elderly, sometimes it would linger and transform into a virulent sickness that could sweep through the city like a plague. That was the ostensible reason why the upper levels of the city preferred to be restrictive with the lower sectors of the population.
Helena was familiar with the symptoms because her father used to treat it every summer. Most of the people who caught it couldn’t afford to travel up- city to a licensed apothecary. Helena could replicate the symptoms almost perfectly using vivimancy, creating purplish rashes on Lila’s inner wrists and the sides of her neck, and agitating her lungs enough to make her cough violently while Pace examined her and gave the diagnosis.
With so many people in tight quarters, plague was a constant fear.
Lila was promptly placed in isolation in the Alchemy Tower, and everyone else involved in the supply delivery was quarantined for three days until they were declared symptom-free.
Such a common sickness did not dampen morale, particularly since it was considered primarily an affliction of the poor and unsanitary. That Lila had caught it was taken as a sign that she was still too weak from her injuries.
High in the sun-soaked rooms of the Alchemy Tower, she would recover.
Luc, however, was distraught. He demanded to see her, but he was flatly refused. His own lungs still showed signs of deterioration and damage; under
no circumstances was he permitted to go anywhere near Lila.
Helena hardly knew where to begin with this new secret. Pregnancy was not something she’d ever studied. Her experience with newborns was mostly limited to emergency situations. She looked in the library for a few references but found the options lacking, until she remembered that Matron Pace kept most medical textbooks in the records office for easy access.
“I never thought I’d find you interested in pregnancy.” Matron Pace’s comment made Helena jump as she was caught hurriedly perusing one of the books.
Helena slammed it shut, cramming it into place. “I’m not. The title just caught my eye.” of the island.“You’re welcome to borrow it.”
“No.” Helena shook her head. “Passing curiosity was all.”
She made for the door.
“Marino.” Pace’s voice was commanding.
Helena turned. Pace was watching her like a hawk.
“Are you in a family way?”
“No.”
“Accidents happen,” Pace said mildly, leaning back against her desk. sectors of the“Especially during wartime. You wouldn’t be the first.”
Helena released an exploding little scoff. “I’m not pregnant.”
“I just hope your fellow is the responsible—”
“I can’t be pregnant. I’ve been sterilised,” Helena snapped, too mortified to keep listening. er wrists andPace froze, shaking her head. “No. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t have possibly found that necessary at a time like this.”
Helena’s cheeks were burning, but her stomach had a gnawing pit inside it.
“Well, they did. Maier did it. Ligature, same week I got back. It was—it was and everyoneone of the Falcon’s conditions. So, like I said, not pregnant.”
She started again for the door.
“Helena, wait.” Pace’s voice was beseeching.
Helena winced, turning reluctantly back. Pace had one of her red, chapped hands pressed against her chest. “I shouldn’t have teased you. I had no idea.
Maier never said anything.”
“It’s fine,” Helena said stiffly. “I wanted to be an alchemist more, and women don’t get to do both.” She lifted her chin. “Now I won’t ever have to
worry about choosing. Besides—” She looked squarely at Pace. “—I’ll probably die young, so I’d be a terrible mother.”
Pace studied her. “Was your mother terrible?” ew referencesPace couldn’t have hurt her more if she’d kicked her. The room swam.
Helena’s throat closed. “How dare you.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it that way,” Pace said, but she didn’t really look sorry. “But Helena, I don’t think you know how to be honest with yourself about what you want.”
“It was the only way to become a healer—we needed a healer, Ilva said I was the only person who could do it.” Helena’s jaw trembled, and she had to set it hard. “It was the choice I had, and I made it. Would you really rather I hadn’t?”
“You weren’t even seventeen. You’d barely lived enough to know what you wanted.”
“I feel pretty alive right now,” Helena said through gritted teeth. “And I’m fine.”
“Being alive is not the same as living. I hope someday you’ll have a chance to realise the difference.”
Pace went over to the bookshelf and pulled the book that Helena had been reading off the shelf, holding it in both hands as she stared at the cover. “I was a midwife, you know. Long time ago now.” She shook her head. “I should have realised. You’ve always poured your all into the present o mortified tomoment, as if that’s all you expect to have.”
She turned back to Helena. “Perhaps a glimpse at the next generation will make the future feel a little more real for you.”
She held the book towards Helena. The title, The Maternal Condition: An pit inside it.In-Depth Study on the Science and Physiology of Gestation, glinted in the light from a window high overhead. “Lila Bayard will need the best care you can provide.”
Helena stared at her in astonishment. “How—?”
Matron Pace pressed the book into her hands. “I’ve been a nurse for twice as long as you’ve been alive. Your vivimancy skills are remarkable, but Lila would have had to be sick for a good three weeks before developing a rash like that.”
AS LUC BEGAN TAKING OVER leadership, Ilva’s health began a sudden and rapid decline as if all those years, she’d just been holding on until he was ready. Some days she was barely lucid. Crowther had become so concerned about Ilva’s sudden deterioration that he’d had Helena examine her. There was nothing wrong; she was just old and tired.
The war seemed to pitch back and forth in favour between the two sides.
The constant fighting seemed to grant little advantage beyond leaving the city more battered.
Luc led another aggressive attack on the West Island, and they captured a warehouse. It was found filled with large tublike tanks of fluid with bodies inside, tubes connected to veins, and breathing masks fastened over the noses and mouths. Resistance fighters. All dead, but their bodies still warm.
When the perimeter had been breached, a gas had been released into the masks, killing them all mere minutes before the Resistance reached them.
A procession of lorries returned to Headquarters, filled with the bodies to cremate. There were only a few captives, but one was the Warden, who proved difficult and refused to answer questions.
Because the Warden was Luc’s captive, they couldn’t be disappeared into one of Crowther’s underground holes and tortured for information. Crowther remembered then that Kaine had taught Helena a unique method of extracting information; she had mentioned it once as an alternative when trying to dissuade him from torture.
Helena was as horrified as everyone else at all the healthy, intact, familiar faces being prepped for cremation, so close to rescue. She’d immediately agreed.
Some strings were pulled and Crowther managed to get a few hours alone with the Warden, bringing Helena with him.
The Warden was a woman, with a thin face and short cropped hair and a wide mouth. Her pale-blue eyes instantly narrowed when she saw Helena.
Each sized the other up.
Crowther settled into the shadows, leaving Helena to make her attempt.
“Who are you?” Helena asked, not sure how to begin.
“What’s it to you?” the Warden asked.
“Can’t say I’ve met any women among the Undying or their Aspirants.”
“Men generally like our bodies a lot more than they like us.” The Warden looked over into the corner where Crowther was watching. “Guess I’m one of the special ones.”
“How are you special?” Helena asked, even though she had a pretty good idea.
“Probably for the same reason you are.” The Warden had looked back and was studying Helena now. “The difference is that I’m not a traitor to my kind.”
“I’m not the one who just murdered more than a hundred people,” Helena aving the citysaid, struggling to keep her voice even. She didn’t know why it bothered her so much that this Warden was a woman, but it made her angrier.
“They would’ve killed me, given half a chance. I killed them first.” The Warden lifted her chin, jutting it towards Helena. “What are you?” Her eyes ver the nosesflicked over Helena. “Healer? I bet. I was a healer once.”
Helena was doubtful about that, but the woman was talking without coercion, so she let her.
“Didn’t want to be a healer, but there’s not a lot of choices out there for us.
He tried to make me a nun. Wanted me to raise other brats born like me.
Teach them how to keep their abilities in and punish them if they didn’t.
Didn’t you?”
Helena turned to stare at Crowther, who watched, his expression unreadable. of extracting“You know her?” Helena asked.
“Oh yes. Kestrel Jan often came to see us whenever someone misbehaved at the orphanage. Always brought a pet along, someone with a long leash whom we could aspire to become like as long as we’d do anything he asked.
I’m surprised, though. They’re usually younger.” Her eyes flicked over Helena.
“That’s enough, Mandl,” Crowther said sharply.
Mandl grinned towards him. “See, I knew you’d remember me.”
“Pull the information and let’s be done,” Crowther said to Helena.
Helena took a deep breath.
Mandl looked unfazed. “You’re not going to make me talk,” she said. “I used to break my bones and gouge myself open just for fun. Just to feel something inside that hole they raised us in. You’re too weak to hurt me, Traitor.”
“You’d be surprised,” Helena said, heart pounding.
Mandl just laughed. ss I’m one ofThe bodies from the warehouse were such a fresh tragedy. All those people, moments from rescue, and now they were gone because Mandl
wanted to hurt the Eternal Flame and the Resistance even more than she cared about freedom.
Helena didn’t delude herself that the Eternal Flame had the degree of moral superiority that they tried to claim, but how could anyone find the Undying better?
“Why were you keeping the prisoners in tanks like that?” she asked, maintaining a calm, steady voice.
Mandl smiled, her wide mouth stretching across her face. Her fingers twirled even though her wrists were shackled with inert iron. “Come on, try touching me. Let’s see who breaks first.”
Helena’s anger sat like a boulder in the pit of her stomach as she moved towards Mandl. “I’ll admit, you’re probably better than me at hurting people.
I can’t beat you at your own game, but we’re playing mine.” there for us.Mandl’s eyes flicked over to the door and then at Crowther, the first glimmer of nervousness. She forced a laugh. “What can you do?”
Helena was behind Mandl now. “I don’t think you know this trick.”
Mandl tried to crane her neck, attempting to twist and see what Helena was doing. She jerked away as Helena slid her bare hand up from the nape of her neck, fingers lacing through the short hair. Mandl’s hands twisted, trying to break loose from the shackles.
“It’s all right.” Helena’s voice was as practised and clinical as her resonance as she blocked the right nerves along the spine, making sure not to stop Mandl’s heart or suspend anything vital. “I guess there’s something to being Institute-trained after all.”
Helena slowed her heartbeat, stifling the rising terror. Like a gas valve, tinkering with the cocktail of hormones racing through Mandl, telling her to be calm, that Helena was not a threat.
“You want to tell me everything I ask,” Helena said softly.
Mandl seized violently, trying to resist, her body lurching. Her resonance flared, trying to push back against Helena, but she was too late.
“Bitch—traitorous bitch—” she slurred as Helena winnowed through her raging emotions.
Mandl’s eyes lost focus. Her mind and body were in direct conflict, and it was impossible for her to struggle as Helena slipped into her memories.
Kaine had made the process seem simple. It was much more difficult than Helena had expected. The noise of another mind. There was so much sound and energy, and Mandl’s panic and attempts at resisting made it so much
harder. Kaine had always let Helena’s thoughts wander, catching them as they passed. Helena couldn’t help but think there were easier ways to do it.
gree of moral“What’s your name?”
Elsbeth.
The name rang from a dozen directions all over inside Mandl’s mind, coalescing at the forefront.
Mandl’s face was slack, a trickle of drool running down one side of her mouth, but her eyes followed Helena with growing fury. Her mind trying and failing to recoil at the way Helena was manipulating her.
“Why were you keeping prisoners in tanks like that?”
Mandl tried to resist, but a memory flitted across her consciousness. A man in uniform was speaking: “—keep the best specimens …” Mandl’s attention in the memory wandered to a buzzing fly and everything went out of focus.
Helena tried again. “If you had a new prisoner, what would you do with them?”
Memory fragments were like tatters of moving pictures, sounds and t Helena wassensation all whipping by as if carried by wind. She heard voices, but they were too distant to make out.
She saw the walls of a warehouse, greenish light from the tinted windows.
A boy whose face she half recognised, writhing.
Everything blurred, but a tingle of anticipation ran along her spine.
The gleam of a hypodermic needle in the low light. A finger flicking it to knock loose an air bubble. A glimpse of the boy again.
Blur.
Rows of the bodies laid out on gurneys next to the tanks. A bloated corpse with yellowish eyes, grey discoloured skin. Squeezing the arm of a young man and saying, I’ll take this one next.
A printed form requesting ten female subjects. Signed Artemon Bennet.
Mandl’s hands pushing a cart with the boy lying on it, the mask and tubes still attached as she wheeled him into an empty room.
Shutting the door softly. Another shiver along her spine.
Helena ripped her mind free, snatching her hands away, wanting to scrub them until the skin came off.
“What is it for?” she asked. Her skin was crawling. She didn’t want to go back into Mandl’s mind.
Mandl was breathing unsteadily, her pupils dilated so wide that the blue irises barely showed.
“I’ll pull it out if you don’t answer,” Helena said, gripping Mandl by the hair. “Do you prefer that?”
Mandl’s expression twisted, and she spat. “It keeps them fresh.”
“Fresh for what?”
“Anything. New bodies for the Undying. Test subjects. Thralls. The thralls last longer when they’re new.” Mandl was panting openmouthed, her lips growing chapped. nd trying and“How long are they kept there?”
Mandl smiled cruelly. “There’s high demand, so usually not more than a few months. Electric shock keeps the muscle toned. We slow the vitals.” sness. A manIt felt an eternity before Crowther was satisfied with the amount of information Helena pulled out. By that time, Mandl’s eyes were so disoriented that they looked in different directions. She’d grown feverish and was slumped forward, trembling.
“Well,” Crowther said, sneering down at Mandl, “it seems you’ll make a passable replacement for Ivy.”
Helena said nothing. She never wanted to do it ever again. She regretted
agreeing to it.
She turned wordlessly to leave.
“Traitor …” Mandl called after her.
“I’ll pull it out if you don’t answer,” Helena said, gripping Mandl by the hair. “Do you prefer that?”
Mandl’s expression twisted, and she spat. “It keeps them fresh.”
“Fresh for what?”
“Anything. New bodies for the Undying. Test subjects. Thralls. The thralls last longer when they’re new.” Mandl was panting openmouthed, her lips
growing chapped.
“How long are they kept there?”
Mandl smiled cruelly. “There’s high demand, so usually not more than a few months. Electric shock keeps the muscle toned. We slow the vitals.”
It felt an eternity before Crowther was satisfied with the amount of information Helena pulled out. By that time, Mandl’s eyes were so disoriented that they looked in different directions. She’d grown feverish and was slumped forward, trembling.
“Well,” Crowther said, sneering down at Mandl, “it seems you’ll make a passable replacement for Ivy.”
Helena said nothing. She never wanted to do it ever again. She regretted
agreeing to it.
She turned wordlessly to leave.
“Traitor …” Mandl called after her.