Page 182 of Alchemised
She stood quickly. “I need to go back; the checkpoints close soon.”
CHAPTER 35
Julius 1786
HELENA HAD THE MOST BLISTERING HANGOVER THE next morning and lay in bed, so nauseous she didn’t even feel guilty for sleeping in until someone was sent to remind her that she was due to perform an autopsy.
She almost threw up upon being reminded, but there was no delaying. She spent several minutes transmuting her own body until she didn’t feel sick from standing upright.
The autopsy would take place in the Alchemy Tower’s operating theatre so that Falcon Matias and several of the Flame Keepers who managed the crematorium could observe to ensure she did nothing to violate the sanctity of the body.
Helena’s mouth was dry as she stood before the covered gurney, the metal instruments laid out on a tray, gleaming under a bright light that illuminated her and Gettlich, leaving her audience in the shadows.
She felt disconnected from her body as she pulled the sheet back.
“May I begin?” she said to the darkness.
“Begin,” came Matias’s voice.
There was something particularly horrible about having to cut open the body of someone she’d known, removing the organs and examining the body in components while narrating in detail the kinds of abuse she found evidence of. What she could and couldn’t feel through resonance about the experimentation.
She wished she could cover the face, so she didn’t have to look at it while she was working, but the dead had to be respected.
When it was over, two of the Flame Keepers emerged from the darkness and took the body carefully away. It was important for every part to be burned, to ensure that no earthly remains could hold back the soul’s ascent.
In the war room, Helena listened as the guard reported on how Gettlich had been found and what she’d said. Then Luc recited in an empty voice everything that she’d told him.
General Althorne showed the location of the West Port Lab. Ferron’s contribution. It was better protected than the previous lab had been, the building extensively reinforced to repel an assault. It would be difficult to reach, and they risked too many combatants if they went that far into enemy territory.
“The Council recognises Healer Marino,” Matias said. It was the first time Helena had spoken before the Eternal Flame since her “hysterical outburst.” She hadn’t known that she’d be called on. Matias could give the report himself.
Ilva’s eyes flicked to Crowther as Helena stepped forward.
She wet her lips. “Based on my—examination, the information Gettlich gave Luc—the Principate, appears accurate. It was likely an unsuccessful attempt to neutralise her resonance. There were multiple injection sites throughout the body, some near the brain but most along the arms. It was a variety of metals reduced to microparticles and injected with a carrier fluid into the muscles. I couldn’t accurately analyse it through resonance; there seemed to be some compounds beyond my repertoire. I extracted what I could and turned the samples over to the metallurgists. It wasn’t possible to determine whether the method was successful in suppressing alchemical abilities, although prior to her death, I did have difficulty offering relief through healing.”
“How would such a thing work?” Ilva asked, her fingertips drawing absentminded circles on the table in front of her.
Helena inhaled, hoping that they would not punish the messenger. “My theory is that the injections were intended to create an internal interference with Gettlich’s resonance. By placing the microparticles inside the body near the brain and hands, they thought to obscure Gettlich’s ability to sense metal outside her body. Based on the number of injections, I believe they kept dosing her until she couldn’t resonate anymore, but the quantity of metal was toxic at that point.”
“What are the odds they succeeded?” Althorne asked in his deep voice.
“I couldn’t say,” Helena said.
“What I wish to know,” Falcon Matias said from his seat beside Ilva, “is what the purpose of this experiment is. What use would they have for suppressing resonance?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“You’re a vivimancer,” he said pointedly. “Surely you have some idea of how it could be useful for your kind.”
Luc, who’d been slumped in his seat ever since Althorne overruled any possibility of raiding the lab, suddenly straightened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Matias smacked his tongue, pressing a handkerchief beneath his narrow nostrils. “It is a relevant question. Healer Marino”—he said the title as if it were an insult—“has the same abilities as those responsible. Because of that, she may have ideas that would not occur to the rest of us.”
Luc’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Helena is a healer. She has devoted her life to our cause. She’s as loyal as anyone. She’s nothing like those responsible.”
Rather than answer Luc, Falcon Matias turned his gaze back to Helena. “Healer Marino, prior to this autopsy, you performed a transmutational dissection, did you not?”
Helena nodded, fingers flexing inside her gloves. “At the Council’s request—”
