Page 57 of Alchemised
Helena caught sight of Stroud and Mandl. Mandl had clearly used vivimancy to improve her appearance. The corpse no longer bore any visible signs of rot. The blackening veins still showed through the bloodless skin, but she’d seemingly accentuated it, as if to make her appearance seem intentional.
There were several photographers with large cameras. Flashes like small explosions kept going off as they tried to capture the room.
Helena recognised the governor, Fabian Greenfinch, who’d been named head of the Guild Assembly during the “reformation.”
She searched for Ferron and found him standing towards the far side of the room. It was like spotting a panther amid a flock of exotic birds.
He was in black, as always, and it made the silvery whiteness of his hair and skin starker. Not the grey of death like the liches and their imitators; he gleamed somehow.
There was something so distinctly strange about him.
“The new year is almost here!” said a woman with a grey-painted face, spinning around. She let out a wild giggle as she held a crystal goblet overhead, the contents splashing onto her dress and the floor.
Aurelia swept back into the room. Her dress was also black, and she was ornamented all over with silver rather than her usual iron, as if trying to look more like her husband. Her bodice was detailed with scaled armour. The geometry of the pattern was embroidered in silver up her sleeves. She wore silver alchemy rings crafted to make her fingers look longer.
Yet there was a faint sense of dishevelment about her. The stain on her lips was smudged so that it softened her mouth, and her skirts had odd creases. She sauntered over to Ferron with a smug expression, reaching out to straighten his collar and draw him towards her.
Ferron stared at his wife, his expression not changing.
“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!” The room began chanting a countdown for the solstice and the new year it heralded.
As the numbers wound down, Ferron reached out and ran his thumb across his wife’s mouth.
At zero, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Aurelia’s. A camera flashed. The room exploded with cheers, and kissing, and clinking glassware.
Ferron’s lips remained pressed against Aurelia’s, but as he kissed her, he raised his eyes, and his gaze locked onto Helena’s face.
She stared back, forgetting to breathe, frozen in place.
Her stomach flipped, and her heart began pounding until her blood roared in her ears. She wanted to draw back, to disappear, but she was trapped by that cold silver.
He didn’t look away until Aurelia broke off the kiss, turning from him. His eyes immediately dropped, and a false, indulgent smile curved across his lips as he scanned the room, clapping without enthusiasm until one of the dead servants approached with a tray of drinks. He snatched up a flute and knocked back the contents as if it were a mouthwash.
Helena sat back, pressing her hands against her chest, willing her heart to stop pounding.
“And now,” a loud voice said, interrupting the hum of conversation, “some entertainment to inaugurate this new year.”
The music broke off as the musicians looked around, uncertain if they were supposed to keep playing.
Helena followed the voice and spotted a man with long sideburns curving down his jaw, as ornately dressed as the rest of the guests, entering from the far side of the room and gleefully dragging a line of people behind him. A man, woman, and three children, ranging in age, all chained together.
They were clearly not guests; their clothes were too plain, and their faces stricken with terror.
The speaker turned, facing the watching crowd as he gestured at his prisoners. “These are the last surviving relatives of one of the Eternal Flame’s noble families.”
Shock rippled through the room. Helena scrutinised the faces of the people chained together but didn’t recognise them.
“Distant relatives, I’ll admit, but very careful to try to hide this illustrious connection, weren’t you?” He turned to the captives, wagging a finger.
“Please—” It was the father who spoke. “My wife’s grandmother was a Lapse, we had no—”
The father was backhanded across the face with a jewellery-covered hand, knocking him off his feet, and he dragged the family to the ground as he fell. He lay, the side of his face pocked with wounds.
“I told you not to talk. You’re ruining my fun.” The speaker’s voice was almost singsong. “Now then, I know you’ll all want a turn, but I say we choose an order and do them one by one. Youngest first, I think. Or … last?” He looked around expectantly, as if to see what the popular vote would be.
“Durant.” Ferron’s voice was icy. “I told you no.”
Durant pivoted, buying himself a moment by running a finger along his cheeks to smooth his sideburns as he drew up and faced Ferron. The room held its breath.
