Page 28 of Alchemised
Helena hadn’t. It felt safer to be dirty.
“I knew you were foreign, but I assumed there was basic hygiene in whatever hovel the Holdfasts found you in.”
Helena’s jaw clenched.
“Stroud called. That procedure is to happen tonight. Be washed and do something with that awful hair of yours before I come back, or I’ll have the thralls strip you and do it instead. We have some nice stinking ones now, and I’ll call them in if I ever see you looking like this again.”
She turned, skirts swishing as she walked out.
Helena went to the bathroom, tearing off the slip dress and quickly twisting the taps for the shower. The pipes spat several times before water finally emerged with a hissing whine. She scrubbed herself from head to toe with a cloth as quickly as possible and tried to work her fingers through her hair. There was no comb anywhere.
Did Ferron think she could somehow slit her throat with it?
Not a bad idea, actually.
When she was suitably clean, she dressed in the clean, scratchy undergarments and then forced herself to pull on the dress, trying not to look at the red.
Then she sat, wrestling the remaining knots out of her hair. Her hands and wrists were aching, but she didn’t want to find out if Aurelia meant her threat.
Paladians had always found Helena’s hair disorderly. Northern hair was generally fine and extremely straight; curls were only acceptable when forged with a heated iron bar that singed the hair into the shape of a corkscrew.
When Helena had been a healer, she’d learned to keep it in two tight braids coiled at the base of her neck. She tried to plait her hair now, but her wrists couldn’t manage the twisting motion.
The door swung open with an abrupt bang, and Aurelia stood in the doorway, her sharp blue eyes flicking up and down with overt disdain. Helena sat tense, bracing for the verdict.
Aurelia gave a sniff, lips tightening. “Come.”
Helena followed Aurelia, silently, trying to focus on the intricate metal filigree of her clothing and not on the shadows around her.
Her escort did not appear to enjoy the silence. “Kaine says all that’s valuable about you is your brain.” She looked over at Helena as if expecting the pronouncement to be hurtful in some way. “I figure that means I can do whatever I want with all the rest of you.”
She transmuted her iron-ringed fingers as she said this.
For all the power of her iron resonance, Aurelia’s movements were all for show. The weapons she’d transmuted would break half her fingers if she tried to use them.
Helena doubted she had any formal training. In general, the guilds only sent sons to the Institute; daughters were for marriage. They might be taught alchemical parlour tricks, but they were rarely certified.
Still, Helena pretended to flinch back, her eyes carefully averted so they wouldn’t betray her critical appraisal.
Aurelia’s corseted chest swelled as the rings transformed again. “I bet you wish you hadn’t joined the Holdfasts now. The guilds were always going to win. You all tried to hold us back, and look at what that got you.”
She tossed her head and continued on.
The foyer was empty. Aurelia ascended the steps quickly, hurrying down the second-floor corridor before stopping short outside the first door to the left, touching a panel on the door above the knob. There was a click of the lock unfastening.
“Here. Go in and wait,” Aurelia said, her eyes darting around, and it dawned on Helena far too late that she was walking into a trap.
“Kaine will be along shortly. Don’t come out until he arrives,” Aurelia added.
With that, Aurelia hurried on towards the far end of the hallway, leaving Helena in the corridor with the overwhelming sense that she was not supposed to go into this room.
She glanced around. Should she try to go back? Or was there a chance that this would get her in enough trouble that Ferron would kill her?
Before she could weigh her options, the corridor began to stretch, ballooning until every surface started to slide out of reach. The doorknob was shrinking away from her, leaving her in the open amid the gaping shadows.
She lunged forward and caught the knob, managing to twist it and drag herself into the room.
Inside, it was smaller than the corridor.
