Page 317 of Alchemised
“Don’t worry about that.”
“How long?”
“… It’s been four days since the bombing.”
Four days? Blood was suddenly pounding in her ears, and her lungs rattled when she tried to breathe.
“Kaine—you have to get word to Crowther that I’m alive.”
“Don’t worry about them.” His voice was hard.
“No, listen. You have to tell him.”
He stroked her cheek. “Just rest.”
She fought to move, needing him to understand. “No. Promise me. Promise you’ll send word. Make sure he knows that I’ll come back.”
If Crowther thought she was dead, he might decide that Kaine was too much of a risk to keep alive.
“Promise me—promise you’ll get word—”
“All right. I’ll send word, I promise. Rest.”
The throbbing pulse of blood in her head slowed, and she relaxed. He tucked a curl behind her ear.
“You’ll be here at least three weeks unless the nullium clears from your blood before then.”
“There’s a chelator the Eternal Flame developed—”
He tapped the tip of her nose. “The Undying have chymists and are also familiar with metal-sequestering agents.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You’ll get your resonance back … but it will be a long time for you. You had several shrapnel injuries, and you inhaled a significant amount as well. It’s hard to say how long it’ll take. You’ll have to recover the old-fashioned way. Go to sleep. Loath as I am to admit it, the war will still be here when you wake.”
CHAPTER 60
Junius 1787
BEING INJURED WAS HORRIBLE. HELENA WAS ACCUSTOMED to the efficiency of healing to circumvent the slowest and more unbearable aspects of recovery; having to suddenly endure the natural speed of healing was utter misery.
She spent much of the first week in a drugged stupor, feverish with an infection. When she finally grew lucid again, she found Kaine still beside her. He had a large stack of books and folios that he was flipping through.
“What are you doing?” she asked after watching for a little while.
His eyes flicked up. “Studying human anatomy for my future career as a healer,” he said in a dry voice.
She knew that the real answer was that he would have to be her healer once the nullium was cleared from her system, but she played along. “We can open a practice together, like my parents did. Up on a cliff. We’ll be able to look out the windows and see the tides.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do I get any say about this future life of ours, or are you making all the decisions?”
“Do you have ideas?”
There was a pause. “Can’t say I do.”
She drew a slow breath. She could move her fingers now. As her fingers flexed, she realised her right hand was bandaged, the fingers splinted, and she remembered the last moments in the field hospital.
“I almost forgot,” she said. “I think I discovered something in the hospital.”
