Page 56 of Alchemised
Helena watched him vanish through the doorway, trying to place the name.
Lancaster.
A guild name. Nickel. Yes, the nickel guild. There’d been a Lancaster in her year, or perhaps the year above? Erik Lancaster.
Why would he expect Helena to recognise him?
As she stood wondering over this, the faint sound of music drifted through the closed door.
It dawned on her then why there was someone in the house. The Ferrons were hosting a solstice eve party.
She had no idea they hosted anything. The parts of the house she’d seen were so dirty, she’d be embarrassed to admit guests. However, the hibernal solstice was one of Paladia’s most significant holidays, and given how closely the summer solstice was tied to the Holdfasts, it was probably the only major holiday the Undying were still allowed to celebrate.
She went to the door. Despite the danger, she was burning with curiosity. She knew there’d be Undying and liches present. Anyone invited would be an Aspirant or at least supportive of the regime.
It might be her best chance to get herself killed. She gripped the knob, then paused; it was more likely that they’d just torture her. She wavered. In that case, unless Ferron intervened, there’d be little she could do to protect herself.
Her instinctive relief at his appearance unsettled her in more ways than she wanted to think about, and she would think about it if she spent the entire evening in her room.
She opened the door.
Even though her exploration of the house while drugged by that tablet had made it possible for her to pass the hallway shadows without panicking, she still had to take several steadying breaths before she could make herself cross the threshold.
She went towards the main wing.
The music grew louder. She paused, checking to ensure all was clear.
She scarcely recognised the house. The sconces and chandeliers were all lit and gleaming, everything sparkling in a way Helena hadn’t known Spirefell could.
She crept down the hall, but before she could turn the corner, she heard the rustle of fabric and a woman’s hushed giggle. She shrank back, holding her breath as she melted into the shadows, trying not to feel them closing around her. Aurelia darted around the corner, pulling someone along by their wrist, drawing him into the darkness at the far end of the corridor.
It was not Ferron.
Helena couldn’t see much from her vantage point, but the build and hair were unmistakably wrong.
Aurelia leaned against the wall with an eager laugh, and the man closed in on her until Helena couldn’t see her anymore. There was more rustling fabric, and then the giggling gave way to breathy gasps and hushed moans and audible groaning.
Helena stared in horrified disbelief, not sure what to do until the thought occurred to her: Ferron would watch his wife having an affair when he checked Helena’s memories.
She scrambled away from the shadows and fled silently up the nearest stair.
With her preferred route cut off, she resigned herself to approaching from a higher floor. She could hear the hum of voices like a hive of bees. It was a large party.
She’d peeked into an abandoned ballroom during her drugged exploration of the house. On the third floor there was a cramped, twisty little stairway that led to the balcony alcove over the ballroom where the chandelier could be pulled up for cleaning.
She crept up the stairs and then knelt, peeking over the railing, her loose hair falling around her face. She noticed with irritation that there was a mesh safety net over the opening, as if Ferron had somehow foreseen that she’d go there and might attempt suicide during his party.
She hadn’t even been thinking about it, but she was annoyed at finding herself preemptively thwarted.
She peered past the net. The ballroom was filled with people and corpses. Everyone was gleaming, decked with fabric, jewels, and finery. Even at a distance, she could tell their clothing was covered in intricate decorations. Silver fine as moonlight, and platinum and gold that seemed to glow amid the gemstones and yards of richly dyed fabrics. The wealth of the guests dripped off them.
The high society of New Paladia. There were dozens of liches in attendance, the death of their bodies apparent in the waxy pallor of their skin and yellowing sclera. As Helena watched, she began to suspect that some were living people who’d powdered and oiled their skin in imitation. As if it were something to aspire to.
There were two girls, clearly sisters. The younger one had sharp features and a canny look about her, while the older sister looked as if she’d been cast from the same mould but softened somehow, her edges worn down, like a statue left to weather.
The older girl wore a pale-bluish paint on her skin and seemed disinterested in the party around her. When people tried to talk to her, she’d ignore them. Sometimes she’d drift away as if caught by an invisible current, and the younger sister would immediately break off her conversation and go after her, coddling her and snatching things off passing trays and feeding her canapés as if she were a baby bird, holding her hand to keep her close.
An odd pair.
