Page 21 of Alchemised
Unlike the necrothralls in Central, the butler was freshly deceased and immaculately dressed. She thought for a moment he was alive, or that he was a lich. His skin lacked the waxy adipocere sheen, and he moved with none of the sluggishness she’d come to associate with necrothralls. But his expression and eyes were completely blank.
He must have been recently killed. Grace had said the Undying kept necrothralls as staff, and a wealthy family wouldn’t want to deal with the smell, which meant they’d be replaced frequently.
Her stomach knotted as she stepped inside and took in the trappings of the house.
The foyer was large and cold, and the first thing she saw was a bright smear of blood.
Helena gasped, eyes and head instinctively averting.
“What’s the matter?” Stroud asked sharply.
“The blood,” she forced herself to say, unable to look again. All the executions flooded through her mind, the smells and sickening taste in the air, washing like a flood across the white marble.
Stroud glanced around the room. “Where?”
Helena tried to indicate, and Stroud only looked confused. She looked again and discovered her mistake. There was no blood.
A bouquet of roses sat arranged on a table in the centre point of the room. She flinched just looking at them.
“Never mind,” she muttered.
The girl in green was watching. She looked between Helena and the roses, and then a slight smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she turned away, heading towards a set of doors across the foyer.
“Wait here,” Stroud said. The door shut, leaving Helena with the dead. She glanced around, trying to look anywhere but at the roses.
The gloom felt heavier inside than under the oppressive grey sky. Spirefell was a cavernous thing, shadowed with filigree metalwork. There was a large, ornate stairway to the right, leading to multiple landings that looked out over the foyer.
Darkened hallways led farther into the house, illuminated by weak electric sconces that hummed and hardly penetrated the gloom. The windows high overhead seemed designed to direct the light only to the table at the centre. There was a distorted black shape inlaid as a mosaic into the marble floor, encircling the table. From her angle, Helena couldn’t work out what it was.
The house felt dirty. There was no visible dust, but Helena couldn’t shake the sense that the place was untended. The air was stale, as if the building also were a mouldering corpse.
The door across the way opened. “Come, Marino,” Stroud said as if summoning an animal.
The room she entered had two immense latticed windows looking out into gardens with a large hedge maze. The winter curtains were drawn back to let in cold light. The girl in green had set the short staff aside and was seated on the edge of a spindly-looking chair, her skirts spread to show off the fabric. Across the room, by the windows, stood a dark figure.
The hair on her arms rose.
Stroud pulled her past the spindly chairs and chaises towards the figure.
Winter light silhouetted him, and it wasn’t until she drew near that Helena could begin to make out any details.
Pale skin. Silver-white hair.
He was old, then. He must be one of the guild patriarchs.
She’d met a few of them at the Institute. They were always the same. Prideful, obsessed with their power and perceived status, always demanding more respect.
This was exactly the kind of person who would be easy to manipulate. Helena would only need to be insufficiently cowed, and he’d snap her neck.
With luck, she might be dead within a fortnight.
He turned. Helena’s throat closed as the world around her vanished, footsteps faltering.
He was not old at all.
It was the iron guild heir. Kaine Ferron.
She stared at him in stunned recognition.
