Page 93 of Alchemised
He pulled his hand away and stared at her. It was lighter now, like peering through a heavily fogged window.
“Anything?” His voice was hoarse.
“Your hair’s pale. I think—I can make out your eyes and mouth a little—”
“Good, we’re getting somewhere, then. Now what?”
He wanted to do more?
“Um … Atropine drops, from belladonna. It would dilate the pupil, keep it from straining while the tissue’s recovering.”
“Get the kit,” Ferron said to the servants, all of whom had been frozen in place, inanimate while Ferron’s full attention was on Helena. One of them sprang to life and hurried down the hallway.
“I need to deal with Aurelia now,” Ferron said. “Wait here.”
Helena nodded, slumping back.
She watched through her blurred vision as Ferron turned to face his wife.
He didn’t even need to touch the twisted metal that wrapped around her. A flick of his hand and the tangle of iron slipped away, slithering back into the floor and walls.
Ferron knelt, pressing two fingers against Aurelia’s neck.
The imbalance in Helena’s vision made it hard to track how injured Aurelia was as Ferron began setting bones and popping dislocated joints back into place as easily as if he were assembling a puzzle.
He set a hand on Aurelia’s chest, and Helena expected to watch Ferron create a new necrothrall. Instead, Aurelia screamed, lurching up from the floor, her eyes wild with terror.
“What? How did you—?” Aurelia was spluttering, her hands flying to her chest and sides, touching herself all over in confusion. “How? How are you here?”
“This is my house.” The rage in Ferron’s voice was palpable in every word.
“But you—you were in the city!” Aurelia seemed more hysterical about that than anything else.
Did she not remember what Ferron had done to her? Or was it simply too much for her to comprehend?
“Yes, I was. It was incredibly inconvenient of you, forcing me to leave in the middle of a ceremony.”
“But—how did you—” Aurelia looked around the ruins of Helena’s room.
“Did you think the thralls were the only things I can control from a distance? This is my house, and my family metal.”
Helena stared at him in shock. What he was claiming wasn’t possible.
There was no way that anyone could possibly transmute iron from a distance, especially not in that manner.
Ferron’s resonance might be beyond anything Helena had ever seen, but even he couldn’t reach all the way from the city and control the inner workings of Spirefell with such accuracy. He would have been acting blind, with no idea of what he was doing, unless—
She looked towards the eye in the corner.
No. It still wasn’t possible, even with that. Every inch of distance from a transmutational target increased the effort. Even if he’d merely been in a different wing of the house, he’d be dead, dissolved into nothingness like a collapsing star, to use that much power.
It happened sometimes in the factories when the transmutational array sourcing was too powerful. The alchemists would disintegrate.
“That’s impossible,” Aurelia said, echoing Helena’s thoughts.
“Underestimating your husband twice in one day? That’s not very wifely of you.”
“Oh, are you here for me? No, you aren’t, you’re here because of her.” She pointed accusingly at Helena. “You nearly killed me, and you did kill Erik Lancaster, because of her!”
