Alchemised is mostly told in
third person limited focusing on the experiences of the main character, Helena Marino. The novel follows Helena Marino, a former alchemy student and resistance healer, imprisoned after the end of a civil war. After waking from 14 months of stasis, Helena is interrogated and tortured before discovering that her mind has been magically altered leaving her unable to remember details of her life before the end of the war. After being fitted with magic (referred to as
Resonance) nullifying manacles, she is transported to the home of The High Reeve, and her former academic rival, Kaine Ferron, for experimentation to recover her memories. Whilst imprisoned, Helena repeatedly undergoes
Transference, in which Ferron enters her mind, causing her to suffer from temporary brain inflammation and seizures. Unable to escape the house, she repeatedly attempts to kill herself, being prevented each time by Ferron. Eventually, The High Necromancer who now rules the country, Morrough, determines that Helena erased her own memories. Helena later discovers, via the newspapers to which she is allowed access, the re-emergence of The Resistance through the assassination of the warden, Mandl, who had initially imprisoned her. Without her knowledge, Helena's
sterilization is non-consensually reversed by Morrough's scientist, Doctor Stroud. She is forcefully enrolled in the country's Repopulation Programme and told that she and Ferron must conceive a child within two months. Over the course of a week, Ferron
rapes Helena daily. Two weeks later, Stroud determines that Helena is pregnant; as Helena becomes increasingly depressed and physically weakened she eventually recovers her lost memories. Beginning four years prior to the events of part one, the story begins to recount Helena's lost memories in part 2. The story then returns to the point at which Helena regained her memories in part 3. == Publication ==