When morning came, Loren took a bus to Mordred and Penelope’s.
Counting the cash float took her longer than it normally did, for her thoughts were consumed by everything they’d learned last night—by Taega having been arrested and thrown behind bars. The law enforcement had apprehended the wrong person, and not one of the Devils knew what to do about it. It seemed like this nightmare only kept getting worse.
As Loren pushed out from the desk and took the float into her hands, she backed up against the window and almost knocked Mr. Crispy over. Only—
Loren lowered the float to the desk as she stared slack-jawed at the plant on the sill.
Mr. Crispy had grown to three times his previous feeble size. He was three feet tall, his leaves no longer brown.
They were green and vibrant with life.
Her mind reeled as she considered what this could mean; as she remembered back to a couple weeks ago, when Darien had cut himself on the glass, and his blood had dripped into the soil at Mr. Crispy’s roots. She found her breaths coming faster as she realized—
Was it possible that Darien’s blood held a key ingredient to the antidote they needed? The antidote that might change the demons back into the people they were before?
If this were true, that meant she might’ve discovered what Doctor Atlas and Calanthe were missing in their antidotes. The missing ingredient was hellseherblood—more specifically, the missing ingredient was the healing properties in hellseher blood, gifted to them by the Arcanum Well.
Loren sank into a chair.
It took her a long time before she found it in her to call Darien, but she only received his voicemail. She left a message explaining what she’d discovered about Mr. Crispy and the antidote.
When she was finished, she called Mordred and Penelope and asked to take a sick day. As usual, the twins had plenty of prying questions for her, but they finally agreed to cover her shift and told her they’d be down at the apothecary in forty minutes.
And when those forty minutes were up, Loren took a soil sample and hopped on a city bus to Angelthene General.
—
After bringing the soil sample to Tanner’s mother, Doctor Atlas, at the hospital, and after explaining to her what she’d discovered about Darien’s blood and the healing properties it seemed to possess, Loren made her way through the spotless white halls.
It felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. They still hadn’t reached the end of this dark road, but she was starting to feel like she could see the light. If they could heal the missing girls who had been turned into demons by the Well replica, it would take one less problem off their hands.
Loren was walking down a hallway on the second floor, only partially paying attention to what was going on in the rooms she passed, when one of those rooms made her skid to a stop. Made her approach the open door for a closer look at the person lying upon the crisp white bed.
It was Headmaster Langdon’s daughter. It appeared as though she had received a surgery—likely one that would help her to regain the ability to walk after the accident that had left her paralyzed this past summer.
The thought gave Loren pause. She remembered back to what Taega had said at the penthouse last night—about the Well being able to not only heal diseases but also regenerate limbs.
If the Arcanum Well could work such extraordinary miracles, then it must make it possible for a person who’d lost mobility in their legs to walk again.
Loren’s lungs felt like they were half their size as she stepped through the open door, being careful to keep her footsteps light. Aside from Ivador Langdon’s daughter lying upon the bed, the room was empty.
Minutes ticked by as she stood there beside the girl’s bed, the hands on the clock that hung on the wall clacking loudly as the seconds were swallowed up. She tried to make sense of her jumbled thoughts and the conclusions she was slowly piecing together—
Heels clicked on the floor behind her.
Loren spun around to see a female vampire entering the small room. Her short, spiky hair glistened like liquid silver in the light slanting in through the arched window at Loren’s back. A rose was tattooed on her collarbone with ink that looked like blood.
“Calanthe,” Loren stammered.
The vampire was smiling at her. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Calla.”
Lore stiffened. How did she know her name?
Calanthe came to a stop at the end of the bed, where she gracefully folded her hands in front of her. The black velvet of her floor-length dress formed a stark contrast with her papery skin.
Loren’s breath was coming fast as she tried to gather her thoughts. “What are you doing here?” she choked out.
She’d barely finished voicing her question before Headmaster Langdon strode into the room. His academy robes swished behind him as he swept up to Calanthe’s side, the door snicking shut behind him on a phantom wind.
