Page 92 of Wraithwound

“How are you doing?” the woman asked tentatively, making her way slowly through the corridors as Lena followed.

Lena thought about it for a moment. The truth was she didn’t quite know what to make of everything.

“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. Jade nodded in return. Lena was certain Leonid and the others were looking into the revelations from her mother’s diary, but she was happy to avoid the topic for the time being, at least until she could process all she’d learned. She thought back to Cross’s promise that they would talk when he returned.

“Dauen wanted to know if you’d be interested in meeting with him after breakfast to test his serum,” Jade said, changing the topic.

Lena was grateful for it. “Sure.”

While she was also grateful for Jade’s company, Lena ate quickly, eager to get to Dauen’s lab. Jade escorted her to the lab where she found Dauen staring intently at drawings of her mother’s mystery vine.

“Here, come look at this,” he said, waving her over.

Lena lifted her leg to show him the shackle Jade had secured around her ankle before she left.

“Oh, yes, sorry,” he said, a flush creeping over the scholar’s cheeks.

Coming to stand beside her, he pointed to the drawing. “See the edges of the leaves here? It looks peculiar, almost as if there are two layers.”

“So it does,” she said, staring at the recreation.

“And there are more sketches in here.” Dauen walked back to the table and retrieved a large tome.

After pouring over the monograph together for a while, they decided that none of the vines in the book were an exact match, although there were a few that came close.

“Wait!” Lena said, reaching for her pack. She dug around and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She handed the drawing Ahgrie had given her over to him. “Look at the edge of the leaf.”

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

Lena told Dauen about Ahgrie and how she’d retrieved the information from the Commander’s healer, Orvain. They both stared at the picture in silence. How was it that Orvain knew about her mother’s discovery? Lena found this troubling. If Orvain was aware of a possible cure for wraithdom, why hadn’t they used it? Dauen didn’t seem to have any answers but assured her he’d look into it.

Lena realized Ada hadn’t known about the vine. When Lena asked her about a plant that would heal a wraithwound, Ada had assumed that Ahgrie had somehow learned about the Bud of Brielle. Lena considered telling Dauen about it but figured it wouldn’t be helpful to learn about an alien flower they no longer had access to and wasn’t likely to bloom again.

After lunch, Dauen offered to dose her with the serum. Lena gladly accepted, hoping it might relieve Henry’s burden. He monitored her for the rest of the day while she helped him crush Khardia seeds for the fetid goop. By late afternoon, she knew the serum hadn’t worked, and her arms were well and truly aching. She excused herself from the lab and was escorted back to her room. After another hearty dinner, Lena pulled open a book Dauen had sent her off with: Distribution and Absorption: A Study on Foreign Agent Infiltrations. This one detailed how rashes and other infections spread in the body. She spent hours looking through the pages until her eyelids were heavy with sleep. She stared at the velvet pouch by the bed and thought of Ada and Eduard.

Their faces followed her into sleep, and she awoke several hours later with the eleuth on her chest squawking softly at her to pull her from the nightmare. Unwilling to close her eyes once more, she returned to the book. After reading about the spread of infections, she moved over to the section on rashes and spent the rest of the night reading up on varying presentations and different mechanisms that could be responsible for the spread.

Chapter

Fifty-One

The next day after breakfast, Jade led her through corridors she hadn’t been to before, the blue-white crystals guiding their way.

“Where are we going?” Lena asked.

“The library!” she said a big smile growing on her face.

“The lib—You have a library here?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s incredible.” Jade beamed. “Dauen is checking on patients this morning, so he isn’t in the lab. I thought you might want to do something different.”

It was then Lena realized the guards hadn’t followed them from the hall.

“Did you dismiss the guards?” Lena asked, looking around. “Aren’t you worried I might turn?”

“Why, are you sensing you might?” Jade asked in return, cocking her head to get a better look at Lena.

“No, I just—” she started.