CHAPTER 69: THE ALCHEMY

FIA

Maren’s eyes moved from Thorne to me. Her gaze lingered on my face for a moment. She looked exhausted. Her hair was pulled back but strands had fallen loose. There were dark circles under her eyes.

"Then you are probably also the reason I am not in a cell right now," she said.

I opened my mouth to respond but she kept talking.

"Thank you," Maren said. Her voice was thick with emotion. "I thought I was going to die today. I thought Cian was going to execute us both. Being the way he is."

Oh. Oh.

"How is the Grand Luna?" I asked. I needed to change the subject. To focus on what mattered.

Maren’s expression crumpled. She looked down at her hands. They were clasped together so tightly her knuckles had gone white.

"Not good," she said quietly.

I waited for her to continue.

Maren took a breath and let it out slowly. "When Luna Morrigan was first affected with what they thought was the rot, she was tested for poison. We ran every test we had. Every single one."

"And?" I prompted.

"The results came out empty," Maren said. She looked up at me. Her eyes were red and watery. "Nothing. No trace of poison at all."

I frowned. "That is odd."

"It is worse than odd," Maren said. Her voice was rising now. She was getting more agitated. "Even now, as I tested her again this morning, nothing came up. Nothing. The tests show she is clean of poison. But we all know she is not."

She stood up from where she had been sitting and started pacing. Her boots made soft sounds against the stone floor.

"I am stumped," she said. "And I am worried. I do not know what to do. I do not know how to help her."

Thorne set the satchel down on the table. "What is her condition now?"

Maren stopped pacing and turned to face him. "The Grand Luna is stabilized. Her breathing is steady. Her heart rate is normal. But for some reason she is not conscious. She should have woken up by now. She should be awake."

The desperation in her voice made my chest ache. This woman had been working herself to exhaustion trying to save her patient. Trying to solve a puzzle that made no sense.

"Well that is why we are here," Thorne said. His voice was calm now. Steady. Like he was trying to ground Maren. Trying to remind her that she was not alone in this. "Three bright minds. We will figure this out."

I was a bit taken aback. By how quick he added me to the equation.

He reached into the satchel. Pulled out the vial carefully. The dark liquid inside caught the light from the candles scattered around the lab.

"We have the poison right here," he said.

Maren walked over to him. He held out the vial. She took it and held it up to examine it. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the contents.

Then she looked at Thorne. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. It was tired but genuine.

"It is nice seeing you not being a total bitch," she said.

Thorne huffed out a laugh. "I am still a bitch. Just a productive one now."

That broke some of the tension in the room. Maren’s shoulders relaxed slightly. She set the vial down on the table and started gathering equipment.

"Alright," she said. "Let us get to work."

I stepped forward. "What do you need me to do?"

Maren glanced at me. "Can you prepare the reagents? We need to test for alkaloids first. You... do know how to do that... Right?"

I nodded, then immediately moved to the shelves along the wall. The bottles were labeled but the handwriting was cramped and hard to read in the dim light. I ran my fingers along the glass until I found what I was looking for.

Behind me, I heard Thorne and Maren talking. Their voices were low but focused. They were discussing testing protocols. Which methods to use first. How to isolate the components.

I brought the reagents back to the table and set them down carefully. Maren was already setting up a series of small glass dishes. Each one was perfectly clean. She poured a tiny amount of the poison into the first dish.

"Start with the standard acid test," Thorne said. He was lighting a burner. The flame caught and turned blue.

Maren nodded and reached for one of the bottles I had brought over. She added a single drop to the poison sample. We all leaned in to watch.

The liquid hissed. Bubbled slightly. Then changed color. From dark brown to a sickly green.

"Nightshade," Maren said. "Confirmed."

Thorne made a note on a piece of parchment. His handwriting was surprisingly neat.

"Next test," he said.

We worked like that for what felt like hours. Test after test. Sample after sample. The process was methodical. Careful. Each time we confirmed an ingredient, Thorne would write it down. We would move on to the next test.

I watched them work together. The way Maren would hand Thorne a tool before he asked for it. The way Thorne would adjust the flame on the burner without Maren having to say anything. They had done this before. Many times. Their movements were synchronized. Practiced.

They had great synergy. I could see it in every gesture. Every unspoken communication.

"Hemlock root," Maren announced after another test. "That is two."

"Keep going," Thorne said.

More tests. More samples. The candles burned lower. My feet started to ache from standing so long.

Then Maren paused. She was staring at a sample that had turned a pale yellow color. Her brow furrowed.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Embermint," she said.

Thorne looked up sharply. "Are you sure?"

Maren ran the test again. Same result. She nodded. "Positive for Embermint."

I found that odd. Very odd. I moved closer to the table and looked at the sample myself.

Embermint had a distinct smell. Sort of sweet but with an underlying bitterness. It grew in the southern territories. In warm climates. I had only seen it a few times in my life.

"That makes no sense," Thorne said. He set down his quill and walked over to look at the sample. "Embermint is not a poison."

"No," I agreed. "It is not."

Maren looked between us. "Could it be a binding agent? Something to help the other ingredients work together?"

Thorne shook his head. "Embermint does not work that way. It has no properties that would make it useful as a binding agent."

I thought about it. Turned the problem over in my mind. Why would someone add Embermint to a poison? What purpose would it serve?

"Maybe it was there to hide the stench of poison," I said. "Embermint has a strong smell. It could mask other odors."

Thorne considered that. "Possible. But it seems like an unnecessary step. Most poisons do not have a strong enough odor for most wolves to detect them in food or drink anyway."

"You are right. My nose was trained as a healer," I said. "I can smell things most wolves cannot. You probably can too. But the average wolf would not know what was what. They would just smell what they could smell."

Maren was quiet. She was staring at the sample again. Her fingers drummed against the table.

"Perhaps there is another ingredient we are not seeing," she said. "Something that requires Embermint to work properly."

Thorne picked up his notes. Reviewed everything we had found so far. Nightshade. Hemlock root. Embermint.

"No," he said finally. "We have been thorough. If there was another ingredient, we would have found it by now."

He set the parchment down and looked at the vial of poison again.

"Embermint has no use to us," he said. His voice was frustrated now. "We see no reason for it to be in the cocktail of poison."

He paused. Something shifted in his expression.

"But that is us," he said slowly.

I felt something click in my brain. A connection I had not made before.

"Witches," I said.

Thorne looked at me. His eyes widened slightly.

"Witches use this all the time," he said.

It was like fog lifting. Like suddenly I could see clearly what had been hidden before.

"Alchemy," Maren and I said at the same time.

The word hung in the air between us. Heavy with meaning.

I turned to Thorne. "It is not just poison."

He was already nodding. Already following the same train of thought. "That is why the tests came back empty. That is why it looked like the rot but was not the rot."

Maren put her hand over her mouth. "Goddess. It was alchemized."

My mind was racing now. Putting all the pieces together. Alchemy was not common. Most wolves did not know anything about it. Neither could they even perform it. It was witch magic after all. The art of transforming substances. Changing their very nature.

If this poison had been alchemized, that explained everything. Why it did not show up on standard poison tests. Why it mimicked the symptoms of the rot almost perfectly.

"We cannot just whip up a cure," I said. The realization hit me like a blow. "Normal antidotes will not work on alchemized poison."

Thorne’s face had gone pale. "We need a witch."

"Not just any witch," Maren said. Her voice was tight. "Preferably the witch who did it. They would know exactly what was done to the poison. How it was transformed."

I was already moving. Already heading for the door.

"Where are you going?" Maren called after me.

"I have to tell Cian," I said. I did not stop walking. I did not look back.

This changed everything. The person who had poisoned the Grand Luna was not just some servant with access to the kitchens. It confirmed it was someone who had connections to a witch. Someone who had the resources and knowledge to commission alchemized poison.

Perhaps Thorne’s guess had been right and this had been the work of this ’Alpha Gabriel’.

If that was the case, whoever was being used by the Alpha... their financial statements would expose them.

That narrowed the suspect list considerably.

Because in a game of kings, the elephants never sullied their hands.

Chances are they would never be able to pin it on the Alpha responsible for this. But their lapdog would know enough. Enough to reveal who the witch who did the work was. So they could commission an antidote.

I burst out of the lab. Into the hallway. My boots pounded against the stone as I ran. I did not know exactly where Cian was. But I knew he would be somewhere conducting interrogations. Probably in the lower levels of the estate.

I turned a corner. Nearly collided with a sentinel.

"Luna," he said. He stepped back and steadied me with one hand on my arm. "Are you alright?"

"Where is the Alpha?" I asked. I was breathing hard. "I need to find him. Now."

The sentinel’s expression grew serious. He could probably tell from my face that this was important. That it could not wait.

"He is not far," the sentinel said. "The interrogation rooms. I can take you there."

"No," I said. "Just point me in the right direction. I can find it."

He hesitated for a moment. Then nodded. "Down this hall. Take the third left. Then the stairs going down. You will see the guards at the entrance."

"Thank you," I said.

I was already running again before he could respond. My lungs burned. My legs ached. But I did not slow down.

This was too important. Cian needed to know. He needed to understand what we were dealing with. That torturing servants was not going to get him much.

I reached the stairs. Took them two at a time going down. My hand gripped the railing to keep my balance. The stone was cold under my palm.

At the bottom, I saw the guards. Two of them. Standing on either side of a heavy door. They straightened when they saw me approaching.

"I need to see the Alpha," I said. I was still breathing hard. "It is urgent."

One of the guards opened his mouth. Probably to tell me I could not enter. That the Alpha was busy.

But then the door opened from the inside.

Cian stood there. His face was hard. Unreadable. There was blood on his knuckles. Fresh blood.

He looked at me. His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Fia," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"We figured it out," I said. "The poison. We know why it did not show up on tests. Why it looked like the rot."

Cian’s expression changed. The hardness melted away. He stepped out into the hallway. Let the door close behind him.

"Tell me," he said.

I took a breath. Let it out slowly. "It is alchemized. The poison was alchemized by a witch. That is why nothing showed up on the tests and Maren and Thorne believed it was the rot. That was the goal."

Cian went very still. I watched his jaw tighten. Watched his hands curl into fists at his sides.

"A witch," he said. His voice was low. Dangerous.

"Yes," I said. "Which means we need to find the witch who did it. Or at least a witch who can undo what was done. A normal antidote will not work."

"Finding the witch who did it will not be easy," Cian said. "I have been torturing the sentinels and Omegas who should know something for hours and no one has confessed."

"There is no need for that. Their bank accounts will expose them."