Tomas gulped. It truly sounded frightening to him. “So, it’s a poison, then?”
Lynn shrugged. “More like a disease, but I don’t know for sure. The Magister Prime told us all that drinking a few drops caused strange, powerful… unpredictable changes in his own body. So, it may depend on the host, and the dosage of Blight that one drinks.”
It was a tough story to hear. Tomas wanted nothing more than to shake it all off as fiction, yet the truth he heard in Lynn’s voice, and the things they had seen, were impossible to deny.
“How did you come into possession of a vial?” Tomas asked.
“I earned the right to hold a vial when I became a Disciple under Magister Aymeir. All Disciples, as well as the Magisters, receive a vial.”
“Why?”
“To preserve the future of our research,” Lynn said sharply. Tomas could sense a slight unease in her voice, however. Almost as if she were not so sure of the answer herself.
“It is a substance from another place entirely.”
“What, like from Avarwyth or something?” Tomas said.
Lynn shook her head. “No… from another dimension. Blight does not exist on Eos naturally. That’s why we needed the…” She finished speaking mid-sentence, lowering her head in shame.
“Needed the children?” Tomas said, inhaling sharply, “What did you need them for?”
Lynn ran her fingers through her hair in frustration, before staring directly into his piercing eyes through the candlelit darkness.
“Tomas, I believe we are still in great danger; so are your friends. We need to leave as soon as possible, before…”
“Before what?” Tomas interjected angrily. It came bubbling up from within once again, just as it had before.
“Before something worse comes for us.”
Tomas shook his head before leaping to his feet in frustration. “What are you talking about?! You speak in riddles! All this nonsense! I can’t trust anything you have to say, can I?”
“I have told you nothing but the truth. I have no reason to lie.” Lynn adjusted her hat so she could look at Tomas directly.
Her wide eyes had a hint of beauty and spoke of a mind filled with knowledge. He felt captivated by the way she spoke yet could not deny the pain she caused him.
Tomas closed his fingers into a tight fist to try and contain his outburst. He felt confused, angry. Was she speaking honestly?
“Why should I believe any word you say?” Tomas said.
“What have I got to gain from lying?”
“Escape from this cell? Getting away with heinous crimes?”
Lynn nodded. “Fair point… well, what do I serve to lose by lying to you?”
Tomas thought for a moment. “Gharland will probably arrest you.”
“If not hang me.”
She was right, Tomas realised. This girl had everything to lose by lying to them about what had happened at the Repository. She would be better off coming forward and taking responsibility for her part in it. The evidence against her was rather stark.
However, Lynn appeared so innocent and honest to Tomas, despite how her felt about her. Could it be that she was the victim of circumstance?
Could she really be speaking the truth?
“Then tell me, Lynn Jhono,” Tomas said, leaning up against the rough wall but not taking his eyes off her, “why do you believe we are still in danger?”
“The Magister Prime conducted incredibly dangerous research for years. If my hunch is correct, given everything that has happened already, then what he has triggered will only get worse. And fast. We need to find the tome he had been using- it may contain the information we need to figure all of this out.”
“All this talk of magic, Blight, tomes-”
“It sounds ridiculous, I know. But you saw those bodies of the children in the cells down the hall,” Lynn said. “You saw the way their bodies were affected. Nothing on Eos has that sort of power over flesh.”
Tomas stood firm and sceptical, scratching his shaking head. “It’s nonsense, all of it.”
Lynn sneered before tugging the vial of black fluid from the chain around her neck, holding it out in her open palm. “If it’s all nonsense, then drink this.”
Tomas glared at the liquid as it sloshed around the glass vial like black blood. He instinctively wanted to grab it from her and swallow the whole thing… but a part of him was hesitant.
“Prove me wrong,” Lynn said.
Tomas recalled all the stories he had heard growing up about the Magisters and their diseases. He thought of those decrepit bodies in the cell.
This can’t all be real, can it?
Tomas did not accept nor refuse the vial. He simply stared at it before Lynn closed her slender fingers around it and attached it back to her neck chain.
“Help me find the tome and I can prove all of this to you,” Lynn said.
Tomas scoffed. “We’re in the world’s largest library- how are we going to find one book? And besides, have you forgotten that we are locked up in a cell?”
“What about your friend? The other one who was with you when you found me?”
“Who, Landry?”
Tomas did not know if he could rely on Landry as much as he once felt, given everything that had happened. Landry was a soldier, first and foremost. He had the captain to serve and his family name to uphold.
“We need to get out of here, Tomas. The state of the world may depend on it,” Lynn said sternly.
Tomas rubbed his forehead. “We won’t be getting out anytime soon, I don’t think. So enough of the theatrics, please.”
“Ugh. This is what I get for trying to explain myself to a lowborn,” Lynn
