Kate took up residence in her laboratory. She had spent years cross-indexing her source material so she could lay hands on the proper sources, and she soon surrounded herself with books and journals that involved lycanthropy and wulfsyl. The alchemical masters rarely mentioned the fabled concoction, but she had developed the skill of working between sources, pulling one bit of information from one place and a different snippet from another.
Under her left hand was a text about lycanthropy in thirteenth-century French, and under her right an Italian source on mysterious alchemy. Both authors mentioned that werewolves often sought certain substances to enhance their bestiality or their humanity, depending on which source she chose to believe. The French authority claimed that the beasts scoured the forests for particular mushrooms under the full moon. The Italian, on the other hand, believed that werewolves imbibed some strange potion during certain seasons of the year or particular times of the month. However, it mentioned that one of the primary ingredients of the potion was a mysterious mushroom that was rare and precious. A helpful sketch of the most likely mushroom sent Kate to a massive Flemish source on materia medica, which led her to identify the ghostbloom mushroom. And then she pulled an old scroll from Denmark called Plants of the Dead. She found the Danish version of the ghostbloom, which assured her that the misshapen white fungus rose only on freshly turned graves under the light of the moon.
So much was mere speculation. Kate dropped her head in her hands with a heavy sigh. So much work to do. So much depended on her. Imogen was upstairs sleeping, innocent, apparently unaware of the dangers around her. Kate had to protect her sister; she had done such a poor job so far. Every time she thought of it, her chest constricted.
If only her father had been here.
But he wasn’t. Would he be proud of her or would he be disappointed in the way she had handled the estate and the family? The effort of holding the weight of his legacy upon her shoulders was like a lodestone, but she had borne it willingly, an undying hope that the family would one day be whole again. Only everything was flying apart.
Kate heard a scuffling sound behind her. She straightened quickly, wiping the emotion from her face, and turned to see Simon in the doorway holding a serving tray. He seemed concerned, so she pushed back her shoulders, smiled, and raised a jaunty eyebrow.
He stepped forward. “Pardon my interruption, but you’ve been at it for hours. The staff were concerned that you ignored the call for dinner.”
Kate glanced at the clock and noted with alarm that it was nearly 2:00 a.m.
“No doubt you were too distracted to eat,” Simon continued smoothly. “I know all too well. I have a distinct habit of disappearing in my own library. Ask Nick.”
Kate sat back stiffly in the leather chair and stretched her neck and arms. Simon settled the tray in front of her pointedly, whisking off the cover of a meal of chicken and figs. Kate was blind to all but one thing.
“Tea! Splendid!” She reached for the cup.
“I debated something stronger but settled on this.”
“Stronger later. This now.” She rubbed one of her shoulders and groaned.
Simon moved behind her. “If I may, a shaman showed me a miraculous method of relieving kinks in one’s muscles.”
Kate nodded cautiously. He took up a spot behind her and laid hands on her shoulders. She froze and her breath stilled as his fingers began to knead. Her eyes closed. His thumbs caressed up her spine, along her neck, to the back of her head. His hands were warm and soothing. She could feel their heat through her blouse and believed that if they touched her bare skin, they would sear her. “You say a shaman showed you this?”
His hands swept back to her shoulders and began to work their magic there. It was scandalous but felt like heaven. Kate’s head dropped back limply and struck the hard muscles of his abdomen. Her breath escaped her. She suddenly sat up straight, reaching for the many tomes before her.
Kate coughed to clear her throat. “Um. I’ve run down a few leads on how wulfsyl is created.”
“Good. Where does that take us?” Simon’s voice rumbled in her ear like a jaguar prowling through the dark jungle. He stretched past her to remove the sugar bowl from her reach and she realized that she had spooned copious amounts of sugar into her tea.
She sipped the horribly sweet liquid, gathering her thoughts. “If I can determine how it’s made, I can figure out a way to adulterate it.”
Simon removed the hand that had lingered on her shoulder and came around to face her. His gaze was intense. “Miss Anstruther … Kate, this may be beyond my purview to say, but I’m bound to say it.”
“Please do.” All the relief brought by his brief massage fled in a new rush of tension.
Simon pondered for a moment. “People such as you and I live in a frightening world.”
“I’m not afraid of this fight.”
“No, it’s quite clear you aren’t. You may be a bit too unafraid, but that’s neither here nor there. My point is that in our world, decisions over life and death are ours alone. Faced with threats to humanity like Gretta, the police or the courts or the Church can be no help to us. We must face the challenges, and that is our greatest risk.”