“Well, you’ve joined us just in time,” Hugh replied.
“You’ve finished?” she asked. Hugh gestured for her to step forward and look through the eyepiece.
She approached the microscope. The knobs and dials were far too complex for her to instinctively know how to use them.
“Not quite. However, we have successfully magnetized any atypical blood cells from the sample,” Hugh said, guiding Gabby’s fingers to a knob. “Adjust the focus for your eyesight. There. Now, we studied the atypical cells and determined that they vary in structure and size. Using a lodestone composite, we were then able to divide the cells a second time. The demon cells attached themselves to the lodestone composite, while the other cells remained immobile.”
Gabby straightened her back and faced Hugh. “Other cells? You mean the angel blood? It didn’t work? Lodestone doesn’t magnetize it?”
Hugh cocked his head and again gestured for her to look through the microscope. Gabby did, but her stomach was already sinking, her hope growing cold. The focus came clear.
The magnification rendered the drop of blood in a Petri dish into hundreds of red, round pillows, all of which had a single indentation in the center. They bounced off one another, moving and shifting like they’d been caught in a current of water.
“These are human erythrocytes. Red blood cells,” Hugh explained before sliding out the Petri dish and replacing it with another. She tapped the focusing knob once more, and another sample of round red pillows came into focus. These did not have the indented centers; they had a silver dot in the center, like a pearl in the mouth of an oyster.
“And these?” she asked.
“That angels have cell structure amazes me,” Hugh said in answer. “That angels have the capacity to bleed amazes me further.”
So this was what angel blood looked like. They didn’t move about as the human cells had. The cells clung together in a single glob. Gabby wished to reach in and poke at the pillows of cells.
Something did enter the magnification field just then: Hugh inserted a long, thin needle, driving apart the glob of cells.
“Watch,” he instructed, then removed the needle. The cells that had been driven apart slapped back together instantly.
He forced the cells apart again with the thin needle, and then pulled the needle back once more. The cells rushed back into the glob, crashing into one another and staying put, as though they were huddling together against yet another invasion of the needle.
“Lodestone doesn’t attract angel cells,” Hugh said. “However …”
Gabby’s hand fell from the focus knob. “Angel cells attract to other angel cells.”
“Like draws to like,” Hugh said with a nod.
Gabby had nearly forgotten Rory’s presence behind them until he spoke. “Can ye make a net filled wi’ angel blood, then?”
“My assistants are already at the task,” Hugh answered.
It had worked. It had actually worked! They would have a weapon against Axia. They would have a way to stop her.
Gabby hopped in excitement, throwing her arms around Rory’s neck. He caught her and returned the embrace, her feet dangling in the air as he kicked up his feet and turned in a jig, swinging Gabby as she laughed.
“I go out for a walk, leaving the pair of you snoring, and I come back to revelry.”
Nolan stood in the doorway to the laboratory, his frock coat unbuttoned, his bowler hat in his hand.
Rory ceased his jig immediately and set Gabby back down.
“What have I missed?” Nolan asked.
“Only that Miss Waverly’s idea for a new diffuser net will be a reality within, oh”—Hugh took out his pocket watch—“twelve hours or so.”
Nolan shrugged out of his coat. “That’s a relief. I’m glad I won’t spend the rest of my life in an Alliance prison for nothing.”
The reminder of Nolan’s actions and the gravity of what his punishment for defying Directorate orders might be removed the smile from Gabby’s lips.
“Once the Directorate sees what this net can do, they’ll forgive you,” she said.
A wistful grin touched the corner of Nolan’s lips. He said nothing, though she could tell he thought her statement na?ve.
“You heard Hugh,” she said. “It will be finished in twelve hours. We can return to Paris with it—”
“You are not going to Paris,” Nolan said, a finger pointed in her direction.
As if being interrupted weren’t enough to send a jolt of irritation through Gabby, Nolan had told her what to do. Her pulse jumped with a hot surge of defiance.
“I will do as I please, Nolan Quinn.”
He squared his shoulders and placed his hands on his hips, battle ready.
“A month’s time is about as significant as an hour for the Dispossessed. Do you really think they’ll have moved on from what you did to Lennier?”