Chapter 51 24
Mary Ann
The wooden floorboards beneath my feet shuddered with the thump of music and the heavy footsteps of werewolves partying upstairs.
“Where are we going?” I asked, glancing down the corridor as it faded into shadow.
“You’ll see.”
Sapphire didn’t look back once. She walked with her back straight, passing stacks of empty wooden crates that reeked of damp wood and old, dried-up beer spills.
I pulled my fur cloak tighter around me, trying to chase away the cold that still clung to my bones after three days trekking through frozen pine forests.
Elaria’s frustrated face at the top of Lorkgard Tower was still burned into my mind. Seventeen times we tried to fuse the Cythium extract with Lulu’s blood. Seventeen times, all we got was a lump of cold, black ash.
We used science. We used alchemy. And we failed completely because we treated hybrid blood like it was just another chemical variable.
Sapphire stopped in front of a massive rack of liquor bottles, their labels peeling with age.
With one smooth, practised move, she slid a hidden lever behind the wooden frame. Heavy metal gears groaned, and the rack slowly shifted aside, revealing a hole leading down into a dark basement.
“Go down. Touch anything and you’ll lose your hand,” she said flatly.
I stepped down the creaking wooden stairs one by one. The deeper I went, the stale, rotten smell of the club above faded away, replaced by something that felt wildly out of place in Oakhaven: the scent of clean water and ozone.
As far as I knew, only high-level sorcerers carried that kind of scent. When my boots touched the stone floor below, I froze. The room wasn’t big, but it was spotless, its walls covered in faintly glowing blue protective runes.
In the middle of the room, on a small bed made of white silk, sat a toddler.
“Mummy, Morphi just threw up.”
A child about six years old popped out from under a wooden table, holding a damp cloth.
“It’s alright, love. Thanks for looking after Morphi. You can go rest now, Dylan.” Sapphire took the cloth from the child and placed it in a container under the table.
The baby looked about a year old at most. His hair was a dull grey, a genetic trace of Sapphire’s silver hair. But what made my heart nearly stop were his eyes.
They were a clear, deep sea-blue — a shocking contrast to the usual yellow werewolf eyes that dominated this village in Oakhaven.
“He’s so… calm,” I whispered, hardly believing what I was seeing.
“Yes, my Morpheus always like that.”
Lulu flashed through my mind back in Lorkgard Tower. Every time the fire magic inside me flared up, Lulu’s tiny body would burn with fever as it rejected itself.
But Morpheus was different. He sat quietly, playing with a glass marble, even though I could feel both wild magic and wolf aura raging inside him.
“Science will never tame what nature and curses create, Mary Ann,” Sapphire said as she untied her bar apron.
She walked over to the corner of the room, towards a metal container shaped like a cylinder, carved with wave-like patterns. The thing pulsed with energy, prickling the hairs on the back of my neck.
“What is that?” I asked, staring at it.
“The MoonBound Casket. A magical vessel passed down through the Bloodworth line.”
Over the next few minutes, Sapphire explained the sheer scale of the sacrifice she was making. She used ancient water magic inherited from Fontayne Bloodworth, the strongest water sorcerer who ever lived, to protect Morpheus.
The MoonBound Casket was designed to contain the energy of supernatural beings, able to be turned into guardians or sources of power for werewolves. Sapphire had repurposed it as a filter for her son’s unstable energy.
“You remember the suppressants I bought in bulk on the black market?” she asked, shooting me a sharp look. “They’re not for Morpheus to drink.”
I frowned. “Then what are they for?”
Sapphire poured the suppressant liquid into the MoonBound Casket. The container immediately began to hum loudly, its blue light flaring brighter.
“That liquid is just a catalyst to activate the vessel. The MoonBound Casket is what actually protects Morpheus’s hybrid blood.”
That’s when I noticed her hands trembling slightly. The damp, watery energy I’d sensed around her earlier at the bar was barely there now.
She admitted her power was “fading” because she was channelling eighty percent of her strength every single hour just to keep the MoonBound Casket running — and hidden from outside detection.
She faked her death not because she was afraid to fight, but because she couldn’t be both her son’s shield and his life-support machine at the same time. She chose to rot away in this stifling warehouse so the MoonBound Casket could keep protecting Morpheus.
“Help me, Sapphire. Lulu won’t last if we keep using Elaria’s methods,” I pleaded.
Sapphire looked at the grey-haired toddler with tired, gentle eyes. Then she turned to me.
“I’ll help you. But you need to understand one thing. The magical structure in hybrid blood needs time to harden. If we move MoonBound energy now, Lulu’s body will shatter like one of your failed blood samples in a dish.”
“How long?” I asked quickly.
“Lulu has to reach full cellular maturity for a wolf hybrid. Werewolves have to reach physical maturity first, and only fully activate at twenty-four.” Sapphire’s voice was deadly serious.
“That’s when my MoonBound Casket can be used for Lulu without total rejection.”
I went quiet. Twenty-four years was a brutal amount of time to wait while Dark Sorcerers hunted us. But when I looked into Morpheus’s calm blue eyes, I knew this was the only real solution.
I would have to make the same kind of sacrifice, passed down through blood and ancient magic, just like Sapphire had.
“I’ll wait,” I said firmly. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get her there.”
Sapphire rested a hand on my shoulder, the permanent burn scars on her neck on full display.
“Then brace yourself, Mary Ann. From this moment on, you’re not just running anymore. You’re guarding a key the Dark Sorcerers desperately want.”
I nodded slowly. I wasn’t searching for answers in Elaria’s test tubes anymore. I had a purpose now.
And I had time to conquer — for Lulu’s future.