A Study of Poisons

TWENTY FIVE

       My feet scurried against the marble of the manor as I came around the corner of the office where Holstein usually studied. He was a walking encyclopedia, always reading and making sure his information was right. Of course he was there, his head deep into whatever book it was he was reading. "We need to talk." Is all I said before closing the door behind my back.

"Do you want me to call for everyone else to come in?" His head shot up to me. I shook my head quickly to cut him off. His brow rose to me before he seemed to understand my standoffish tone.

My body shifted, my hands falling my my side as my wrist hit my blade. "No, this needs to stay between you and I." Now I was becoming the Keeper, like muscle memory my fingers twisted with a hint of blood magic that beat in my veins. On guard and on standby. I knew Holstein wouldn't try anything right now but I still needed to make sure. It wasn't long ago that he spoke of sending me off.

His jaw retracted, the low light of the office melted well with his dark skin. Holstein's hair was getting long around as it ran next to his ears. "Okay talk." The Queen's embassy looked at me.

"It's hard to say it out loud, especially since the topic it's about." I stepped forward, my fingers fiddling with the buttons of my white blouse as my feet tapped against the marble. I was so nervous to tell Holstein about what I saw. Not because of what he might do to me- but because it meant that my vision would be casted out as reality. I didn't want any harm to come to Alex, certainly not because of my own actions.

He nearly chuckled if it weren't for the cursed idea. "Cordelia just spit it out."

The words came from the edge of my lips, magic pouring from my fingers back to my lungs. I breathed in my fears and let it out. "I scryed in hopes of seeing a future threat and watched Alex go Lost." They hung in the air for a quick second. Then was released back into the world. Holstein's entirety changed in a moment.

"What?" He asked, dropping his read.

The memory of the scrying spell came back to me, envisioned in all of it's darkness. The gruesome destruction that would soon come. That I couldn't stop. "It was like a vision of the future, I don't know if it's soon or years from now- but he will lose his mind." Every crawling second became closer and closer to Alex's undeniable demise.

Then the doubt came in Holstein's eyes, but then it faded away into something I knew well from him. Concern. "How?" He asked me.

"I don't know, but we were dead in the end." I explained to him, a sour taste in my throat. The idea of Alex's hands surrounding my neck sent an unwanted chill up my spine. Drinking from me, hurting me. On part of that idea left a warm feeling in my stomach but the other half wasn't so welcoming.

Holstein thought about my words for a second, I remembered his dead body in my mind. "So that must mean while you're still around." The hair rose on the back of my arms. So it would be recent.

"I hope not." I mumbled to myself.

The Queen's embassy gave me the luck of a question that I didn't completely know how to answer. "What do we do?" His eyes watched me down like a hawk. What would he do if I told him that I didn't know what to do? How would he react?

The answer escaped from my mouth before I had a chance to think about what to say. "We try to stall it, any blood that comes near him needs to be dealt with immediately." I said that last part to myself, considering I was the only human for miles.

"You can't stall his hunger. It'll eat him away." Holstein corrected me.

I know that, but this was Alex. The boy who listened to my dreams and my plans. The boy who never made me feel alone. "I'll try to find a spell that can help." I didn't know what spell would allow me a loophole for natural instinct and curses. Going Lost, it was a calling to them. It's just that their current state was humanized.