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Except there was nothing she could do. Nothing.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Every time she tried to do something to help herself or others she only made things worse. It was hopeless and she was nothing but a failure and—her breathing grew so ragged that the darkness around her vision almost consumed her.
No! She only needed to think of one thing and try. If that failed she could try something else.
Just. One. Thing
Though her mind was consumed by panic, she remembered the potion she’d been developing with Oleander so many moon phases ago. It was a potion for alertness and if she could finish fine tuning it, then she could research some way out. That potion had gotten her into this mess in the first place! The reason she’d summoned Slang and, gods below, it could be the one thing to help get her out of this quagmire of hopelessness.
Because if there was one thing in the world that she was exceptionally good at, it was spending freakish amounts of time researching something.
She focused on how she’d create the potion, her panic fading slightly.
She had the hatchling smoke and her half of the ingredients, meanwhile Oleander had delivered his half long ago. She’d experiment, keeping notes of her attempts until she eventually could test the potion on herself.
It had to work. It would work. She didn’t care about the rest.
Which is how she not only calmed the panic that had almost drowned her, but also found a way to distract herself from her depressing situation. Finally days later—frazzled and exhausted beyond belief—she sat holding fifty vials of an adrenaline potion that would allow her to study for as long as it took to make a plan for how to handle the Lady of the Lake, the rune on her back, and then perhaps also how to escape the grasp of her family.
After a hasty assessment, she deemed it safe enough and began dosing herself so that she could spend any free moment she had researching. The first thing she needed to figure out was if the Lady of the Lake had anything to do with the missing demonesses.
Perhaps this was a rumour, even so she’d need to figure out how to call the great spirit to her. As far as Peri knew, the Lady of the Lake hadn’t been to the Holy Circle in centuries.
There were times when the adrenaline potion made her too jittery, so she balanced it with a concentration elixir. Her shaking fingers would still and she’d find herself able to calmly focus once more.
She knew mixing magic like this was dangerous, but Peri was careful. She scheduled breaks, forcing herself to sleep on occasion, went for walks in nature around her home, and tried very hard to not let her potion taking habits get out of control.
At least in the beginning.
Eventually, it grew harder to take breaks from taking the potions, and even when she did those breaks never seemed to last very long.
A reckless compulsion spurred her on. It forced her fingers to fling corks from vials, dosing out ten drops, sometimes fifteen—sometimes until her body thrummed with energy.
There was a high risk of delirium when using magic this potent.
Eventually, she knew she would have to stop taking the potions altogether. But that was a problem for another day. For now, she clung to a single desperate objective: find the answers before the potions unravelled her mind.
Some nights, she camped out in her closet, surrounded by her notebooks and books. Sometimes she’d wake slumped against the floor; a spilled cup of experimental tea that she had been blending for Oleander beside her, pages crinkled beneath her cheek.
Her first discovery was that the Cursed Bargain, referred to as the Divine Bargain in Holy Circle texts, was actively keeping magical creatures confined to Hell. Which confirmed at least that the magical creatures had been honest about that.
However there were many conflicting instances surrounding the deaths of demonesses related to the Grand Dukes, some claiming they’d been eaten like Wisteria had claimed; while others claimed they’d been sacrificed to unknown entities. She felt uneasy about these findings. The amount of demonesses dying under dubious circumstances was upsetting enough, but how had this many demonesses died and nobody knew the truth surrounding their deaths?
The only other thing that interrupted her frantic research was the occasional mandatory dinners with her family. Sia, Rocco, and Valus would all just happen to visit on the same evening—a strange ordeal obviously planned by her parents. She would eat and listen to their conversations without participation, before yawning and retiring to her bedroom.
She ignored their worried or disdainful looks as she left the dining room. Thankful that, for once, nobody stopped her from doing what she wanted.
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
OLEANDER BRIGHTMORE
Most conveniently for Hemlock and Oleander, their home had long been warded to keep out anyone who meant them harm. Thus, they remained safe behind its walls, only slipping out when they were positive that their father was away.
Asmodeus was gone often, and from what the brothers could gather from outside sources, their father was currently swamped with more and more meetings with the other Grand Dukes. Presumably, Oleander thought with a touch of smugness, arguing about how they were to dig themselves out of this massive hole of their own making. He simply had no time to wonder what his two sons were up to.
