Page 58 of The Demon's Discovery
“Oh, good.” She slumped against the doorway as I retrieved the book from a secure box disguised in the floor under my desk. “I was worried for a moment. You have a very concerning look on your face. Magnus has told me some stories about Ophelia…” She shook her head. “Can I help?”
I pulled the book from its hiding place and secured it in a bag I could fasten across my body. “Not with this. We’ll all be back later,” I assured her, and left again as quickly as I’d come, hoping she wasn’t too put out by my haste.
Landing at the hut was disorienting, the potent foreboding wards mixing with a flood of relief. I knocked on the door, and Ophelia answered within a breath of me raising my hand.
She smiled widely, walking away from me. “Excellent timing, demon. I’ve just taken the bread out.”
Greta was laughing at something Magnus had said, eating a slice of steaming bread with honey on it. “That was fast!” she said as I sat next to her, pulling the bag over my head. “This is delicious, Ophelia, thank you.”
“So polite,” she graced Greta with a smile. “May I have it, please?” She held her hands out, palms up. I handed the tome over, reminding myself that it was in good hands, and I was right here with it. “Oh my.”
She took it over to an angled book stand at the back of the room, immediately flipping through the pages. We all watched as she muttered to herself, finger tracing the ink on the parchment as she scanned the elixir recipe. “Come here, Greta.”
Greta got to her feet and joined Ophelia, Magnus and I following behind. There wasn’t much standing room in the corner where she had her stand and several bookshelves, but we all squeezed in.
Ophelia pulled the vial from her pocket and tipped it upside down for a second before removing the cork. She took Greta’s hand in hers and smeared the wet side of the cork over a burn on her knuckle.
“What happened there?” I asked her.
“I bumped it on the cauldron.”
“Just a little burn,” Ophelia confirmed. “Let’s see now…” Her words trailed off as the flesh began to change from a deep red to normal color. The skin was brand-new within a breath. The old gargoyle smiled broadly.
“It works,” Greta sighed the words.
“Of course it does.” I chuckled at her immense relief. “Did you doubt it?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “It wasn’t an easy thing to make, but it also wasn’t terribly difficult, all things considered. Rare ingredients aside, and the fact that I needed Vassago’s hands asmuch as my own to get everything done, I don’t understand how so many others have failed at it. Why did it work for me?”
“Because you’re The Alchemist,” Ophelia said with a shrug, as though that explained everything. She dropped Greta’s hand and began to flip through the pages of the grimoire again, skipping whole sections and stopping to read other pages in their entirety. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this book. There’s much here that wasn’t written before.” I twitched. I’d said the same to Rylan not long ago. “Lilith’s secrets were always both deeply coveted and highly regarded. It’s an honor to have one’s recipes included here.” Ophelia paused, having come to a section near the back that had troubled me as well.
“That section’s been encrypted,” I told her. “I haven’t had an opportunity to make an effort to translate the code.”
“Encrypted?” Greta asked.
“Disguised with a secret language,” Magnus explained. “I’ll have to see if Imogen will teach you some of ours. Or Lionel. They both excel at keeping our messages from being read by prying enemy eyes.” He smiled proudly.
“No, I know what that means, I’m just confused. They’re not disguised.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, stepping closer. The letters on the page were not like anything I’d ever seen, not even during my decades in far-flung monasteries looking for ancient relics. No human language even had a similar alphabet. It wasn’t angel script either, nor stone kin or that of old Hell.
Ophelia moved back a step, watching Greta with keen eyes and a lopsided grin.
“There’s no encoding,” Greta frowned. Her finger traced under the words. “This is a recipe for a fertility tea. It says, ‘For best result in conceiving a child and having a prosperous harvest season, consume this tea every night the week before Beltane. Combine equal parts rosehips, elderflower, hawthorn,meadowsweet, and lemon balm. Steep three minutes and strain. Serve with honey from a local hive or lemon.’” Her eyebrows came together. “See? It’s right here.”
“Oh, you demons do find the most extraordinary women.” The little gargoyle all but bounced on her toes. “They’re part stone kin, so that’s in their nature of course, butsaints,they’re unique.”
“Do you know what language that is, Ophelia?” Magnus asked.
She nodded slowly, cocking her head to the side as she watched Greta absently rub at her sore shoulder. “I think so. Greta, was the cauldron hot when you brushed it?”
“I suppose so.” A blush rose to her cheeks at the intensity of Ophelia’s attention. “You had just lit the candle, but it was a small pot.”
Ophelia crossed to the table and grabbed the bell. “Touch this please?” Greta gently pressed her fingertip to the side of the bell, then quickly snatched it away again. “Go ahead and use the elixir as I did before, demon.”
I frowned as I followed the instructions, Greta’s burned skin mending as we watched. She gave the unwanted ring an ineffective tug before dropping her hands.
Ophelia reached up toward Greta’s face, but Greta was so tall she had to lean forward to bridge the gap. The old sorceress moved her hair, examined her ear, which had the slightest of tapers to it near the back edge, then patted her cheek. “It would appear that you’re part fae, my dear.”
