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The laboratory was supposed to be empty, and if anyone else had seen the sight in front of Corbin, they would have sworn it was. In fact, they had sworn it, when she learned about the shrine hidden underneath.
Although the room appeared in impeccable order, it was NOT empty. In fact, it was very, very full. There were at least two dozens of ghosts, lingering even though their corpses had been disposed of a long time ago.
They drifted between rows of glass beakers, flickering like damaged lanterns, appearing and disappearing several times each second. Some still hovered besides the restraints bolted to the walls, where they had been chained, forgotten by time.
Some of them bore no visible injuries. Others carried the marks of whatever experiments had been performed on them. Every one of them had been a test subject, evidence of failed miracles.
No one had made it out.
Corbin swallowed hard.
"I don't need to know you to trust you," she whispered, mostly to herself. The ghosts appeared far too gone to care about her disturbing their peace. "I don't need to know you to trust you."
It was a reminder and a mantra and a protection spell all in one.
The ghosts stirred, when she entered, as if suddenly becoming aware of the presence of a living being. One by one, they all turned to her.
Corbin's stomach tightened. Ghosts didn't have bodies but that didn't mean they were harmless. If anything, energy, uncontained, posed a much bigger threat.
"I don't need to know you to trust you," she repeated, voice stronger now, and forced herself to take another step. The ghosts reacted instantly, blocking her path in every direction but one, as though guiding her. It was strange and made the witch hesitate.
Would they lead her to her destination or her doom?
Corbin continued and the ghosts shifted together with her, leading her to…
A wall.
It was a dead end, pun intended. Through her glasses, Corbin saw the ink-black specks of mold pulse like a heartbeat, alive and well despite the lack of life to feed on.
She recalled vaguely hearing about it before. The plague Ancients had brought upon themselves by thinking that as gods, they were invincible, above everything else. It had passed from god to human and from man, who learned to tame it, to fae, a curse that lingered even in death.
But eventually, together with the last known victims, the knowledge to summon it died out. Given the alternative, it was better that way.
Yet here it was again, in plain sight.
Puzzle pieces in Corbin's head fell into place. The ghosts made sense now. The experiments made sense. There was no other way to find a cure.
But even so, they hadn't found one.
Instead, the mold had escaped the bodies it was grown in. It had migrated into the walls, into the foundation, into the stone beneath the laboratory. And beneath that…
Corbin's breath caught.
"Flora."