The interior of the sedan was hot and smelled strongly of pine and adrenaline. Tunde quickly explained the forced Bloom and the unstable Stone as Samuel sped away from the compound.
"He tried to turn me into a bomb, Sam," Esther whispered, gripping the seatbelt. "But I burned him with the silver."
Samuel glanced at her, his expression a mixture of terror and fierce pride. "That's my Keeper. Tunde, we can't go to the Den. They'll just lock Esther down."
"We can't stabilize the Stone, either," Tunde countered, checking his phone nervously. "The surge is too great. We need the full power of the Keeper and the Wolf, together, focused on the plant. But if the Alpha finds us, we are all considered traitors."
"Then we disappear," Samuel decided, taking a sharp turn onto the road leading toward the university. "We go somewhere the Pack won't look for a fight, only for knowledge."
He drove straight to the oldest, most isolated part of the UniPort campus: the sprawling, mostly abandoned tunnels beneath the engineering faculty, where dusty, forgotten equipment lay rusting. Samuel had used a hidden entrance there for late-night Pack exercises.
They settled in a cramped, dark workshop, surrounded by silent, broken machinery. It was far enough from the Foundation Stone beneath the academic block that the tremors were only a slight vibration here.
"We need to know exactly what Fortune burned," Samuel said, pulling out a first-aid kit. He gently examined Esther's hand, where the silver had left a faint, stinging redness.
"He targeted his hand—the skin was smoking," Esther said. "He must have used his vampire strength to break the terrarium."
"Then he is weakened," Samuel confirmed. "Vampires regenerate, but silver burns them deep. He'll be hunting us, but slowly. That buys us time."
"We need Madam Chinwe's notes," Esther insisted. "If the silver bloom is a failed experiment, there must be a 'Plan B' for stabilization. She was a meticulous botanist."
Samuel sighed, leaning his head back against the cold, grimy wall. "The Alpha would have seized all her possessions when she passed. The only thing they didn't take was the greenhouse, because they didn't know what it contained."
"But they might have missed something," Tunde spoke up, looking thoughtful. "A hiding place only a family member would know. Esther, was there anything she loved more than her plants?"
Esther closed her eyes, trying to visualize her grandmother's quiet life. "Her old Iroko tree. It was in the backyard of the compound, beside the well. She used to sit under it, carving small things out of the wood. She called it the 'Ancient Witness."
"Iroko wood is sacred," Samuel murmured, his focus returning. "It's resilient. A perfect hiding spot. Tunde, you're the only one who can move around freely without the Alpha sending an immediate hunt party. Can you go back, alone, and check the Iroko tree?"
Tunde nodded, his face resolute. "I will retrieve the notes, Samuel. And I will tell the Alpha... nothing."