Though one thing which bothered her was that...Lady Isabelle was a white witch who was not allowed to kill people but she had touched upon the forbidden magic. She could have protected herself somehow. For a woman who wrote the whole book of spells, Penny was sure Lady Isabelle knew how to make use of every single one of them yet she hadn't used it.
Why?
The question had appeared before in her mind, she was figuring it out that time and she was doing it right now too. Did the woman think dying was better, or was there some greater cause that she had given up her life? Now that she had come across the portraits in Delcorv's mansion, she could tell that the woman they had met in the church was almost the same woman who was in the many paintings that hung on the wall.
If there was a slight possibility that they were indeed the same person, she wondered why a remarkable woman like her had never come to meet her son again. Her heart ached for both of them.
The timings must have been so off or the lady had timed it in such a way that Lord Alexander must have never come to cross paths with her again. The last she had heard about her, she was no more in the church. The council kept a watchful eye on the witches and even if one went missing they often tracked them down but they hadn't been successful in tracking down the church Lady.
Alexander didn't comment on it but he said, "We should start preparing if we are going to visit them tonight. Also about the air, it didn't affect you yesterday."
Yes, the air in the village, Damien said, "It was because Penny was with me. I think she doesn't realize it but she's able to purify the air around her which must have made it breathable for me. I think the water and air are much more contaminated in the first one village of the lady magistrate than in the second one. Which is why I didn't notice it in the morning while I was talking to the guardsmen."
Penny hadn't even realized or noticed it. For her everything was like the taste of the air, which was tasteless.
"At least I don't have to worry about them turning you to one of their mummified dolls," Damien offered Penny a smile, "Go wake up your aunt, mouse. Tell her we are leaving tonight to the Artemis' house."
An hour passed and everyone in the house had changed their clothes from their nightwear to something much better. With their weapons in hands and in pockets, Alexander gathered the people who were going to go to the house of the white witches.
Alexander pulled up a scroll and pushed the sheet to unfold it across the table which looked like the blueprint of the house, "I was able to catch hold of the design which was made for the house before the Artemis moved in there."
"That isn't their house?" Caitlin asked, surprised as she had assumed the house belonged to her uncle and aunt.
"It isn't," answered Alexander, picking up two stones to place it on either side of the scroll to stop it from curling itself, "Apparently the Artemis, the couple, there is no origin to the story they have spun. The house belonged to a human named Billiard Carrington. His family died out of mysterious infection and disease and the Artemis were one of the workers who worked for the Carrington family. In time the man who was the sole survivor jumped into the well and killed himself."
"They killed his family," Caitlin murmured under her breath, her eyebrows furrowing deeply as she thought about it.
Right now Caitlin didn't find it too astonishing that her uncle and aunt had done something so despicable.
"Here you see," Alexander pointed out at the X cross marks on the blueprint of the house, "These are the parts which have been told that the bedrooms exist. Seven big bedrooms out of which, one of them is the place where they are making their potions or whatever business they have been doing. It comes on the first floor. This side of the mansion is where they usually don't let people step in. It is mostly because of the portraits because the pictures also consist of the deceased Carrington's."
"How are you going to get the answers though?" Penny asked them. The Artemis wouldn't confess over what they have done and if they had the ability to kill Lady Isabelle, she didn't know how scheming and cruel they were. The same people who raised her aunt and her father.
"Nobody ever gives the answer right away, dear," Caitlin replied to her niece.
Damien chuckled, "It is usually forced out. It will be a memorable night. Ready?" he asked everyone who gave him a nod.
Penny touched her coat to make sure her needles and the last remaining bottles of the bomb was in her coat.
"Elliot and Sylvia will be working on the purification in the river so that they can lower the density of the air that has been formed in the village, "Martin keeps an eye on these two while we are gone," Alexander ordered his butler who bowed at him willfully, "Also the witch in the quarters. Have them taken there."
Elliot and Sylvia who had taken the carriage reached the river, lanterns already in their hands, they walked towards the edge of it to see the condition of the fishes and other aquatic animals that were dead and floating on the surface.
"It has been contaminated," Sylvia said, her hand outstretched with the lantern hanging on top of the water where the water gently flowed down.
"We need to see where the contamination starts. Wherever it is, the witches must have placed something there," Elliot responded back to continue walking and Sylvia followed him, in the quiet night far away from the villages to find the toxic substances that were putting the people under a continuous spell.