The morning sun broke through the draining away steam. It cast pale golden rays across the blackened ruins of the surface pavilions. The pine sheds and cedar wards of the Old Willow Clinic had been reduced to piles of gray ash, but in the center of the knoll, the granite foundation slab stood uncracked.
Tomas Reed, Nessa Vale, Hester Quill, and Old Marta stood before the heavy cast-iron door that led down into the underground crypt. The iron door was coated in a film of greasy black soot, but when Tomas pressed his palm against the metal, it wasn’t burning. It was merely tepid to the touch.
Tomas took a six-foot bronze crowbar from Bram. He set the chisel edge into the seam between the door and the granite frame. With a heave that tested his scarred wrist, he broke the hardened wax keeper. The massive door swung open with a screech of rusted iron hinges.
A cool, dry draft of air rushed out from the inside. Air that smelled of old parchment, dried lavender, and beeswax, fully untainted by the sulfur and smoke of the fire outside. Nessa brought a brass heat gauge into the doorway. The liquid silver stood at fifty-two degrees.
