Dragon Witch ✔️

19 - Antivenom

As I gathered the papers, I tried not to read them. But it was easy to recognize the hospital's logo  and lines of medical charges going down the pages. Even without focusing on the numbers, I could tell they were big. They owed a lot of money. Insurance wasn't paying enough, either. Apparently they didn't cover whatever "Horant Fay" was being treated for.

A morbid curiosity drew me to the "patient information" page. Horant was a 96-year-old male, which was apparently middle-aged for a sprite. The report said he'd been in perfect health before he was attacked by a dragon. He'd healed up pretty well after the attack, and he went home. Two days ago, he collapsed and lost any feeling to his legs.

Now he was in the hospital, paralyzed from the waist down. He still had dragon venom in his system, working its way toward his heart. If it reached there, his heart would be paralyzed, and he would die.

This had to be one of Kyton's relatives, maybe an uncle, but it sounded more like his dad. No wonder he hadn't looked good. No wonder Nissa was so angry. I was only part of it, but I was the only one she'd been able to meet. If she could've attacked the dragon instead, I was sure she would've. Not that she hadn't been right to be angry. I probably would've done the same thing in her place.

I had to do something to fix this. Kyton's dad wasn't my fault, but it could've been. If I'd transformed and gotten out of control before I knew what was happening to me, I could've attacked someone's dad or mom or sister or brother. If I didn't get myself under control, I still could.

This was just something I had to do, before something else triggered more scale growth or an attack reflex. Before it was too late to go back to being normal.

There had to be some kind of antidote for the dragon's venom, some kind of potion I could make. I flipped through the pages, scanning the treatment they had Horant on. Right now, all they could do was try to slow the spread of the venom with spells and potions. It wasn't doing much good. A handwritten note at the bottom of a page drew my eyes.

It was unmistakably a doctor's handwriting, as I could barely make out a single word. After a whole lot of brain-wracking, I managed to get the gist. There was an antidote, but the hospital didn't have it. Only private hospitals in huge cities that catered to the rich and famous had a dragon-bite antidote. Those types of hospitals didn't accept witches, much less Otherworlders.

I was pretty sure they would never send the antidote here, even if the Fays had enough money to pay for it. Apparently it was pretty easy to make, but the ingredients were beyond rare. Dragon's blood was the big one. Everything else could be synthesized or replaced by alternative ingredients, but dragon's blood was absolutely necessary.

Another note beside the first said even changeling blood was enough to seriously slow the venom, but it was even harder to get than dragon's blood because changelings looked human.

I might not have any practical experience with potion making, but I'd memorized tons of recipes, and getting changeling blood was one thing I could do.

***

Okay, I could do this. It was simple, just a mental wish. I did it all the time. These people were no dragons, just nomahus. They couldn't see through the thinnest of glamours. Unless one of them was a witch.

Just before the elevator doors closed, I hopped inside. The two white-coated men (doctors, according to their name tags) already in the elevator didn't give me a second glance. Not that it meant much. I was just in a normal elevator, nowhere restricted. I would find out soon enough if I was actually invisible.

As far as I could tell, I was using magic to make myself invisible. But camouflaging myself never worked well in lighted areas. It was worse in sunlight, but even electric lights could make me shimmer into view.