Chapter 8 - The Poison and the Remedy
The truth hit Victor with the force of a physical blow. The sudden paralysis, the endless failed medical tests, the strange lack of physical nerve damage in Chloe’s legs—it was not a neurological miracle that had occurred in the ballroom.
It was an antidote.
Victor turned his eyes to the boy, Caleb. "The hand... soot on your hand..."
"It wasn't just dirt, Lord Vance," Caleb said quietly, pulling a small silver vial from his gray shirt pocket. "Your brother kept the toxin in the old greenhouse. My father was an herbalist before he died. We knew the counter-agent—a compound made from burnt oak charcoal and wintergreen oil. I coated my palm with it before I touched her."
"The toxin is absorbed through the skin," Eleanor added, stepping closer to her husband. "Caleb didn't perform a miracle, Victor. He neutralised the poison Julian was feeding our daughter every single day through her physical therapy creams."
Victor fell to his knees on the wet grass, burying his face in his hands as a violent wave of nausea swept over him. For a year and a half, he had allowed his own brother to stand beside Chloe’s wheelchair, pretending to comfort her, while systematically poisoning her body to secure his inheritance.
"I will kill him," Victor snarled through gritted teeth, his hands clenching into fists so hard his nails cut into his palms. "I will tear him apart with my bare hands."
"No," Eleanor said firmly, placing her cold, scarred hand over his. "That is what he wants. He wants you to act like a monster so he can claim you are unfit to manage the estate. We do this legally. We do this tonight."
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She turned to Caleb. "Do you have the secondary sample?"
Caleb nodded, pulling a sealed glass syringe from his dirty pocket. "I took a sample of the cream from Lord Julian’s private desk twenty minutes ago while the guests were arriving."
