Ransom stops Luella from fleeing and demands answers. In tears, Luella says she never meant for events to go so far, and Cathlin urges her to tell the truth. Luella sets down a jar of cave ginger, clutches her satchel, and declares she refuses to lose her children to the crux during migrations, insisting they must be stronger to survive.

Ransom accuses Luella of creating Lyssa, which is killing him, and he exposes the dark veins on his chest. Luella apologizes and claims she can undo the damage, but Ransom snarls there is no cure. Odessa intervenes, persuading Ransom to listen, and he withdraws to glower from the wall as Odessa questions Luella.

Luella explains that while she has no innate magic, Calandra itself does, and the monsters are part of that magic. She spent years learning to extract traces of that magic—through scientific means—from monsters’ remnants. She describes a philosophy that the monsters’ strength, speed, and resilience leave traces in this realm that can be harnessed, and admits she worked with her own alchemists, not the Voster.

Prompted by Cathlin, Luella recounts her background: an illness in Laine sparked her interest in alchemy; later, in Allesaria, she resumed her studies with the city’s alchemist, building a library and escaping into research. She found a black-leather book in an old language containing dreamlike stories, including one about a monster’s claw granting immunity to pain and sickness, which inspired her goal to make humans stronger against illness and long sheltering during crux migrations.

Luella and her team created potions and tonics using ingredients linked to monsters, such as korakin (from kaverine dung) for night vision and cave ginger imbued by alligask shed to promote healing. They tested on themselves, discarding most mixtures, and eventually saved a dying man with their refined elixir. She insists the elixir was medicine, not Lyssa.

The connection to Lyssa emerges when Luella admits she secretly had healers administer the elixir to Ransom without his knowledge after a severe leg wound, believing his father would refuse consent. Ransom accuses her of causing his condition; Luella says the elixir alone did not cause Lyssa, and notes that ten recipients besides Ransom have not contracted it.

Luella theorizes that the elixir provided a foundational, non-Voster magic within Ransom, and when a bariwolf later bit him, the monster’s saliva formed a bond between man, monster, and magic, creating Lyssa within both Ransom and the bariwolf. The infection then propagated through subsequent bites in monsters and beyond, while in Ransom it granted enhanced abilities at the cost of consuming him. Odessa grasps the implication, and Ransom, devastated, concludes that Lyssa began with the combination of himself and the bariwolf, not the bariwolf alone.