Adeline POV
The lab had been silent when I arrived that morning, the kind of silence that usually meant safety. I had designed it that way with layers of wards and scent locks keyed only to my blood. It was almost impossible for any unauthorized entry to enter without leaving a trace. This was the security measures I had put since the incident with the new doctor and nothing had slipped past unnoticed.
That morning, something was wrong. I knew it before I saw the data logs. It was something about the air and how different it smelled. Someone had moved through the lab during my absence, with knowledge of how it functioned. I walked to the central table and checked the containment seals on the herbal compounds I had prepared the night before. Two were intact but one of them was not.
I di
