Elias's POV
Elias slipped into the laboratory, shutting the door with a soft click. Only after scanning the room, confirming its emptiness, did he hurl the starvine to the floor, his voice a venomous hiss. “Useless thing.”
His face twisted, a subtle metamorphosis unfolding. As anger sharpened his expression, his features shifted: rounded brows and eyes turned angular, his nose grew more aquiline, lips thinned, ears tapered slightly, tilting back. His skin paled to an unearthly sheen. The man who emerged bore no trace of Elias. Had Jack been present, he’d have gasped—this was Valthor Duskspear, master of the cursed castle where they’d been imprisoned.
The starvine writhed on the ground, its tendrils lashing toward Valthor’s back, as if to strangle him. But Valthor, as if gifted with eyes
