Lynette awoke to thorn vines cocooning her bedframe, their obsidian blossoms whispering in Old Norse. The digital clock flashed 5:55 AM – Isolde's cursed numerical palindrome. On her desk, the Neolithic wolf skull had grown cartilage tendrils connecting to her physics textbook.
"Sleepwalking again?" Amberleigh leaned against the doorframe gnawing a wolf femur Pop-Tart. "Your thorn garden ate three of my minions." Her irises now permanently resembled mercury marbles.
Ancient Timeline - 1600s Prague
Caelum pressed Elspeth against the Astronomical Clock's gearwork as witch hunters stormed the square. "The curse transfers through breath," he growled, binding her wrists with rosary beads dipped in philosopher's mercury. "One kiss could end this."
She headbutted him, escaping into the plague doctor mob. "You first," she spat bloodied Latin verses, "need to stop romanticizing mutual destruction."
Modern Timeline - Quantum Botany Lab
Professor Voss demonstrated grafting moonlight onto mandrake roots. Lynette's specimen sprouted wolfsbane petals forming Isolde's cipher: "Blood is quantum ink rewriting flesh."
Caelum seized her wrist as thorns pierced his palm. "Every drop you spill feeds her resurrection algorithm." His blood crystallized into a microchip showing security footage – tonight's Autumn Ball lit by bioluminescent wolf skull chandeliers.