CHAPTER 485: ERASED

"Well, you certainly... Don’t look radiant this morning," Ada’s brows were a tad furrowed, eyes strictly on Arabella’s disheveled hair.

Arabella had not gone to sleep and only pretended to do so around dawn, knowing full well Silas’ usual search schedule.

"I need to apply myself a little harder for this," she spoke quickly in a manner that nearly bordered on hysteria, "I am close to getting an answer, I can feel it!" her eyes wide and wild, her frantic body language did not help save her image.

"What you need is a bath and some proper food. You’ve had neither breakfast nor lunch and dinner is near!" Ada settled the tea tray on the little table with a tad more force, causing a collision sound that managed to startle Arabella.

"Yes, yes, maybe later! For now, I am close!" just as her focus was interrupted, it went right back to those maps as if nothing had happened.

"If you persist, I will tell Lord Silas that you have been using his blood to stay awake this whole time," Ada crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot against the floor repeatedly.

A comically loud gasp escaped Arabella who finally granted Ada her full attention for longer than a second, "You wouldn’t dare!" her eyes narrowed.

"Oh really? Try me then!" the flame in Ada’s eyes rivaled that of Arabella’s, showing neither weakness nor signs of bluff.

Seeing that her friend had no intention of backing down, Arabella’s lips performed a pout as her shoulders slumped following a long sigh, "Fine! You win! But I will still make you pay for daring to blackmail me" she pushed herself off her chair, giving Ada a glare that turned out nothing like the kind she wished to display.

"I can live with that," Ada smiled, extending her hand towards Arabella.

"But since I am done with this map anyway let me unroll the next one before com-"

Her entire body froze in place the moment she unfolded that map, her eyes stuck on one, specific spot until Ada spoke up.

"What is it?"

"It’s...," her gemstones started traveling between that one spot onto a similar point illustrated on the map, "This map is from around three hundred and thirty years ago," after a short pause during which she had to claw the words out, Arabella continued, "Right around the beginning of the great war,"

"And what’s so special about them?" Ada dropped her previous facade and hastened towards the desk.

"These marks here are inscribed in a way that would indicate this entire space stands underground. I...," the frenzy in her motion returned as her eyes widened once more, "I need to pay the library a visit. This might be it since they look spacious enough to harbor a vampire. This could be the key to everything!" she leaped in her spot, a bright beam on her.

Without further ado, she ran out of the map room and straight towards the library. Ada ran after her, but no matter how hard she seemed to try, there was no catching up to the raven-haired woman.

It was no shocker since the ingestion of Silas’ blood made every action and function in her body a lot easier, even running through the entire manor without the need for a break.

By the time her friend had caught up with her, Arabella was head deep into a specific book, her eyes skipping from left to right on the pages as the lines went on.

"So?" Ada huffed and puffed, bending out of shape to catch her breath, "Out with it! What did you find?"

"Holding camps," Arabella whispered, "Humans built them back before the war was even a thought," she turned the book towards Ada, "They were meant to hold nightwalkers. Dungeons equipped specifically for that, dug over a mile deep under soil surface. Their entrances are quite discrete even more so than the tunnels that were carved during the war, but these don’t use witchcraft to shield or conceal them,"

"That’s why witches sense no traces of magic during the searches," Ada’s voice fell into murmuring range as well while her eyes refused to blink.

"Not to mention that much like vampires’ hearing and scent, they can only sense magic performed or being performed under a certain distance away from them which also explains the failure of location magic since Allegra would be concealing from detection a mile away from them. Even if they had stood right on top of the camp, the location spells would still fail,"

The beam on Arabella’s face remained as she frantically explained and put the pieces of the puzzle in their place. Her finger continued to tap the page as the words spilled out of her at quite the fast pace.

"How many of these camps are there?" Ada asked.

"Over twenty all over the entire kingdom, and that is where the problem might lie. We will only be able to search the camps on Umbrarian territory. Those on Lustris are untouchable," her smile finally dimmed.

"But it’s a start at least! It’s more than what we’ve had to rely on since the beginning of this ordeal!" Ada found her energy again, her voice resonating across the entire library.

"And...," Arabella bit down on her bottom lip, simmering further, "Something else bugs me," the look on Ada prompted her to elaborate, "These existed less than four centuries ago so how come mother or no other vampire older than that remembers it. I am pretty sure there are vampires and wolf folk that are still alive to this day that were incarcerated in these places, so why wouldn’t they remember them?"

"I mean, they were erased from the maps so clearly, they wanted them forgotten. There is a possibility it simply slipped their minds," Ada huffed and groaned loudly, "You are overthinking this too much! Let us write and spread the news already. If Allegra is in any of these places, she will be found!"