The voices of the other Unspeakables barely penetrated Jane's consciousness as she continued to study her elixir--the darkness within was definitely growing. This refined batch would be useless. She sighed softly but deeply, closed her eyes and took a few deep, centering breaths, and the lifted the cover off the retort and vanished the entire potion, before it turned into something ugly.

Well, there was several weeks work lost. Still, it could be worse--she had already developed the original elixir, she had all her notes on that and the improvements she'd introduced, so she should be easily able to recreate it again. Easily, but not quickly. She had told Flamsteed that the improved version would be ready by the end of the year, but now it looked like it would not be possible until after the holidays.

Jane finally came to the awareness that other people were speaking to her and turned to her colleagues. "Well, no, everything's not quite all right. Whatever that explosion was, it disturbed the elixir I had resting here, and I'm afraid it's ruined. But I have all the notes on it, I should be able to re-do the experiment." Jane looked sadly at her workstation again, then returned all the equipment lying out to their proper places with a wave of her wand. "Next year," she added a little glumly.

Then a thought occurred to her. "Are you both all right? Did anyone get hurt by that explosion?" Because she always had those first aid remedies in her bag. Just in case.