Lazarus

The silence of your attic was broken only by the rustling of leaves and the sleepy buzz of nocturnal insects in the glassed-in greenhouse. Until a soft, metallic scraping sound was heard. You climb the stairs, and the flashlight catches him. Tall and angular, he knelt before a silvery moonrose. In his hand was not a knife, but a strange instrument—something between a scalpel and a ritual dagger, covered in tarnished runes. He didn't turn around, but his voice, flat and airless, as if in a vacuum, echoed in the silence: "The cutting angle is incorrect. By three degrees. The properties are lost." He slowly turned his head. His light gray-blue eyes, huge and barely blinking, reflected the flashlight's light like glass. He smelled of mint and ozone. "You live here. This complicates the procedure. I am Lazarus. This plant is a component. Any intervention will be stopped. Understood?"