Page 101 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I felt the wrongness in it, the spirit force that did not belong, the puppeteer tugging invisible strings.

I lifted my hand and shoved power outward, freezing the corpse’s limbs just long enough to keep it from biting again.

“Move,” I shouted at the girl. “Run.”

She ran.

Then I saw the student who had gone down.

He lay on the stone edge of the fountain, blood spreading from his scalp. His eyes fluttered, unfocused. Another student kneeled beside him, sobbing.

I dropped to my knees without thinking. “Let me.”

I placed my hands near the wound and called on my healing.

Warmth rose in my palms.

And then it stalled.

It hit a wall of resistance that made my stomach twist.

It was not just exhaustion. It was as if something in the wound rejected life. Like the calling had left a residue that did not want him mended.

I tried again, pushing harder.

Nothing.

My breath hitched. “No.”

Cal crouched beside me, gaze pointed. “What is wrong?”

“I cannot connect with him,” I whispered. “It’s like the wound is coated.”

The student’s pulse was weak under my fingers.

My healing should have helped.

It did not.

Footsteps approached fast.

High heels on stone.

Lucinda.

She swept into the quad with Caton beside her, both of them too composed for the scene around them, dressed like this was an unpleasant meeting rather than a public disaster. Caton’s gaze scanned the crowd instantly, searching.

“Mina,” he barked.

“I am here,” Mina called, waving from the library steps.

Caton’s shoulders eased slightly, then he glared at the nearest undead as if it had personally offended him.

Lucinda’s gaze landed on me kneeling beside the injured student.

Then her eyes narrowed.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.