Page 11 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Nishi nodded, still twisting her ring. “If something is riding a caster, it could alter the signature. The power might not read as human necromancy.”

Faith’s eyes went harder. “Demonic.”

Carnell lifted his hands, palms out. “Don’t look at me. No demon has come through the gate in over a week.”

Faith did not look convinced.

Eve’s gaze flicked to Carnell, then away.

Lucinda’s voice cut through. “Regardless of cause, we have a second crisis on top of the undead.”

Alex turned slightly, and I saw the strain in his eyes. He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. “Mundane exposure.”

Yes. That.

Because even if we stopped every walking corpse in the next hour, the town had already witnessed the impossible. You cannot shove that back into the box once people have filmed it and shared it and screamed it into the phones of everyone they know.

Alex looked around the room. “How are we dealing with the mundane exposure?”

No one answered at first, because the answer was—badly.

I could picture it too clearly. People in their kitchens, shaking hands holding phones. Teens filming through windows. Someone posting shaky footage with a caption full of exclamation points. Someone else calling their aunt in Vancouver, voice breaking, saying, “No, I swear, it was real.”

A mind wipe worked when you had a contained incident. A few witnesses. A narrow perimeter. A clean timeline.

This was not clean.

“This is too widespread for a mind wipe,” I said, because someone had to say it, and I was already the villain of the evening, anyway. “They will have called friends and family outside town. They will have sent messages. Photos. Videos. We cannot wipe every person they contacted.”

Lucinda’s mouth tightened. “We have done extensive wipes.”

“Not with modern phones,” Alex replied. “Not with cloud backups and live streams.”

Carnell’s smile flickered. “Mundanes really did ruin everything with technology.”

Faith muttered, “At least something ruined you.”

Carnell’s eyes brightened. “You really need to embrace your demonic side more.”

Faith looked like she might actually stab him.

Alex ignored the chaos pair and continued. “We need a narrative. Something plausible. Something that spreads as fast as the truth did.”

Hunter’s brow furrowed. “So we lie.”

Lucinda’s gaze slid to him. “We manage.”

Eve’s lips pressed together. “Call it what it is.”

Caton’s twitch jumped again. “We do not have time for moralizing.”

“Funny,” Eve said softly, “you always have time for that when it benefits you.”

Before Caton could snap back, Eve glanced at him, and I saw the shift in her expression. It was not surrender. It was strategy.

“You know Mina wants to take on more responsibility within the coven,” Eve said.

The room went quiet again, not because everyone cared about Mina’s ambitions, but because everyone recognized a pivot when they heard one.