Chapter 2
Lucinda held my gaze a moment longer, like she expected me to flinch. Like she expected guilt to leak out of my pores if she stared hard enough.
I did not flinch.
Mostly because I was too tired for theatrics. Also, because if I started flinching every time Lucinda glared at me like I was a suspicious stain on her marble floor, I would develop a permanent neck twitch. Caton already had the market cornered on that.
She finally broke eye contact, then turned her head toward the rest of the room as if she had decided I was not worth the energy. That should have been a relief.
It was not.
When someone like Lucinda dismissed you, it usually meant she had already filed you into a box labeled “assault later.”
Alex’s gaze slid from Lucinda back to me, and his expression softened the tiniest bit. Not sympathy, exactly. More like recognition.
“All right,” he said, tone shifting into problem solving. “We can theorize later. We need facts now. What do we actually know?”
Hunter made a low sound, the verbal equivalent of cracking his knuckles. “We know the dead are moving.”
“Undead,” Carnell corrected lightly, as if word choice mattered more than the bodies roaming around town. “Dead implies they have the decency to stay down.”
Faith’s eyes narrowed at him. “Do you speak just to hear your own voice?”
Carnell’s smile did not move. “It is a lovely voice.”
Nishi’s fingers worried the ring on her right hand, the small repetitive motion at odds with how calm she looked. “Reports are coming in too quickly to be isolated. Multiple locations. No clear starting point yet.”
“Which suggests either more than one caster,” Eve said, “or one caster with reach.”
Caton’s facial twitch flicked. “Or we have an infection vector.”
The word infection made my stomach tighten. I had not seen enough to confirm bites or transmission. I had seen hunger. I had smelled rot. I had felt that wrong, hollow pull.
I lifted a hand slightly. “Before we go there, I did not see it bite anyone. I saw it lunge. That is not proof. It could be attacking without spreading anything.”
Hunter’s gaze cut to me. “You touched it.”
“I shoved it,” I corrected. “I am not making a habit of caressing corpses in the street.”
Faith’s mouth twitched at that. It might have been the beginning of a smile. It died quickly.
Eve’s eyes flicked to the board again. “If it is an infection, containment gets uglier.”
Alex exhaled slowly and rubbed the back of his neck. “We are not deciding worst-case until we have evidence. Focus on what could have caused this. Necromancy is the obvious answer, but the why matters.”
Caton’s attention snapped to him. “Why does the why matter if we can stop it.”
Alex gave him a look that made the torches feel dimmer. “Because if we stop the symptom and miss the cause, we will be doing this again tomorrow night, and the next.”
Carnell nodded in exaggerated agreement. “And I have plans tomorrow night.”
Faith muttered, “Do they involve mirrors?”
Carnell’s eyes gleamed. “Always.”
Nishi made a small sound, half sigh, half warning. “This is not helping.”
Lucinda’s gaze focused, annoyed that the room had slipped even a fraction toward humor. “What are our options?”
I hated the way she said our, as if I was suddenly part of the club. I hated it even more because it meant she wanted something from me.
Eve spoke first, voice clipped. “Ley lines.”
That landed hard. You could feel it in the way everyone’s posture changed.
The council chambers were built where they were for a reason.
Ravenholde had seats of power, intersections that made magic run hotter and cleaner.
It was one of the reasons the town attracted creatures and covens like moths to a porch light.
Caton nodded once. “If someone tapped a line and warped it, they could feed enough power into a spell to raise multiple bodies.”
“But that would be loud,” I said, and everyone looked at me again. Great. “The magic would scream. The air would change. People like me would feel it.”
Lucinda’s eyes narrowed. “You keep saying you did not feel it.”
“I keep saying it because it is important,” I shot back. “If it were ley line powered necromancy, the residue would be thick. It would coat the town like smoke. This feels… filtered.”
Carnell leaned forward slightly, interest flickering. “Filtered how.”
I searched for the right comparison, which was difficult because it felt like being lied to by the universe.
“Like someone wrapped the spell in something else,” I said. “Like they put a blanket over it. You can still see the outline, but you cannot make out the details.”
Nishi’s eyes went distant for a moment, as if she were looking at my words in color. “Masking.”
“Yes.”
Hunter’s jaw tightened. “Who can do that?”
Caton answered too quickly. “Someone skilled.”
Faith snorted. “Thank you, Captain Helpful.”
Caton’s twitch fired, and his gaze snapped to her. “Do you have a name, then?”
Faith’s voice stayed flat. “I have a list. That is not the same thing.”
Eve’s fingers tightened around her necklace. “It could be an artifact.”
Lucinda’s eyes flicked to her. “Explain.”
“A relic that stores death energy,” Eve said. “Something that does the heavy work for the caster. That could explain the masking. The signature might be the object’s, not the person’s.”
Caton’s expression tightened. “And where would someone get something like that?”
Eve’s smile was thin. “Your friends collect all kinds of things.”
Faith grunted again, and this time I knew exactly why. Caton’s entire life was a network of useful people, many of whom were the sort you would not invite to a potluck unless you enjoyed poison as a surprise ingredient.
Lucinda steepled her fingers, eyes cold. “Or it could be deliberate theater. A distraction.”
Alex nodded, thoughtful. “That is possible. If someone wanted to pull resources away from something else.”
My stomach sank. “Like what?”
Lucinda’s gaze flicked to the board, then to the doors, then to the room itself. “Like the council chambers. Like the pack lands. Like Scorchwood.”
Hunter’s shoulders went rigid. “They would not get far on pack lands.”
Lucinda’s tone showed her irritation. “Do not assume that. Whoever is doing this already broke a rule most sane people adhere to.”
Carnell’s expression turned amused. “I do enjoy a bold villain.”
Faith looked as if she wanted to throw him through a column.
Alex held up a hand, re-centering the discussion. “All right. Potential causes—ley line interference, artifact, skilled necromancer with masking, distraction tactic, or infection vector. Anything else?”
Nishi spoke quietly. “Possession.”
Everyone paused.
I blinked. “Possession.”
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.
Eve continued, eyes on Caton. “She has a growing social media following with her short films and other media. Perhaps we could use her and the other empowered students.”
Caton’s gaze flicked to Lucinda so fast it was almost comical. Like he needed permission from the queen before he let his daughter breathe.
“It would be nice to bring my daughter in on council business,” he said. “I trust her.”
Faith grunted at that, the sound rough and obvious.
Caton’s eyes cut toward her. “Something you would like to add?”