Everyone stared at me with a variety of emotions. Horror dominated. Odd kept a firm grip on me. Otherwise I would have sunk to the ground. Yuri remained on his cot, staring at Flea.

“What do we do with him?” Quain asked. “Can we train him?”

“No,” I said. “He shouldn’t be. I’d never expected... My fault...”

Loren pulled his short dagger from his belt. “It’s treated with Death Lily toxin. Should I?” he asked me.

“Yes. Please.”

“Sorry, buddy,” Loren said as he pricked Yuri’s arm.

Yuri didn’t flinch or react in anyway. We waited. There was always a slight delay before the toxin worked.

We kept waiting. Nothing happened. Yuri sat there not breathing, not speaking, not being, just there.

“Uh, now what?” Quain asked.

I had no idea. Why didn’t the toxin work? Was it because Yuri had the plague, which was linked to Death Lily toxin?

“Decapitation,” Loren said. “That’s the only other thing that works.”

“Maybe we should take him outside first,” Quain said.

“No. I don’t want anyone else to know about him.” I shivered.

“We could do it after dark when everyone is asleep. Otherwise, you’ll have a mess to clean up and explain.” Loren wiped Yuri’s blood off his blade.

“Can he walk?” Quain asked Flea.

“Why are you asking me?”

“He moved when you touched him. Don’t you have an affinity with the dead?”

“No. I don’t. Avry, did he die from the serum?”

I nodded.

“Avry’s touch revived him. I’d think he’d follow her.”

My touch. I remembered when I’d witnessed Tohon waking his dead. Although his had been dead before he’d injected the serum, he’d pressed his hand to their foreheads, and then, when they’d moved, he guided them by touch. After that, I didn’t know how he’d trained them.

“We shouldn’t kill him...er, again,” Odd said.

“Why?” I pulled away from him, standing on my own wobbly legs.

“It’s a chance to learn more about them.”

“We know how to stop them. That’s all we need to know,” I said.

“Then why didn’t the Death Lily toxin work?” Odd asked.

“I think it’s because he had the plague.”

“Think or know? Big difference.”

“What are you suggesting?” Loren asked Odd.

Oh, no, not him, too. He used that same questioning technique Kerrick and Ryne’d been taught at boarding school.

“I’m suggesting we send a message to Prince Ryne and let him decide what to do.”

Feeling stronger, I stepped toward Yuri. “No. His condition is my responsibility. I decide.”