On the ground, Ongrum curled into a ball and spasmed. Her veins bulged, and her fingers hooked into claws. She pitched forward, retching until nothing came up but bile and blood.

Ranka knelt beside her. “We have to get you out of here—we might be able to stop it—”

Ongrum swatted at her, but her touch was feeble, no stronger than the half-hearted bat of a kitten. “Don’t touch me.”

“You’re doing to die. You’re going to—”

“I said don’t touch me.” Ongrum’s eyes flashed white. Her nails had always been a mellow rabbit-fur gray. Now they flickered to black.

And all Ranka could do was watch.

She had not wanted this for her worst enemy, let alone Ongrum.

Let alone someone she loved.

Ongrum’s nails flashed to black and remained. She pushed herself upright, trembling, her all-white eyes surveying the surrounding chaos with awe.

“It’s gray,” Ongrum whispered. “It’s all gray.”

Could she feel it? The power inside her that hungered for death? That strength that should only ever have belonged to the gods?

Ongrum turned to Ranka and flexed her hands, looking down at her clawed fingertips with awe, and laughed.

“You are so weak,” Ongrum said, “to have wasted this.”

Ranka took a step backward. A scream split the air, and with it came the scent of putrid, rotting flesh.

Ranka turned. The door Sigrid had vanished behind remained closed. But from it came that unmistakable stench of a body turned septic, of wrongness and death, of a decay not meant for this world. It was getting stronger by the second, swelling in the air.

Blood seeped from under the door.

Something slammed against the other side of it. The knob rattled—and the door swung open.

Sigrid staggered out, clutching at her stomach. She was missing most of her fingers; someone had taken a bite out of her shoulder. She whimpered, limping forward.

The rot scent grew stronger.

She didn’t. She couldn’t have.

A winalin witch limped into the light.

She was young, delicate, and frail, but her eyes were an empty, dead white. It was the twelve-year-old Ranka had seen only two nights ago, but now she was changed, her skin covered in hundreds of thumbnail-sized blisters. She panted with her mouth open, scenting the air.

A Murknen witch staggered past, clutching her bleeding arm.

The winalin witch leapt.

She was on the Murknen in a moment, sinking her teeth into her, digging her claws in for purchase. The Murknen screamed, scrabbling at her with her hands, crying, please, no, I’m on your side, but the winalin witch didn’t care, didn’t even register the words.

The winalin witch hauled the Murknen to the ground and ate her alive, and Ranka could only watch in horror as another winalin witch appeared, and another, and another.