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“What’s wrong? You hurt your arm?”

Seeing me watching her, she twisted away to hide the arm and glowered at me like a cornered animal.

“Lana,” I warned.

“It’s nothing,” she said quickly.

Jesus, even Pinocchio lied better than her.

“Listen, I got ibuprofen,” I said, “it’s a pill, medicine, you take one and it’ll knock out your fever—

“I’m not taking anypills,” she said, like the thought of human medicine was abhorrent to her. “I’m fine.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Fine? You’re not fine.”

“Well, pestering me isn’t going to make me better.” She closed her eyes and readjusted her left arm again, cringing a little. “At least let me die in peace. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Without blood to heal herself, an infection could easily take hold in her body.

Yesterday, she’d been so desperate for blood she’d even cut herself—back in Soto la Marina, I’d seen the evidence when she was only wearing a T-shirt: a long, angry-looking cut on the inside of her arm. Self-inflicted, I was sure.

I chewed on that, not liking the taste in my mouth.

Wait...

As it sank in, I felt my eyebrows scrunch together.

She cut herself.

My gaze flicked to the sleeve of her sweater, now hiding the wound. “Lana, raise your sleeve,” I said with icy calm.

She angled the arm away from me, looking terrified.

“Raise your sleeve,” I ordered.

She shook her head, her eyes pleading.

I leaned toward her and said, “I need to see. Show me your arm.”

Finally, with trembling hands, she pulled back her sleeve.

When the cut came into view, my heart sank.

In less than a day, it had grown into a festering infection, the inflamed welt spreading into the skin around it. But most terrifying of all were the red veins snaking up her forearms and into her slender biceps, pulsing underneath her skin as they carried the infection into the rest of her body. Bacteria had gotten into her bloodstream.

She had blood poisoning, and her body was going into septic shock.

If we didn’t get her antibiotics soon, she would die.

As if to confirm my diagnosis, she keeled over and just had time to grab a plastic bag before she vomited.

Lana

“Heal yourself,” heordered. Something entered his voice, something I was too fatigued to muse over.

I could taste my death on my tongue, could feel it slithering through my lifeblood. I’d used up the last of my magic trying to heal it, but the foreign spirit still slipped through me,killingme,

“I can’t, I tried. I don’t know what this is.” I actually felt hot. That was a first on this cold planet. But only moments ago I’d been freezing.