Ellery’s expression softened as she studied him. “I’ll try.”
As Ellery cast a corporeal spell, her eyes, too, rolled back into her head. Domenic stifled a blaze of panic.
Someone lightly kicked his calf. He turned to the lone conscious student on the floor behind him—Tej Kumar, from two years ahead. His black waves hung loose and disheveled across his shattered glasses, and he had dark brown skin and a single ruby earring.
“Barrow,” Kumar croaked. “That ghast—”
“Not now,” Domenic muttered, unwilling to look away from Ellery.
“That ghast is no normal one. It blasted through the vigil chamber door looking like a… Well, you don’t want to know what it looked like. But I think—I think it’s trying to stop anyone from bonding with Ravfiri. It’s been possessing one student after the other, like it’s searching for the wielder. And after what it did to all our hands…” Kumar winced, and Domenic realized that his hands were so mottled that white bone peeked out beneath a scarlet crust of frostmaul. “Even if the wielder wakes, I don’t think they could move their fingers well enough to hold it.”
“Here. Let me help you.” Yet as Domenic crouched to healhim, his gaze wandered across the students—there had to be at least fifty. And whoever Ravfiri’s wielder was, he needed to heal them and get them to the wand as soon as possible.
Frost melted down Kumar’s palms, and the boy cursed in visceral relief. Then he heaved himself onto his elbows, half-wheezing, half-laughing, entirely out of sorts.
“Kumar, listen to me,” Domenic urged. “Do you know who that ghast has possessed already?”
“It went for Cutler first, then Ianetti, then…” Kumar paused to retch slightly. “Then Ramezani. Glover, his pinky just broke right off. Look at him—he’s still holding it. Sort of ironic, when you think about it. It’s not like gloves will ever…”
Kumar puked onto Domenic’s loafers.
“Wow. Shit. I amsosorry,” Kumar said, while Domenic quickly vanished it. “I cannot believe I just hurled on a Chosen One.”
Something thudded, and Domenic whipped around to see Demelza collapsed on the floor, her eyes closed, the light gone. Frost coalesced through the air, so fast Domenic could barely track it, until another student’s mouth began to glow. Domenic didn’t even recognize him. He looked about fifteen, and he lay on his back, his white eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
While Domenic straightened and trained Valmordion on him, Ellery stumbled, clutching her head.
“Are you all right?” he asked her sharply.
“I couldn’t expel it without hurting her. But I heard Cadaver’s true name. It’s called Maltherius. And it showed me…”
“It showed you what?”
“An alban tree. I saw Nordmere’s alban tree.”
The hairs on Domenic’s neck rose on end. But he didn’t have time to dwell on why Cadaver—whyMaltherius—would do such a thing. Already, the new student’s body convulsed, and frostmaul crept across his lips, his cheeks.
Ellery hitched her breath. “He’s not strong enough to withstand it.”
“Th-then I’ll expel it this time.” He hated the way his voice cracked.
Like a needle, Domenic breached the student’s mind—Zachary, Domenic learned his name was. Immediately, Domenic realized Ellery was right. Maltherius’s power was freezing Zachary from within as it scoured his psyche, and even Domenic’s spell was making violet blisters bloom across his pale skin.
Domenic honed in on the source of Maltherius’s hold, like a shard of ice impaled at the base of the boy’s skull.
With a wave of Valmordion, Domenic wrenched it out.
Again, the ghast’s frost darted through the air, and despite Domenic trying harder to track it, soon, another student uttered a choking noise.
Kumar.
To Kumar’s credit, he fought against Maltherius, nails scratching across the stone floor, knees and arms locked tight against the ground even as his back arched.
“Kill it,” he sputtered. Bloodied spit dribbled down his chin.“Kill it.”
Domenic hesitated. Even if Kumar could control himself to this level, attacking Maltherius from within him was a huge risk.
“He’s trying to help us,” Ellery said. “Let him.”
