I could be fixed!


    If whatever they were doing could cure Zombies, then surely it could cure the Touched as well.


    “Wait!” Gili Stopped Narder as he moved past her. “I think the Bokor might have something we can use.” She nodded at the bag over my shoulder with the hearts in it.


    “You carry around Zombie flesh?!” Winey seemed very interested as he pushed past Fyga to get to me. “What do you use it for?”


    I was not going to get into it with a researcher. He would definitely try to experiment on them.


    “Bokor business.” I tried the usual answer.


    “Yes, yes. But for what?” There was a yearning on his face and I could tell he wasn’t going to drop it.


    “We. uh…” I tried thinking of something.


    “It’s how we get paid.” Val finished my sentence. “But we don’t like to talk about it.”


    “Oh, that’s a shame…” Winey sighed, “I hate to ask you to surrender your receipt…” He looked at Narder. “We can wait until my forgetful assistant gets back.”


    “It’s okay.” Val nodded at me, “We can afford to lose one.”


    It wasn’t like it didn’t still have heartstones in the pouch on my hip. Losing one heart was nothing, especially since I wasn’t even the one who was going to use them. Though I began to wonder if I might not be able to use the raw heartstones to charge the ones in our weapons. It was something I’d have to try out later.


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    I set the bag on the table, opened it up, and grabbed a heart. Almost the entire room gasped. I turned to Winey and saw that he was holding a pair of metal tongs. “Where do you want this?”


    “Ju-jus-just put it in that.” He pointed to the jar that the distilled crystal water was dripping into.


    I reached over the table and dropped the purple heart into the glass jar. There was a clear mist that came off of the heart as soon as it touched the liquid.


    “I’ve never used a sample this big before!” Winey backed away from the table. I realized that Fyga was hiding behind me, using me as a shield. The other people were also backing away from the table. Acting like they were ready to dive behind whatever they could if something happened.


    “Is it going to blow up?” Val had her hand on the hilt of her sword, though I doubted that smashing it would help.


    “It never blew up before!” Winey was holding a stack of papers in front of his face. “But it’s never done this before either!”


    The sizzling started to subside, then it stopped fizzing altogether. Winey slowly put down the papers and picked up the tongs.


    The heart was shriveled and brown. Not a hint of purple anywhere but on the table. I was going to have to clean it up before I left the building.


    “You see…” Winey pulled the heart out of the solution and set it on the table, “The outer flesh is no longer infected.


    I pulled out my knife and moved towards the heart. The look Val gave me told me I should probably ask permission even though no one here was going to stop me.


    “May I?” I pointed at the heart with my knife.


    “Are you going to eat it? I-I-I mean, it’s fine if that’s what you want to do.” Winey nodded but remained right over my shoulder.


    I had to squint to see better through the bindings around my eyes, but I’d done this so many times, it was muscle memory. I slipped the knife in and split the heart open.


    My heart raced with excitement as I saw what I’d been hoping to see. There was no heartstone.


    They’d found a cure for Zombification.”