Chapter 4: The Girl Who Wasn't Supposed to Speak

"I'm nobody," I said. "But your brother will die three minutes and forty seconds into that Burning, and I can tell you exactly why." The room stopped breathing. "Look at her map. The Rot isn't approaching the heart-vein. It's already in it — see the branching at the fourth rib? That's not a shadow. That's a root. The second silver ash touches his flank, the curse runs for the only place silver can't follow. His heart. It seizes. Then it stops. And it will look like nobody's fault, because...